Source: Lucy Garrett / Getty
Before Demetrius Haley was a Memphis cop who fatally attacked Tyre Nichols and took pictures to brag via text, he almost did the very same to a jail inmate.
The AP reports that Haley has a track record of bloodthirsty brutality, with allegations far back as the 2015 attack of Cordarlrius Sledge. At the time, Haley was a corrections officer at Shelby County jail. He and 2 other officers presumably assaulted Sledge so viciously that the whole cellblock signed a letter grumbling to the corrections director.
“We are really asking that this matter gets checked out prior to somebody gets harmed truly bad or lose their life due to the fact that of some less than professional officers,” stated the letter backed by 34 prisoners.
The message sounds more like a desperate plea in the face of widespread abuse and misbehavior than an uncommon problem. The incarcerated asked how they can feel “safe and safe when the team member at the Shelby County Correctional Center are attacking and threatening us?” They begged management to “Please stopped this insanity.”
“I Just Hope Those Officers Get What They Deserve”
The Shelby County occurrence sounds hauntingly comparable to the mob violence that triggered Nichols’ damaged neck and extreme internal bleeding. In 2016, Sledge taken legal action against Haley and the other guards associated with the attack. The federal suit accused Haley and another of punching Sledge while another knocked his head into the ground.
“When they was available in to do among their little random pop-in searches, they called me and 2 other people to the shower location to be strip-searched. They asked for me to be browsed initially,” Sledge described to NBC News.
Similar to Nichols, the officers utilized a small offense to validate extreme force versus an unarmed male. In Sledge’s case, they captured him with contraband. He was trying to conceal a cellular phone prior to he stated they beat him.
That’s when they began punching on me. They chose me up and knocked my head into the sink, and I blacked out,” Sledge continued.
After officers took Sledge to the infirmary, he observed significant bleeding from his ear and later on experienced hearing loss. Without a legal representative to help Sledge, a judge dismissed the federal suit due to the fact that of procedural technicalities.
It’s uncertain if the prisoners’ letter or Sledge’s problems led to any effects for Haley. He continued to work as a corrections officer up until the Memphis Police Department Hired him in 2020.
“I simply hope that those officers get what they are worthy of and set an example for the rest of officers,” Sladge stated when notified Haley was among the jagged polices accountable for Nichols’ death.
Excessive Force Is The Rule, Not The Exception
In 2021, Kadejah Townes accused Haley of excessive force that dislocated her shoulder. When he and other Memphis polices reacted to a report of shots fired, they just saw 2 ladies talking and chuckling in a vehicle.
Haley presumably didn’t even understand why the other officers wished to stop and detain both ladies for chuckling while Black. That apparently didn’t stop him nevertheless from assisting another cop battle Townes into handcuffs and apparently hurt her shoulder.
Charged with second-degree murder, Haley is yet another example that policing in America is beyond reform. Without a criminal charge or effective suit, harmful cowards like him can quickly remain utilized or get hired by another police department. The type of wickedness it requires to share the modern-day equivalent of a lynching postcard runs deep.