Court documents reveal that the City of Memphis is asking for sanctions against lawyers representing Tyre Nichols’ family in the civil suit against the City and the Memphis Police Department, Fox 13 Memphis reports.
The sanction request follows a statement released by the Nichols’ family lawyer, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, showcased on the posters plastered around Memphis, allegedly calling for acts of vigilantism against the officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith — who were acquitted of Tyre Nichols’ murder on May 7. However, the City said its issue isn’t necessarily with Crump’s statement denouncing the posters but more about statements related to the pending civil suit.
Filings claim a certain section of the statement was false, and the City alleges Crump knew this before making the statement public. Crump claimed Memphis has “municipal insurance” to prevent itself from going bankrupt if Nichols’ family is awarded the $550 million the civil suit seeks. “This is false, and Plaintiff’s Counsel knew this statement was false when the statement was made,” the sanction request reads.
City officials were required to provide Crump with any insurance agreement they had to satisfy the terms of a potential judgment in the lawsuit — three times. In each request, the agreement outlined that the City is self-insured. “Plaintiff’s Counsel’s statements are a blatant attempt at poisoning the jury pool in advance of the trial,” attorney Bruce McMullen, representing the City, wrote in the filing, according to the Commercial Appeal.
“They are intending to deceive the public that a multi-million-dollar award will not have a negative effect on the taxpayers of the City and that they never intended to hurt the City financially.”
The sanction request continues to accuse Crump of making bankruptcy claims during a 30th birthday celebration for the victim that the attorney attended in June 2023. “We’ve got to make sure that every time they kill us unjustly, we bankrupt them to the point that they won’t kill our children anymore,” Crump allegedly said.
For the civil suit to carry on, Memphis wants the legal team of RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother and the executor of his estate, to correct the statement, highlighting that they knew the statement was false and was made intentionally to mislead the public. The original statement is also expected to be removed from the attorney’s websites and social media platforms in addition to refraining from “making knowingly false public statements about the litigation under threat of contempt of this court.”
If the sanctions are not permitted, McMullen said the City will push a motion to move for a change of venue “in order to obtain a fair and impartial jury that has not been tainted by the false statements made by Plaintiff’s counsel.”
Crump’s team issued the following statement: “We wish to update and amend the statement we made yesterday regarding the Tyre Nichols case. The City of Memphis and the individual officer defendants do not necessarily have insurance that would cover any monetary recovery in the case. In the disclosures the defendants have made in the case, the City has stated that it is ‘self-insured’ and the individual defendants have indicated that they do not have applicable insurance,” the new statement read.
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