Three firefighters and two new police officers face disciplinary investigations for the fatal beating of African-American Tire Nichols, for which five black officers have already been removed and charged with murder, Memphis police and firefighters said Monday.
City authorities are investigating the death of Nichols, 29, after being stopped at a traffic stop on January 7.
A sixth Memphis police officer was reportedly suspended Monday afternoon, authorities said.
Officer Preston Hemphill, like the other five accused of murder, was removed from the charge "at the beginning of the investigation into the death of Tire Nichols," Memphis police spokeswoman Kim Elder said.
Hemphill, who joined the police in 2018, is suspended "pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation."
Later, in a new statement posted Monday night on Twitter, police announced the suspension of a seventh officer, without identifying him.
The city's fire department also announced in a separate statement on social media that it had fired two paramedics and a lieutenant.
"Our investigation concluded that the two paramedics responded based on the initial nature of the call (a person being pepper-sprayed) and information they received at the scene, and that they failed to conduct a proper examination" of Tire Nichols, the chief said. Memphis Fire Department, Gina Sweat.
The three fired individuals are accused of violating "numerous rules and protocols" of the Memphis Fire Department, Sweat added.
Videos of the incident show the five officers, all black, kicking and punching Nichols, who is moaning and screaming for his mother.
Nichols died three days later at the hospital. He will be buried Wednesday in Memphis.
Last week the five now former officers were charged with second-degree murder for the beating.
Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, attorneys for the victim's family, said in a statement that Hemphill used a taser on Nichols early in the confrontation.
But Hemphill's lawyer told The Washington Post that he did not join the others at the scene of the beating.
Nichols' family said in a statement that it was "extremely disappointing" that Hemphill was not fired and charged in the case.
"It certainly raises the question as to why the white officer involved in this brutal attack was shielded and kept out of public view and, to date, given sufficient discipline and accountability," they said.
"The Memphis police owe us all answers," they added.
On Saturday the Memphis police dissolved the special unit, called Scorpions, to which the agents involved belonged.
The unit was created in 2021 to combat high-crime areas in the south of the city.
In a statement, the Memphis police said that unit was permanently disabled.
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