Officer accused in deadly beating of Tyre Nichols allegedly assaulted jail inmate, 2016 lawsuit says

Certainly one of 5 former Memphis, Tennessee, cops accused of fatally beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols throughout a visitors cease this month was accused in 2016 of collaborating in a jail assault that left an inmate unconscious, in response to a federal civil rights grievance.

The grievance, filed in April 2016 in U.S. District Court docket in Tennessee, stated the officer, Demetrius Haley, was one among three corrections officers alleged to have assaulted Cordarlrius Sledge whereas he was behind bars in Shelby County, in response to the go well with.

The go well with, which Sledge filed with no lawyer, was dismissed in 2018 after a decide discovered he didn’t correctly serve one of many defendants with a summons.

Choose Thomas Anderson didn’t deal with Sledge’s allegations within the March 2, 2018, order.

In keeping with the grievance, Sledge stated that on Could 16, 2015, the officers searched his cellblock on the Shelby County Division of Corrections, which homes inmates serving misdemeanor sentences and felony jail phrases of as much as 12 years.

The officers accused him of flushing “contraband” after they noticed smoke within the space the place he was, in response to the go well with.

Sledge accused Haley and one other officer of punching him within the face, in response to the go well with. A 3rd officer picked Sledge up and slammed him face first into the sink and onto the ground, the go well with alleges.

“After that I blacked out,” Sledge stated within the go well with, including that he awoke within the jail’s medical unit.

Sledge stated he wished the officers to be “held for his or her actions,” the go well with says.

Reached by telephone Tuesday, Sledge declined to remark.

Haley didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday. Efforts to succeed in the 2 different officers have been unsuccessful. A lawyer who represented Haley and one of many different officers didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday; neither did a spokeswoman for the Memphis mayor’s workplace.

The Shelby County Division of Corrections didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday night time.

In a courtroom submitting from June 2017, Haley and a second officer acknowledged looking Sledge after he allegedly flushed contraband, however they denied beating him. In a separate submitting later that yr, they argued the go well with ought to have been dismissed as a result of Sledge didn’t correctly observe the jail grievance course of system.

The decide dismissed Sledge’s grievance after he failed to offer an accurate deal with for a defendant who couldn’t be positioned.

Within the case of Nichols, who died three days after a Jan. 7 visitors cease, Haley and 4 different officers have been fired after an administrative overview accused them of violating a number of insurance policies, together with use of extreme drive, through the cease.

Preliminary findings from an post-mortem launched Tuesday by attorneys for Nichols’ household present he suffered “in depth bleeding attributable to a extreme beating” earlier than his demise. The Shelby County health worker’s workplace has not launched an official reason behind demise. Nichols’ household employed a forensic pathologist to overview his case.

After having reviewed physique digital camera video of the visitors cease, the household’s attorneys in contrast the beating to the one Rodney King suffered in Los Angeles in 1991.