In another incident, MPD tried to stop a car for driving with expired tags and failing to stop at a stop sign. Officers followed the woman home and forced their way into her home with her young child – an excessive and illegal police response for a nonviolent traffic violation.

Altogether, nine squad cars and 12 officers responded to the attempted theft of a cheap gas station beverage. The man was arrested and served two days in jail for theft and disorderly conduct. It is unclear – and unlikely – whether any officers received disciplinary action for this incident.

“No, don’t kill me,” the man yelled as he tried to run away. Officers put the man in a chokehold and repeatedly tased him while screamed in pain facedown on the pavement.

As an officer arrived, the man left the drink in the gas station and walked away. The officer followed him, yelling while other patrol officers arrived. Then, as the man put his hands in the air, officers shoved him against a squad car, hitting him and pinning him to the ground by his neck.

In an instance of MPD using excessive force, the department was called to a gas station during the attempted theft of a $2 drink. The perpetrator was an unarmed man with a mental illness.

Young also cited the long-term and costly nature of consent decrees in other cities across the U.S.

Young promised to host town hall meetings to receive community feedback on the report, while Davis boasted of 700+ policy changes completed over the past three years to improve policing in Memphis.

“Such a proposal is not the right solution for Memphis,” Memphis’ Chief Legal Officer Tannera George Gibson said in a letter to the DOJ.

The City of Memphis announced today it will not enter into a consent decree with federal authorities to work toward resolving MPD’s pattern of illegal, abusive and discriminatory policing practices.

The conditions of today are upheld through departmental practices of not following its own policies, inadequate training, misleading police reports and questionable judgement calls by supervisors.

Most notably, the report’s findings conclude MPD engages in:

1️⃣ A routine practice of using excessive force
2️⃣ Illegal stops, searches and arrests
3️⃣ Illegal discrimination against Black people
4️⃣ Illegal discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities

While the police beating death of Tyre Nichols in 2023 spurred the DOJ into action to conduct this investigation over the past 17 months, the report reveals MPD’s abuse of power stems back decades.