Source: Lucy Garrett / Getty
Before Demetrius Haley was a Memphis cop who fatally assaulted Tyre Nichols and took pictures to brag via text, he nearly did the same to a prison inmate.
The AP reports that Haley has a track record of bloodthirsty brutality, with accusations far back as the 2015 assault of Cordarlrius Sledge. At the time, Haley was a corrections officer at Shelby County prison. He and two other officers allegedly attacked Sledge so viciously that the entire cellblock signed a letter complaining to the corrections director.
“We are truly asking that this matter gets looked into before someone gets hurt really bad or lose their life because of some unprofessional officers,” said the letter endorsed by 34 inmates.
The message sounds more like a desperate plea in the face of rampant abuse and misconduct than a rare complaint. The incarcerated asked how they can feel “safe and secure when the staff members at the Shelby County Correctional Center are assaulting and threatening us?” They begged leadership to “Please put a stop to this madness.”
“I Just Hope Those Officers Get What They Deserve”
The Shelby County incident sounds hauntingly similar to the mob violence that caused Nichols’ broken neck and severe internal bleeding. In 2016, Sledge sued Haley and the other guards involved in the assault. The federal lawsuit accused Haley and another of punching Sledge while another slammed his head into the ground.
“When they came in to do one of their little random pop-in searches, they called me and two other guys to the shower area to be strip-searched. They requested for me to be searched first,” Sledge explained to NBC News.
Similar to Nichols, the officers used a minor infraction to justify excessive force against an unarmed man. In Sledge’s case, they caught him with contraband. He was attempting to hide a cell phone before he said they beat him.
That’s when they started punching on me. They picked me up and slammed my head into the sink, and I blacked out,” Sledge continued.
After officers took Sledge to the infirmary, he noticed major bleeding from his ear and later complained of hearing loss. Without a lawyer to assist Sledge, a judge dismissed the federal lawsuit because of procedural technicalities.
It’s unclear if the inmates’ letter or Sledge’s complaints resulted in any consequences for Haley. He continued to work as a corrections officer until the Memphis Police Department Hired him in 2020.
“I just hope that those officers get what they deserve and set an example for the rest of officers,” Sladge said when informed Haley was one of the crooked cops responsible for Nichols’ death.
Excessive Force Is The Rule, Not The Exception
In 2021, Kadejah Townes accused Haley of excessive force that dislocated her shoulder. When he and other Memphis cops responded to a report of shots fired, they only saw two women talking and laughing in a car.
Haley allegedly didn’t even know why the other officers wanted to stop and arrest both women for laughing while Black. That reportedly didn’t stop him however from helping another cop wrestle Townes into handcuffs and reportedly injure her shoulder.
Charged with second-degree murder, Haley is yet another example that policing in America is beyond reform. Without a criminal charge or successful lawsuit, dangerous cowards like him can easily stay employed or get hired by another police department. The kind of depravity it takes to share the modern-day equivalent of a lynching postcard runs deep.