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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Four of five former Memphis police officers charged in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who was handcuffed, brutally beaten and ignored by first responders for crucial minutes despite being barely conscious, can no longer work as law enforcement in Tennessee.

The Peace Officer Standards & Training Commission, or P.O.S.T., voted Friday to decertify Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin and Justin Smith. The state panel also approved the decision by Desmond Mills to surrender his certification.

The former officers have 30 days to appeal.

The beating of the 29-year-old Black man happened during a late-night traffic stop Jan. 7. The commission subsequently released documents showing that Haley dragged Nichols from his vehicle and never explained why he was stopped, and that he also took photos of Nichols slumped against the car after he was pummeled by officers and sent the pictures to colleagues.

Nichols died at a hospital Jan. 10.

Early police accounts minimized the violence of the traffic stop — accounts since disproven by witness statements and police and surveillance video — and their specialized unit was disbanded. Two Memphis Fire Department emergency medical workers and a lieutenant were also fired.

The five former police officers charged with second-degree murder have all pleaded not guilty.

The Memphis Police Department requested the decertification of seven of the former Memphis officers involved, including one who retired before he could be fired.

None of the fired officers or their attorneys attended their hearings before the commission on Thursday or its vote on Friday.

Mills’ attorney said his client had been wrongly indicted and was “focusing on his freedom.”

“It’s a waste of time,” attorney Blake Ballin said of the decertification attempt. “It is meaningless to him at this stage in his life.”

An attorney for Haley declined to comment on the decertification vote. Attorneys for Martin and Smith did not immediately respond to phone messages seeking comment.

In a letter included in the file seeking his decertification, Smith defended his conduct, stating that Nichols was “violent and would not comply.”

The fifth former officer charged, Tadarrius Bean, has not yet had his decertification hearing before the commission. Neither have two former officers who were not charged: Preston Hemphill, who was terminated after firing a stun gun at Nichols during the traffic stop; and Dewayne Smith, the supervising lieutenant who arrived on scene after the beating, who retired instead of being fired.

A seventh police employee who was fired has not been publicly named.

During Nichols’ funeral, Vice President Kamala Harris urged lawmakers to approve the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a broad package of reforms that includes a national registry for police officers disciplined for misconduct, a ban on no-knock warrants and other measures.

Associated Press reporter Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

For more on the killing of Tyre Nichols: https://apnews.com/hub/tyre-nichols

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Former President Donald Trump has ramped up the rhetoric and the threats as potential criminal charges loom in New York, Georgia, and Washington.

Trump took to his Truth Social platform and posted a photo of him swinging a bat to the head of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

He also threatened that his anticipated arrest would lead to “death and destruction.”
“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA!” Trump wrote.

Then in all capital letters, Trump continued his tirade:

“EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT, INCLUDING BRAGG, BUT HE DOESN’T CARE. HE IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”

A week before, Trump predicted that authorities from New York would arrest him, however, that never happened.

Bragg’s office said Trump simply misled the public about an imminent arrest.

“We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law,” Bragg said through a spokesperson.

Bragg, 49, maintained that no one is above the law, and everyone receives equal treatment.

“In every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth,” his statement continued. “Our skilled, honest, and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work.”

Trump’s social media attack on Bragg could reveal the frustrations and even the concern he might possess over all of the legal problems he currently faces.

Bragg’s case, in which the former President allegedly paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and committed campaign finance crimes, is just the tip of the iceberg for the bombastic Trump.

Most legal experts believe Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis might have a more serious case.

A special grand jury disbanded in January after reportedly recommending charges that include obstruction, bribery, and interfering with a presidential election.

Additionally, a Special Counsel’s investigation into Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Florida home has amped up with a federal judge ordering the former President’s lawyer to testify.

Finally, the Congressional committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection has recommended serious charges against Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice. Those charges could include treason.

“It would be a travesty of justice,” Mississippi Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson said if Trump isn’t prosecuted by federal authorities for his role in the insurrection.

“Nobody is above the law, not even the President of the United States,” said Thompson, who chaired the commission. “What we saw after interviewing more than 1,000 people – the majority of who identify with the Republican Party – we are convinced that whatever happened, happened because of one person. So, we are clear in our recommendation.”

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Grammy-nominated singer Halle Bailey, who will play the lead role of Ariel in the upcoming live-action remake of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” left two aspiring teen filmmakers speechless when she surprised them Friday during Disney Dreamers Academy at Walt Disney World Resort with a personal invitation to join her on the red carpet at the movie’s world premiere in Hollywood.

Dylan Jones of Atlanta and Madison Henderson of Los Angeles were in the middle of a movie production training session Friday morning during Disney Dreamers Academy when Bailey, the program’s celebrity ambassador, made a surprise appearance and delivered the personal invitation to come to Hollywood. For the students it was a truly magical dream come true moment.

RELATED: Halle Bailey to serve as celebrity ambassador at 16th Disney Dreamers Academy

The movie’s world premiere takes place just before the film officially hits theaters nationwide on May 26.

This is the 16th year of Disney Dreamers Academy, a four-day mentoring program designed to broaden career awareness and create opportunities for 100 Black high school students and teens from underrepresented communities across America each year.

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This article was originally published on Mar 23 8:45pm EDT by THE CITY

This guide was updated in March 2023 and was first published in January 2021. If you have questions about voting or city elections, ask us at ask@thecity.nyc with the subject line “Election” or text “Election” to (718)-215-9011.

For the last two election cycles, New York City voters have used ranked choice voting, which was approved by 73% of voters in 2019 to vote in local primaries.

Voters will use ranked choice voting (RCV) once again in the June 27, 2023 primary for most of the offices on their ballots, with one important exception: RCV is used only for municipal elections like City Council, but not in district attorney races, which are technically state offices. This year, DAs are on the ballot in The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island.

Like the 2021 mayoral primary, there are likely to be contests this year with long lists of candidates where ranked choice-related pacts may emerge. In that primary, for example, Kathryn Garcia and Andrew Yang formed a late alliance encouraging their respective supporters to rank the other one “second” on the ballot for mayor.

There likely will be more deals like that this year as each one of the City Council’s 51 seats is on the ballot this year. More than a dozen seats have four or more people vying to win it: One north Bronx district already includes nine candidates, according to THE CITY’s analysis of campaign fundraising records as of late March.

Again, ranked choice is used only for primaries, not general elections; come November, we’ll go back to using traditional, top-choice-only voting.

The switch to RCV on primary ballots appears fairly simple to the eye. Here’s what you need to know before heading to the polls:

What is ranked choice voting, and how does it work?

Instead of choosing only one favorite candidate, voters rank up to five candidates in each race.

If one candidate gets more than 50% of the first-place votes, that person wins. If no candidate reaches that majority, however, instead of an expensive run-off election between the top two vote-getters, the ranked-choice method sorts out the best-preferred candidate for the most people.

If your top pick has the fewest first-choice votes among all voters, that candidate is eliminated from the race, and all of those voters’ second-choice picks are counted up. That process continues, with one candidate removed each round, until one candidate has more than half of the first-place votes. 

Here’s an explanation of that in less than 90 seconds by Minnesota Public Radio ahead of the 2013 mayoral race in Minneapolis. Voters there approved the use of ranked choice voting in 2006.

Here are a few more good sources for information about ranked choice voting:

Why use ranked choice voting? What does it change?

While the changes on the physical ballot are small, the implications for candidates and elections are huge.

The system favors candidates who are more broadly supported in the electorate, and research has shown ranked choice voting tends to make campaigns less negative and encourages more women and nonwhite candidates to run.

The method also saves taxpayer money by eliminating the need for runoff elections.

How has ranked choice worked out in NYC’s elections so far?

The first big test for RCV in the city happened during the 2021 primary season and, overall, experts say it went smoothly. It continued to have detractors, however — including now-mayor Eric Adams — who claimed that a lack of education about the new system disenfranchised non-English-speaking and older voters.

Adams won the 2021 primary after eight rounds of ranked choice vote tabulations. He received 30.7% of first-round ballots, but ultimately prevailed with about 8,400 votes — or roughly one percentage point of all votes cast — more than former city Sanitation Commissioner Garcia.

A lawsuit challenging RCV’s use in city elections was not successful, and an effort to repeal the election method has not moved forward.

One of RCV’s goals is to give voters more choices, and boost how many ballot selections influence the final outcome. In that way, the voting method appears to be a success.

After the 2021 primary, the civic group Citizens Union found that just under 15% of voters across the city had inactive or “exhausted” ballots, meaning that all candidates chosen by a voter were eliminated in the final round of ranked choice voting.

By comparison, in 2013’s Democratic mayoral primary, 33% voters cast ballots for candidates who didn’t make it to the top two spots. The decrease in exhausted ballots held true for almost every race in the primary, according to the analysis.

What else should I know about ranked choice voting?

Readers like you asked our newsroom 63 questions about RCV during the 2021 election and we spoke to voting experts and RCV advocates to answer the most common queries.

That guide includes answers to questions like:

The answer to that last question, from Sean Dugar – then the education campaign program director at Rank the Vote — is good to keep in mind for all city voters:

“Never vote for someone you hate,” Dugar said.

“We like to say: the first choice is the candidate you love. Your second choice is the candidate that you like. Your third and fourth choice is the candidate you like slightly less. And your fifth choice is the candidate you can stand,” he added.

Here’s a good way to think about it: You really don’t like orange soda. If your friend was going to the store and asked you what kind of drink you want, you might tell them to pick up a lime seltzer, and if they don’t have lime seltzer, to get a root beer, or iced tea or apple juice. But you’d never tell them to get you an orange soda if all those other choices aren’t for sale.

“If you don’t want that person in office, you don’t vote for them,” Dugar said.

What other questions do you have about ranked choice voting, city elections or the 2023 races? Tell us at ask@thecity.nyc with the subject line “Election” or text “Election” to (718)-215-9011.

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.

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