Brutal “Elite” Police Units Under Well-Deserved Scrutiny
Twenty-nine-year-old Tyre Nichols was someone you'd want to be friends with.
He was the father of a young son. He worked the night shift at FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee, but devoted much of the rest of his time to his passions. He loved photography, and signed his online postings of his creative work with, “Your Friend, - Tyre D. Nichols.” He'd also loved skateboarding since childhood. He was close with his mother—he even got her name tattooed on his arm. A few mornings a week, Tyre would meet with a small group of friends at Starbucks. They'd put away their phones so they could fully enjoy each other's company and talk about sports.
On January 10, 2023, Nichols died of cardiac arrest and kidney failure three days after suffering a brutal beating at the hands of five police officers during a traffic stop.
Members of an "elite" unit of the Memphis Police Department are shown on video footage kicking, pummeling, and beating Nichols to a bloody pulp. As the footage shows officers continuing to beat and bloody his body, Nichols can be heard crying out for his mother.
Cogs in the wheels of injustice
Five officers involved in the beating—all of whom joined the department since 2017—have lost their jobs. They’re also being charged with second-degree murder.
These officers belonged to the Memphis PD’s specialized unit called the SCORPIONs (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods). The unit was disbanded in the wake of the outcry when video footage of the beating was made public after Nichols’ death.
Memphis police officials had at first stated their support for the SCORPION unit. But after the harrowing footage came out, the chief of the Memphis PD described the officers’ actions as showing a “disregard for basic human rights.” This behavior was, the chief said, a direct violation of their professional oath.
“Hot spot” policing and “pretext stops”
Created in 2021, the SCORPION unit’s purpose was ostensibly to combat crime in local “hot spots:” high-crime areas more statistically prone to murders, severe assaults, carjackings, and robberies. In case you’ve lost the thread of the national conversation, this essentially translates to over-policing of Black and brown communities.
According to local and national news sources, the 40-officer SCORPION unit wore plainclothes and used unmarked cars at traffic stops. Part of their job also involved seizure of illegal weapons. The team recorded 566 arrests—more than half of them felonies—and seized more than 250 weapons from its inception until the killing of Nichols. This unit also addressed crimes involving motor vehicles.
The New York Times has noted that elite units like the SCORPIONs have drawn criticism across the country for their tendency to use “pretext stops” against people of color. A pretext stop involves stopping a driver for whatever minor violation might be observable—an expired tag, a broken taillight—and then attempting to discover a more serious crime.
After much controversy and over objections from the local police union, San Francisco recently banned pretext stops for nine minor violations. Supporters of the ban pointed to their disproportionate effects on Black and brown communities, as well as to their inability to deter actual serious crime.
As Memphis deactivated its SCORPION unit, Mayor Jim Strickland made a statement pledging the city would do everything possible to prevent the type of incident that led to Nichols’ death from happening again. He said the police department’s specialized units would undergo a thorough, independent review by an outside organization.
Generations of police brutality
But elite units like the SCORPIONs continue to operate in cities across the United States, in many cases while plagued by reports of abuses against the public.
Decades ago, Detroit tried to solve its crime problem by creating the STRESS (“Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets”) unit. A 2018 documentary film showed what happened. STRESS was accused of illegal conduct and was disbanded by the city’s first Black mayor, Coleman Young. Young had been trying to bring more women and African Americans onto the force, which at the time was overwhelmingly male and white.
In 1999, the New York Police Department’s plainclothes street crime unit notoriously killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed student, when they shot at him more than 40 times. Although those officers weren’t convicted, their unit was disbanded three years later amidst revelations of extensive racial profiling.
The CRASH unit in Los Angeles in the early 2000s came under similar scrutiny for its brutality.
Today’s elite units across the country typically aren’t doing any better. Memphis residents who have had encounters with SCORPION forces have shared stories of dangerously over-aggressive behavior.
The man who could have died
In January 2023, a 22-year-old man named Monterrious Harris filed a $5 million federal lawsuit against the city of Memphis and the same officers who beat Tyre Nichols only days afterward.
Harris says the officers also brutally beat him without justification, violating his civil rights. He has shared photos of himself with notable facial injuries nine days after he says he was beaten.
While parked at a relative’s apartment complex, Harris says he was “swarmed” by the SCORPION unit members. They wore black ski masks and threatened him with death if he refused to get out of his car. Harris naturally believed he was the victim of a robbery, since the officers didn’t identify themselves, so he put his car into reverse.
After hitting an object, he exited the vehicle with his hands up, and the officers proceeded to kick and punch him and drag him across the concrete area. A medical professional at the jail the officers took him to demanded they take him instead to the hospital. Harris believes he could have died like Nichols did, but in his case, there were bystanders present.
Harris’ suit says that, far from his beating being the work of a few “bad apples,” the assault he suffered reflects a systemic policy on the part of city and police administration. In the words of his legal team, the SCORPIONs were “violent aggressors” in the employ of the police force, specifically developed and trained to “terrorize” the local Black community.
We need something different
Typically, police departments build these elite squads to address public concern about some aspect of “out-of-control” crime, and the units often operate under vague instructions.
While some scholars have found that “hot spot” policing that actually works with the needs of the community can be effective, the over-aggressive approach used by the SCORPION unit only causes loss of credibility and fuels resentment.
Experts cite several cities—including Houston, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona—that have trained their “hot spot” teams in more respectful behavior toward the public they serve.
In this “procedural justice” approach, officers learn to clearly explain what they are doing and why, practice active listening, and demonstrate fairness during stops and arrests.
The results are promising: significantly lower crime rates and fewer arrests. These outcomes suggest that the procedural justice approach should at least be considered by every police department—but it isn’t, likely due to money. The intensive training involved typically takes up most of a week and runs up bills local jurisdictions might not see value in paying.
But something’s going to have to give, or more Black and brown Americans are going to keep giving up their lives for nothing.