Former Memphis cop accused of assaulting inmate: suit

One of the five former Memphis police officers accused of murdering Tyre Nichols allegedly beat up an inmate nearly eight years ago,  part of a troubling series of events and behavior tied to the cops — and even their boss.

“That could have been me,” ex-inmate Cordarlrius Sledge told The Post on Saturday. “I could be dead.”

Sledge, 34. alleged in a 2016 lawsuit that ex-Memphis cop Demetrius Haley, 30, who then worked as a correction officer, took part in the May 16, 2015 beatdown inside the Shelby County Division of Corrections.

Sledge’s allegations emerged as horrifying video released Friday showed the relentless brutality endured by  Nichols, 29, who was pulled over in a Jan. 7 traffic stop near his mother’s home in Memphis. He died three days later.

Sledge, 34, claimed in a 2016 lawsuit that one of the five ex-Memphis cops, Demetrius Haley, 30, then a correction officer, gave him a beating inside the Shelby County Division of Corrections on May 16, 2015.

Haley and another officer punched him in the face during a search for a cellphone, according to court papers. He accused a third guard of slamming him face-first into a sink.

“I had some contraband on me and I was trying to flush it down the toilet but they didn’t follow protocol. Haley was the most vicious,” he said.

Sledge said he got an apology from the prison warden but nothing from Haley, who joined the Memphis police department in August 2020.

“He got a promotion, from corrections officer to police officer,” Sledge said. “I didn’t believe my damn eyes.”

Haley denied in court papers that he assaulted Sledge. The lawsuit was dismissed after Sledge failed to provide the court with requested information.

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No one answered the door at Haley’s home outside of Memphis Saturday.

A neighbor, Michael Cassie, 74, who works as a minister at Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, Tenn., was stunned that a person — let alone an officer — could do what he saw on TV.

“I’m shocked. I’m totally shocked,” said Cassie, who is originally from the Bronx. “I  don’t understand what would cause a man to do something like that.”

Other Memphis residents said the violence they saw by the cops was not surprising.

“It’s definitely a pattern,” said Amber Sherman, 28,

In 2015, an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by a white Memphis cop. An investigation found he was running away from police, not advancing as an officer claimed, when a second shot was fired.

“It’s a culture from the top down,” said Memphis resident Keedran Franklin, 36.“I didn’t watch the video. I can’t subject myself to that.”

Haley and the four other officers – Tadarrius Bean, 24; Emmitt Martin III, 30; Desmond Mills Jr., 32; and Justin Smith, 28 – were fired Jan. 20. They were arrested Thursday and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Nichols, among other charges.

Bean was president of the Omega Psi Phi’s Eta Zeta fraternity at the University of Mississippi, an organization with a scandal-scarred past among some of its chapters.

In 2019, Omega’s chapter at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., was suspended over a slew of disturbing incidents involving pledges, or people looking to join the group, including at least one hospitalization, The Virginian-Pilot reported.

Read more of The Post’s coverage of Tyre Nichols’ beating death

Potential newcomers were beaten, and some were forced to chug hot sauce or pour it down their pants to simulate a sexually transmitted disease.

In 2018, a 45-year-old man looking to join an Omega Psi Phi chapter in Brooklyn had his buttocks and testicles paddled between 150 to 200 times as part of a twisted “welcoming ritual,” resulting in two of the fraternity’s members being charged with assault and hazing.

Meanwhile, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, who compared the Nichols killing to the Rodney King beating, was fired from a previous law enforcement job after a botched probe.

Davis became the first female police chief in Memphis’ history in 2021. She was axed from the Atlanta police department in 2008 for her alleged involvement in a sex crimes investigation into the husband of an Atlanta police sergeant, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Two detectives accused Davis of telling them not to investigate Terrill Marion Crane, who was married to sergeant Tonya Crane after the police department obtained photos of him with underage girls.

A federal grand jury later indicted Terrill Crane on child pornography. He pleaded guilty to one count of child pornography in 2009, the newspaper reported.

In other developments:

• Blake Ballin, a lawyer for Mills Jr., was making excuses for him Saturday claiming the sickening video “produced as many questions as they have answers,” and hinting that his client may have been unable to “see” because of an errant pepper-spray by one of the other cops.

• Some of the questions that remain will require a focus on Desmond Mills’s individual actions; on what Desmond knew and what he was able to see when he arrived late to the scene; on what Desmond knew and what he was able to see after he was pepper sprayed; and on whether Desmond’s actions crossed the lines that were crossed by other officers during this incident,” he said contending Mills did not cross the line.

• A Gofundme drive started by Nichols’ mother had raised nearly $750,000 by late Saturday afternoon.
• The Memphis Fire Department, which previously suspended two of its EMTS involved in the case, said it did not receive full access to the video footage until Friday and would be reviewing it.
• The Memphis police department announced Saturday it was disbanding its street crimes “SCORPION” unit, where some of the accused officers worked.
• The University of Memphis announced that all of its campuses would remain closed indefinitely following the events surrounding Nichols’ death, Fox 13 reported.
• Tennessee Democratic state legislators announced plans to introduce bills in the upcoming legislative session focused on police training reform and mental health evaluations for officers.
• Protests took place throughout the country Saturday including a group of some 100 bicyclists who rode through Manhattan. There were also demonstrations in Charlotte and Atlanta. Nichols’ stepfather continued the family’s appeal for calm saying “violence will not bring our son back.”
• President Biden bonded with Nichols’ parents over tender memories of their son in a phone call Friday, like how Nichols — a father of a 4-year-old boy–  got his mother’s name tattooed on his arm. Together with their lawyer Benjamin Crump, they also pushed Biden to renew federal efforts for police reforms.
• ­Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 on Staten Island after being put in an illegal chokehold by an NYPD officer while being arrested for selling loose cigarettes, “It was so disgraceful. I couldn’t even watch most of the video because it reminded me of what they did to my son. The EMTs did nothing. It was awful. They took advantage of an innocent young man and they [the police] hid behind their uniforms.”
• Jamal Dupree, brother of Nichols, told FOX 40 News that he hoped the five cops charged with his brother’s murder “all die,” adding that the arrest of the officers “doesn’t really mean nothing at this time until they’re actually found guilty for the actual charges.”

Additional reporting by Isabel Vincent