Tyre Nichols died of blunt force injuries to the head, the state’s official autopsy report finds. It was released publicly Thursday.
Nichols died in the hospital three days after Memphis Police officers were captured on body and surveillance cameras forcefully and repeatedly kicking and punching him as they took him into custody. Several of their strikes appeared to be inflicted directly at Nichols' head.
At least one officer also hit him multiple times with a baton. Officers initially pulled Nichols over for alleged reckless driving on the night of Jan. 7.
A Shelby County medical examiner with the West Tennessee Regional Forensic Center classified the 29-year-old’s death as a homicide and reported that in addition to brain bleeding, Nichols suffered “multiple blunt force injuries of the neck and torso and extremities.”
He also experienced liver failure and his kidneys stopped working properly.
Five now former Memphis Police officers have been fired and charged with second degree murder, among other felonies, for their role in Nichols’ beating. They have all pleaded not-guilty.
Legal representation for Nichols’ family put out a statement on Thursday in response to the release of the autopsy, saying they were "stunned" to see the description of injuries Nichols sustained put into words.
“The utter brutality of the deadly beating that Tyre suffered is once again highlighted in these official autopsy results – no part of this young man was spared as he was tortured to death by these officers,” attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said.
In the autopsy's brief summary, the medical examiner notes that before arriving at the hospital by ambulance, Nichols had become unresponsive and received CPR.
The medical response to the incident in the field has comeunder heavy scrutiny. Video footage from a pole surveillance camera that the City of Memphis released in late January appears to show Nichols eventually receiving some sort of medical care at the scene, but theMemphis Fire Department fired two responding EMTsfor not initially conducting an adequate patient assessment.
A MFD supervising lieutenant, who the department said did not get out of the fire truck in violation of policies and procedures, was also dismissed. The MFD employees haveappealed their terminations.
A blood sample taken from Nichol’s at the hospital detected both alcohol and THC, a compound in marijuana, in his blood stream. According to a doctor quoted by the Associated Press, who reviewed the autopsy’s toxicology report, both levels of the substances were in “low” amounts.
Nichol’s blood alcohol level was .049, below the legal limit of 0.08.
Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a medical toxicologist with Johns Hopkins Medicine, explained to the Associated Press that Nichols level was one "that a lot of people would have after drinking socially, people capable of driving home legally.”
Officers are shown on body cameras after they have arrested Nichols insinuating he was under the influence of a substance.
For some, one of the first glimpses they saw of Nicholswas in January of him in the hospital. In order to spur the release of police body camera footage following Nichols' death, his stepfather, Rodney Wells, attended demonstrations and shared an image he took of his unconscious son.
In stark contrast to characteristic snapshots of the young man known for an easy grin, in Wells' photo, Nichols is hooked to a ventilator with a swollen and bruised face.
His family described him as unrecognizable.
