Memphis Man Files $5 Million Lawsuit Against City and Five Former Officers Charged in Fatal Arrest of Tyre Nichols

A Memphis man has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the city and five former officers charged in the fatal arrest of Tyre Nichols. Monterrious Harris, 22, alleges that he was unlawfully roughed up and arrested by the same officers only three days before Nichols was brutally beaten.

According to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Harris claims he was punched, kicked, and slammed onto a concrete walkway on Jan. 4. Photos of Harris taken nine days after his arrest show visible injuries to his face. The lawsuit also alleges that one of the officers involved in the fatal beating of Nichols, took photos of him after he was pepper-sprayed, kicked, and hit by police, and texted at least one image to at least five people.

The documents released Tuesday as part of a Memphis Police Department request to decertify the five officers charged in the assault on Nichols, revealed that the same officer who physically forced Nichols out of his vehicle during the initial traffic stop, also deployed his chemical irritant spray “directly close up to the [Nichols’] face.”

The lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages for Harris’ physical and emotional injuries, and for the violation of his civil rights. The five officers charged in the assault on Nichols have all been fired from the Memphis Police Department. The department has also disbanded the Scorpion Unit, which the officers were a part of.