Cops ‘withheld’ information from EMTs fired for Tyre Nichols response: union

The cops who called for medical assistance after brutally beating Tyre Nichols “withheld” information from responding EMTs, the head of the union representing most of the Memphis fire department said.

In a letter to city councilmembers, President of the Memphis Fire Fighters Association Thomas Malone said the three fired EMTs weren’t given the information they needed to adequately respond to the call for medical help.

The employees were fired for failing to “conduct an adequate patient assessment” of Nichols on Jan. 7 after five Memphis police officers severely beat him for three minutes during a traffic stop. The 29-year-old father and FedEx driver died three days later and the five cops have been charged with his murder.

Malone wrote that “there is no way any member could be truly prepared for a situation that occurred on January 7, 2023″ in the letter to the lawmakers.

“Our members were not given adequate information upon dispatch or upon arrival of the scene,” Malone wrote. “Quite frankly, there was information withheld by those already on the scene which caused our members to handle things differently than they should have.”

Medics Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge and Lt. Michelle Whitaker were all fired following a department investigation into their response after Nichol’s death. Long and Sandridge also had their professional licenses suspended by a state medical board, which watched 19 minutes of surveillance footage reportedly showing the EMTs’ lack of intervention.

One of the board members said it was “obvious to even a lay person” that Nichols “was in terrible distress and needed help.”

“They failed to provide that help,” the board member Sullivan Smith said. “They were his best shot, and they failed to help.”

Memphis Fire Chief Gina Sweat has said the department got a call from police for a man who had been pepper-sprayed. 

But when the medical responders arrived at 8:41 p.m., Nichols was slumped against a squad car in handcuffs, she said in a statement.

Long and Sandridge “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols,” based on the information they had received from police, while Whitaker remained in the department vehicle, the statement said.

They called an ambulance, which arrived at 8:55 p.m. and left with Nichols inside at 9:08 p.m. — 27 minutes after the three employees arrived on the scene, officials said.

“They were reacting to what they saw, what they were told at the scene,” Sweat recently told city council members. “Obviously, they did not perform at the level that we expect, or that the citizens of Memphis deserve.”

In total, 13 police officers have faced punitive actions or are under investigation for the involvement in Nichols’ beating death. Six were fired — including the five accused of the actual fatal beating who are now facing murder charges. Two Shelby County sheriff’s deputies were also suspended.