The Forgotten Families Of Memphis Police Violence Also Want Answers

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Nyliayh Stewart says she does everything with her brother Darrius Stewart. They grew up together in the same house and went to the same school from day care – both even had the same second grade teacher.

She remembers her brother as “sweet and kind,” and she said all her friends would talk about her.

“Every memory is going to be a favorite memory,” she told HuffPost.

Nearly eight years ago, Darrius Stewart was in a car pulled over by a white Memphis police officer. He was sitting in the back passenger seat. The officer, Connor Schilling, asked everyone in the vehicle for identification and found two active warrants against Stewart.

Police placed the 19-year-old in the back of a patrol car but did not handcuff him.

Police allege he kicked the door of a patrol car and assaulted Schilling. After a struggle, Schilling shot Stewart, who died. A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Report found several witnesses contradicted Schilling’s statement about the struggle before the shooting. Stewart was unarmed during the entire encounter.

Amy Weirich, who was the Shelby County district attorney at the time, presented the manslaughter case against Schilling to the grand jury, but declined to indict the officer. The United States Department of Justice launched a federal investigation to the shooting but found “insufficient evidence” for civil rights violations. In 2016, Stewart’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the City of Memphis and Schilling, but a judge beheaded the city of the suit due to the lack of evidence that the policies of the city lead to death. In 2020, the family filed another $17 million lawsuit against Schilling, which is still pending.

The Stewart family, like others in Memphis, has been fighting for justice in police brutality cases for years — and the death of Tyrus Nichols has pushed for accountability. Among other things, he wants Shelby County’s new district attorney, Steve Mulroy, to reexamine the case he loves.

Mulroy’s office told the Stewart family last week if they have a staff member looking into the case.

But vague promises won’t be enough for some forgotten families of victims of Memphis police violence. Some gathered in the city on Saturday with other protesters, who blocked roads near the city center.

John Perry was among them. Police shot and killed Jaylin McKenzie’s son late last year. Perry told HuffPost she buried her son in Atlanta on Jan. 6 — the day before Nichols died.

Initial police reports said officers responded to a “suspicious vehicle” in the parking lot but never specified a reason for the stop, or what the officers found suspicious. Authorities say the driver, a friend of McKenzie’s, tried to run from the officer but ended up crashing into a nearby pole. Four people, including McKenzie, then ran from the car.

“The suspect turned and fired at the officers, and one officer returned fire, striking the subject,” the police account said. But the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which investigated the shooting at Mulroy’s request, did not confirm that McKenzie fired first when it released its initial report on the incident. “An officer and subject exchanged gunfire, resulting in the death of an individual,” the bureau said statement read.

Perry said police have not yet released details and are aware of what happened. She said she has also asked Memphis police why officers stopped her son but has yet to get an answer. He also did not know the name of the officer involved.

“It was never a fair fight and it still isn’t a fair fight. With the police, it’s not a fair fight,” Perry told HuffPost.

Perry said her son is not from Memphis and lives in Georgia with his mother. Police called McKenzie’s mother to tell her her son had been shot. Perry said he had seen her earlier in the day.

He took part in Saturday’s protest surrounded by his other sons as they held memorial posters for McKenzie in the street. It was one of several protests Perry has attended since Nichols’ death.

“Usually I wake up. I really can’t sleep because I don’t have an answer,” he said.

Janice Banks was there too. Her son, Martavious Banks, a black man, was shot and critically wounded by former police officer Jamarcus James in 2018 after a traffic stop. Weirich, the former DA, never charged James even though the department found he had violated its body camera policy by not having a camera at the scene of the shooting.

Martavious Banks spent almost five months in jail after the incident, but was released in August 2019. After a civil lawsuit, his family was awarded $200,000 after initially seeking $10 million. James resigned from the department after the shooting and the other officers involved were suspended.

Janice Banks protested for nearly two weeks straight in South Memphis in 2018 near the area where his son was taken and along the Strip Elvis Presley Boulevard.

It’s been nearly five years since that incident, and she’s still emotionally traumatized, she told HuffPost. He saw a picture of Nichols in his hospital bed, he remembered what the police had done to his son.

“When I saw the picture of Tire Nichols in the hospital, I had flashbacks,” she told HuffPost.

Banks said the officer shot her son “really recklessly” and that he was also beaten. He told HuffPost he was kicked in the top of the head and his teeth fell out of his mouth.

“I don’t think my son got justice. The officers involved in the shooting should get jail time. Amy Weirich was the DA when my son was taken and she brought no charges or justification for the officers involved,” he said.

“They should have sued him since he was [Jeames] retreat. He got off scot-free, if you ask me. He is dirty, low-key and commits serious crimes on the badge.

Stewart said he remembers when Memphis police killed Steven Askew, a black man, in 2013 after firing more than 20 shots. Officers accused Askew of firing the gun but later changed his story, saying he only pointed the gun at him.

The search for justice must begin, he told HuffPost.

And Memphis was also outraged when a US marshal shot Brandon Webber in his mother’s driveway in 2019. This happened just months after the family of Terrence Carlton filed a wrongful death lawsuit after he was shot and killed by police in the city.

“If they would have focused, then my brother would not have been killed, and this child [Tyre Nichols] will not be killed. And now it’s like this case around the world, people want to see Memphis, but this has happened, people have said that it happened,” Stewart told HuffPost.

When Mulroy took office, he established the Judicial Review Unit, an entity independent of the police and reporting directly to the prosecutor’s office.

The unit’s mission is to investigate and reexamine cases of police brutality in Shelby County.

The unit has been around for a long time in the eyes of Janice Banks, Nyliayh Stewart and many other families who have suffered from Memphis police brutality — but it may not have opened up about past controversial police shootings.

“Our office has not yet determined whether we will review the past cases of the charged officers,” Erica Williams, a spokeswoman for the office, told HuffPost. “Our Judicial Review Unit is reviewing officer-involved incidents that have occurred since the unit was formed last year.”

Nyliayh Stewart said she had been to Mulroy’s office and he had told her he had a “team” to look into her brother’s death, but there was no further follow-up. He believes all police shootings should be reinvestigated because the Nichols case has been brought to the Justice Department and put Memphis in the national spotlight.

“Everything should be investigated, but this is taking a long time, asking them to do it,” Nyliayh Stewart said.

“If you had a team looking into this case, you wouldn’t have thought to contact my aunt or Darrius Stewart’s family and say, ‘I’m sorry, this is happening, this is an ongoing problem and it didn’t start in Tyre.'”