After Tyre Nichols' death, Memphis Police's renowned Scorpion unit is under investigation.

 A evaluation of the city's specialist units, including Scorpion, which debuted in 2021 to address an increase in homicides, was announced by the city's police chief.

Family members and local activists hold a rally for Tyre Nichols at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 16.Mark Weber / Daily Memphian via AP

The Memphis Police Department announced the creation of a brand-new anti-violence squad with a terrifying name as the city's murder rate was skyrocketing and locals were demanding action.

Launch of MPD's New SCORPION UNIT! In November 2021, a post with a video clip of a number of cops in tactical vests at a roll call appeared on the department's Facebook page.

The Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods is what the term stands for.

It is now notorious for having killed one city citizen.

Authorities stated on Thursday that police from Scorpion were among those accountable for Tyre Nichols's beating death following a traffic check on January 7.

At a news conference on Thursday, Shelby County, Tennessee, District Attorney Steve Mulroy claimed, "The Scorpion squad was involved." Mulroy also charged five policemen with murder.

Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis has described the assault on Nichols as "heinous, reckless, and brutal," and it has raised questions about the city's dependence on specialist units to combat violent crime. Cities all around the country have adopted this "hot spot" strategy, but some proponents of police reform claim it encourages the use of force and undermines public confidence.

In response to Nichols' passing, Davis declared last week that all of the police department's specialty teams, including Scorpion, would be reviewed. On Thursday, the police department declined to make any additional comments regarding the Scorpion unit.

Authorities reported that Nichols, 29, passed away on January 10 — three days after the suspected reckless driving traffic stop in Memphis' Hickory Hill area. Following the altercation, Nichols was pepper sprayed and forced to flee from the officers before being assaulted, according to Mulroy.

Tyre Nichols.Courtesy Ben Crump Law

After 6 o'clock on Friday, according to city officials, a video of the beating will be made available to the public.

In October 2021, the police department's Organized Crime Unit established Memphis' Scorpion unit. The force, made up of 40 cops split into four 10-person teams, was entrusted with not only dealing with violent crime but also looking into car thefts and gangs. Depending on where crime was worst, the officers were given different "crime suppression" missions.

For the second consecutive year, Memphis set a record for homicides in 2021. In 2021, the police department reported 346, an increase from 332 the year before.

In his State of the City address from January 2022, Mayor Jim Strickland emphasized the new Scorpion unit as a component of the answer. He promoted it as a component of a strategy to combat crime that also included a program to intervene in gun violence and greater funding for the police force. Scorpion made hundreds of arrests and seized hundreds of vehicles and weapons in its first three months, according to Strickland.

Scorpion-led operations—arrests that start with traffic stops, progress into more serious altercations, and culminate with people being arrested for drugs and weapons—are publicized on the police department's Facebook page as examples of its work. The unit also arrested a suspected carjacker and busted an alleged stolen car chop shop after tracking a stolen automobile, searching a crime scene, and finding drugs and weapons.

Former Memphis police sergeant Mark LeSure, who resigned in 2021, claimed he noticed a lot of relatively inexperienced cops being assigned to specialized units as the police department started to lose a lot of officers in recent years. He added that he found it worrying that such units lacked sufficient senior staff members to teach the incoming officers.

He said that rookies were being placed on specialist units when they had no business there.

The Scorpion team, which was established after LeSure retired, is renowned for having a "zero tolerance" approach on crime, according to LeSure's former coworkers who are still employed by the police. He explained that this policy means that the cops "do what they can to arrest criminals."

The cops accused of killing Nichols were hired between 2017 and 2020. They range in age from 24 to 32.

Five Memphis police officers were fired and charged in connection with a traffic stop that led to the death of Tyre Nichols. Clockwise from top left: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Desmond Mills Jr.Memphis Police Department via AP

The police department's director from 1976 to 1983, E. Winslow "Buddy" Chapman, expressed surprise over the placement of young, inexperienced policemen on a team like Scorpion. Officers were not given consideration for specialized units when he was the force's leader unless they had worked there for at least seven years.

Chapman, the executive director of CrimeStoppers of Memphis and Shelby County, which pays cash for information leading to the arrest of criminals, stated: "You're using officers to convey a message that we're here and we're not going to accept illegal conduct anymore." "In that setting, it may very easily go too far, as it clearly did in this instance."

Scorpion was a "rebranding" of a typical police approach, according to Chelsea Glass, an activist with Decarcerate Memphis, which promotes criminal justice system reform: a street crime-fighting unit that used low-level traffic stops as justifications to uncover violent offenders and firearms.

Glass remarked, "They harass regular citizens and call this high-level policing." But essentially, it's just a mobile stop-and-frisk operation. No matter what label you give it, it still exists.

Scorpion was similar to other specialized police teams, such as the county-run Multi-Agency Gang Unit, according to Keedran Franklin, a Memphis community organizer, in that the cops appeared to incite fear and mistrust by confronting people.

Franklin stated, "They actually look the part, like they're a part of the neighborhood, but they're police. They travel in unmarked cars, appearing like regular people, bouncing to rap music, they got on hoodies. "Then someone might make a mistake, smoke some marijuana, forget to fasten their seatbelt, or notice that their headlight is out, and they leap out to stop them and want to break into their car."

People didn't notice "SCORPION" on the backs of the policemen' jackets until after they exited their vehicles.

Franklin continued, "They're their own little internal gang. How do regular people fare when they let them loose on the streets?