MEMPHIS — The Memphis Fire Department said on Monday it had dismissed two emergency medical technicians and a lieutenant who responded to the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols, after investigators found that a patient assessment was not conducted in a timely manner at the scene.
The three fire department employees “violated numerous (fire department) policies and protocols,” the agency said in a statement issued by Fire Chief Gina Sweat.
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The terminations came as the Memphis Police Department disclosed that a total of seven of its officers were relieved of duty for their roles in the confrontation that led to the Jan. 10 death of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man. That tally included five officers who previously were dismissed from the force and were charged last week with murder.
A sixth officer – identified as Preston Hemphill – was suspended with pay pending a hearing, and a seventh officer who was not immediately identified was relieved of duty without pay, the police department said. No criminal charges have been filed against Hemphill, 26, who joined the force in 2018, or against the seventh, unnamed officer.
A police department spokesperson declined to comment on why suspensions were not announced earlier.
Police Chief Cerelyn Davis has previously said that an unspecified number of officers besides the five initially implicated remained under investigation for policy infractions stemming from the arrest of Nichols during a Jan. 7 traffic stop.
The five officers dismissed on Jan. 20 – all of them Black – were charged Thursday with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression in the fatal beating of Nichols.
Hemphill, who is white, wore the body-camera that captured the first of four videos released by authorities on Friday of the traffic stop and violent confrontation that followed, according to the officer’s attorney, Lee Gerald.
Nichols arrived at a hospital in critical condition after he was repeatedly pummeled with punches, kicks and blows from a baton, and he died three days later.
EMTs Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment” upon seeing the injured Nichols a few minutes after police stopped beating him. Instead, after an initial “interaction” with Nichols the EMTs called for an ambulance, which arrived on the scene about 23 minutes after the EMTs had first been dispatched, Sweat said in her statement.
She said the ambulance unit “initiated patient care” upon its arrival and transported Nichols to a hospital a short time later.
Fire Department Lieutenant Michelle Whitaker, who drove Long and Sandridge to the scene, remained in her vehicle after the three arrived, the statement said. (Reporting by Alyssa Pointer in Memphis, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Tyler Clifford and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Rosalba O’Brien)
