To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
February 21, 2023
by Pete Brown, Detroit Workers’ Voice
The police murder of Tyre Nichols was an atrocious event that occurs all too often in the U.S. Supposedly Tyre was pulled over for driving recklessly but then ended up beaten to death. The killers were themselves young, or youngish, black men. Why would they treat another black man so horrifically? Clearly the structural racism of the police influences the actions of many black, as well as white, officers. And in this case, this was reinforced by their membership in a special police unit called the Scorpion Squad.
Shortly after the death of Mr. Nichols, the Memphis chief of police, Cerelyn Davis, disbanded the Scorpion Squad. For this she was commended by people across the country. But it turns out Davis herself was the originator of the Scorpion Squad. What made her originate this elite unit? And how did it turn into a racist murder squad? Some insight can be gained from a New York Times article of January 29. (1)
Chief Davis created SCORPION (Street Crimes Operation to Restore
Peace In Our Neighborhoods) shortly after taking over the Memphis
police department in early 2021. According to her, the special squad
was created to combat rising homicide rates and reckless driving. This
is worth noting. From the very beginning, the purpose of the squad was
to combat two entirely different types of offenses: traffic violations
and murders. Why? Well, Chief Davis herself says she was shocked by the
numerous cases of reckless driving – drag racing, stunt driving,
show-offs doing donuts in the middle of freeways – that made her
fearful of driving. At the same time, Memphis exhibited rising rates of
homicide, as just about every city in America did during the pandemic.
Going back to the “broken windows” theory of policing, apparently,
Davis decided that the way to reduce **homicides** was to battle
**traffic** crime. This was the same notorious theory that New York
police used under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, when police were ordered to
“stop and frisk” anyone who looked suspicious (which meant, more often
than not, someone young, black and male). This is the answer to why a
supposedly violent-crimes special police unit is bothering to pull
someone over for an alleged traffic violation.
One might imagine that there were ways to deal with traffic safety other than beating up or killing drivers. However, Davis created a special unit to deal with BOTH traffic violations AND homicides. Scorpion police were apparently inculcated with this ideology, to connect the two very different problems and regard every young show-off as a potential, if not actual, murderer. Scorpion units roamed the streets in unmarked cars, their police wearing dark hoodies instead of regular police uniforms. They practiced pulling over masses of cars in poor black neighborhoods. Anyone stopped by a Scorpion unit could expect confrontation likely to escalate into violence. Tyre Nichols’ brother says he was stopped and beaten by Scorpion cops the week before Tyre’s death. Another man, Monterrious Harris, has filed a lawsuit against the city for being roughed up and beaten by the same squad that killed Tyre. (2) And another man, Cornell McKinney, was threatened by Scorpion police days before Tyre was killed. He filed a complaint but has not yet heard back about it. (3)
Another thing influencing Davis’ creation of Scorpion might have
been her own experience in the Atlanta police department. There she was
a member of a notorious unit called Red Dog, which was closed down in
2011 after numerous charges of police abuse and anti-gay
discrimination. (4) Red Dog units were required to meet arrest quotas
for drugs, guns and just about anything. They were notorious for
grabbing people off the street and conducting public strip-searches.
Later, Davis served on the narcotics squad that murdered 92-year-old
Kathryn Johnston in a botched drug raid. Davis and others got off
scot-free when their lawyer pleaded not-guilty due to qualified
immunity, the doctrine that allows police officers immunity from crimes
committed in the course of their “duties.” (5) Following that, Davis
had a checkered career with internal affairs, first being fired for
corruption, then being reinstated and promoted. One thing that’s clear
is she went to Memphis still a champion of loosely supervised,
aggressive “special squads” as the way to fight crime.
After one year in office, in January 2022, Davis highlighted Scorpion
as a great success in her new job. The mayor of Memphis, Jim
Strickland, also bragged about Scorpion in his annual address to the
city. The murder rate declined a little after one year, just as it did
elsewhere in America with the end of the pandemic. The two civic
leaders bragged about how many arrests Scorpion cops made, how many
guns and cash they confiscated. They didn’t mention that this “success”
was made by saturating poor black neighborhoods with pro-active,
aggressive police taking a zero-tolerance approach to people in the
community. Scorpion squads would go after anyone committing “serious”
infractions like having tinted car windows, driving without a seat
belt, having a headlight out, loitering or smoking marijuana. (6) In
their search for serious criminals, Scorpion cops became more and more
aggressive, with the inevitable result.
Today, Chief Davis is being commended for finally shutting down the Scorpion squad. But as one Memphis pastor says, this “is like starting a fire and then being celebrated for trying to put it out.” (7)
(1) Jesus Jiménez, Mark Walker, Steve Eder, Joseph Goldstein, and Mike Baker. “Scorpion
Unit Emerged as Memphis Police Pursued Get-Tough Strategy: City leaders
had praised the new group as a key strategy for fighting crime. Now
they are trying to assess whether it was flawed from the start.”, New York Times, January 29, 2023.
(2) Kayla Solomon, “Memphis man, attorney discuss encounter with SCORPION unit”, Fox13 Memphis, January 30, 2023. Updated February 12, 2023.
(3) “Tyre Nichols: What is the ‘Scorpion’ unit of Memphis police?”, BBC News, 29 January 2023.
(4) Shimon Prokupecz, Matthrew J. Friedman, Mark Morales, and Rachel Clarke. “Memphis squashed its SCORPION unit but many other cities rely on special squads, even after their own controversies.”, CNN, January 31, 2023.
(5) Rich Schapiro, Jon Schuppe, Simone Weichselbaum, and Safia Samee Ali and Deon J. Hampton, “Memphis police chief behind the Scorpion unit ran a similarly aggressive squad in Atlanta”, Yahoo! News, February 2, 2023.
(6) Marc Perrusquia, “Fired Officers Worked in MPD’s ‘SCORPION’ Unit”, The Institute for Public Service Reporting Memphis, January 26, 2023.
(7) Rich Schapiro, Jon Schuppe, Simone Weichselbaum, and Safia Samee Ali, “Memphis police chief once led the aggressive ‘Red Dog’ anti-crime unit in Atlanta”, NBC News, February 2, 2023. <>
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