Ex-Officer Sent Photo of Bloodied Tyre Nichols to His Ex-Girlfriend

Demetrius Haley, a former Memphis police officer charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols sent his ex-girlfriend a photo of the badly injured man, according to trial testimony Wednesday. Memphis officer Brittany Leake, Haley's former girlfriend, testified during the criminal trial that she was on the phone with Haley when officers pulled Nichols over for a traffic stop, The Associated Press reports. Leake said she heard a “commotion,” including verbal orders for someone to give officers his hands. The call ended, but Haley later texted the photo in a group chat that included Haley, Leake and her godsister, she testified. Prosecutors displayed the photo for the jury. It showed Nichols with his eyes closed, on the ground with what appeared to be blood near his mouth and his hands behind his back. Leake said that when she saw the photo, her reaction was: “Oh my God, he definitely needs to go to the Med.” The Med is shorthand for Memphis’ trauma hospital.

Former officers Haley, Tadarrius Bean, and Justin Smith are on trial after pleading not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering. The Memphis Police Department fired the three men, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., after Nichols’ death. The officers were later indicted on the federal charges. Martin and Mills have taken plea deals. During her testimony, Leake said she deleted the photo after she saw it and that sending such a photo is against police policy. “I wasn’t offended, but it was difficult to look at,” she said. Leake said Haley had sent her photos before of drugs, and of a person who had been injured in a car accident. Nichols, who was Black, was pepper sprayed and hit with a stun gun during the traffic stop, then ran away, police video shows. The five officers, who also are Black, followed him and beat him about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating.