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Phillip Hatley was a 43-year-old Black husband and father who was shot in the back and killed by a drunk Memphis police officer in January of that year. His death led to a publicly contentious trial that ended with his killer going free. It also rallied the community around his widow and children, who heard the gunshots that took his life and were forever traumatized.
Years after Phillip Hatley’s death, Memphis police shot another Black person who was fleeing. The 1974 death of Edward Garner, 15, resulted in a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and, for a time at least, led to major reforms.
Yet decades later, the city’s struggle with police violence remains palpable. Following the brutal beating death of Tyre Nichols in 2023, federal investigators found that the Memphis Police Department still has a significant number of inexperienced officers who lack supervision and the skills needed to de-escalate situations that can lead to violence.
Police violence and its attendant trauma are concerns woven into the American fabric, yet few cities have struggled as long or as hard with these ills as Memphis. That’s why some fear that the recent surge of state and federal law enforcement into Memphis may provide cover for further abuses.
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