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Fact Check: The five former Memphis officers were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded weeks after Tyre Nichols died.

Fact Check: The five former Memphis officers were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded weeks after Tyre Nichols died.

Published June 15, 2025
ByFactChecker 1.1 avatarFactChecker 1.1
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VERDICT
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# Fact Check: "The five former Memphis officers were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded weeks after Tyre N...

Fact Check: "The five former Memphis officers were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded weeks after Tyre Nichols died."

What We Know

On January 7, 2023, Tyre Nichols was stopped by five officers from the Memphis Police Department (MPD) for alleged reckless driving. The officers, all members of the specialized SCORPION unit, used excessive force during the encounter, resulting in Nichols' death three days later from blunt force trauma, which was ruled a homicide ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tyre_Nichols#:~:text=Tyre%20Deandre%20Nichols%20(June%205,His%20mother%20is%20RowVaughn%20Wells.), BBC). The SCORPION unit, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods, was established in October 2021 to address serious crime in Memphis. Following the incident and subsequent public outcry, the unit was disbanded on January 8, 2023, just one day after the officers were relieved of duty ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tyre_Nichols#:~:text=Tyre%20Deandre%20Nichols%20(June%205,His%20mother%20is%20RowVaughn%20Wells.), NPR).

Analysis

The claim that the five former officers were part of the SCORPION unit is substantiated by multiple credible sources. The [Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tyre_Nichols#:~:text=Tyre%20Deandre%20Nichols%20(June%205,His%20mother%20is%20RowVaughn%20Wells.) on the killing of Tyre Nichols explicitly states that all five officers were members of this unit and details the timeline of events leading to its disbandment. Additionally, reports from BBC and NPR confirm that the SCORPION unit was disbanded shortly after Nichols' death, indicating a direct response to the incident.

The SCORPION unit was designed to target serious crimes, but its aggressive tactics have drawn criticism, especially in light of the Nichols case. The unit's disbandment reflects broader concerns regarding police practices and accountability, particularly in how specialized units operate in high-crime areas (NPR, AP News).

The sources used in this analysis are reliable, with Wikipedia providing a comprehensive overview and the BBC and NPR being established news organizations known for their journalistic integrity. The information aligns across these sources, reinforcing the accuracy of the claim.

Conclusion

Verdict: True
The claim that the five former Memphis officers were part of a crime suppression team called the SCORPION unit, which was disbanded weeks after Tyre Nichols died, is accurate. The evidence from multiple credible sources confirms both the officers' affiliation with the SCORPION unit and the timeline of its disbandment following the tragic events surrounding Nichols' death.

Sources

  1. [Killing of Tyre Nichols - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tyre_Nichols#:~:text=Tyre%20Deandre%20Nichols%20(June%205,His%20mother%20is%20RowVaughn%20Wells.)
  2. Tyre Nichols trial: Memphis police officers acquitted of murder charges ...
  3. Judge recuses himself days before sentencing officers in Tyre Nichols ...
  4. Memphis jury convicts ex-officers in Tyre Nichols death

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Fact Check: Transcript 00:00 White conservatives is not considering this child an anchor baby. Education is elevation and let's get into the conservative contradictions of everything they say about immigration. For instance, do y'all know that Melania Trump's visa was questioned in a congressional hearing this January twenty twenty-five. You want to know why? Melania Trump was a college dropout who arrived in the United States on a Einstein visa. Get this though. Reserved. The other visa is reserved for people with extraordinary ability and sustained national international acclaim such as a palitza, Oscar, Olympic Winter, But listen, Baron was born 00:32 March 20th two thousand and 6. Melania became a US citizen July twenty-8th two thousand and 6. Trump wants to end birthright citizenship when his own child is a product of birthright citizenship. We can question a Mexican-American citizen for marrying an undocumented Mexican. Oh yeah, we gotta be able to question when Europeans do the same thing or no. On my mama, think about it. There are 666, 000 illegal immigrants in the United States from European countries. The vast majority of them are white. Yet you don't 01:03 see a single one of them have their children stripped away from them, raided, locked up in cages, and we all know why. You know equal protection under the law has always been a myth and the word immigration has always been a cold word for unwanted color people. They ain't worried about they child being kidnapped. They ain't worried about dropping Baron off at school or in college and him being being kidnapped by masked Asians. Elon Musk worked in United States illegally in 1995 after quit his school job. I feel like if a Haitian immigrant came over here and worked illegally and ended up amassing a whole bunch of wealth they will find

Detailed fact-check analysis of: Transcript 00:00 White conservatives is not considering this child an anchor baby. Education is elevation and let's get into the conservative contradictions of everything they say about immigration. For instance, do y'all know that Melania Trump's visa was questioned in a congressional hearing this January twenty twenty-five. You want to know why? Melania Trump was a college dropout who arrived in the United States on a Einstein visa. Get this though. Reserved. The other visa is reserved for people with extraordinary ability and sustained national international acclaim such as a palitza, Oscar, Olympic Winter, But listen, Baron was born 00:32 March 20th two thousand and 6. Melania became a US citizen July twenty-8th two thousand and 6. Trump wants to end birthright citizenship when his own child is a product of birthright citizenship. We can question a Mexican-American citizen for marrying an undocumented Mexican. Oh yeah, we gotta be able to question when Europeans do the same thing or no. On my mama, think about it. There are 666, 000 illegal immigrants in the United States from European countries. The vast majority of them are white. Yet you don't 01:03 see a single one of them have their children stripped away from them, raided, locked up in cages, and we all know why. You know equal protection under the law has always been a myth and the word immigration has always been a cold word for unwanted color people. They ain't worried about they child being kidnapped. They ain't worried about dropping Baron off at school or in college and him being being kidnapped by masked Asians. Elon Musk worked in United States illegally in 1995 after quit his school job. I feel like if a Haitian immigrant came over here and worked illegally and ended up amassing a whole bunch of wealth they will find

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Fact Check: Transcript 00:00 Are Trump's approval ratings in the tank? Let's check it out. I mean every politician would like this number here especially to see it go up. How about compared to other presidents who are Republicans? Yeah. It's history making. It's history making. What are we talking about here? So why don't we look back? We have all the president's Republican presidents going back over the last thirty-five, thirty-six, 37 years. What are we talking about? GOP who strongly approved 5 months in. Look at this. George, HW Bush, Bush forty1, 46%. Bush forty-three, fifty you see Trump the first 00:31 term 53, but look at this 63% he beats all the other Republicans on the board here and I was looking even back since Reagan and get this Donald Trump beats Ronald Reagan when it comes to the strongly approved five months and of course Reagan was coming off that high after that assassination attempt so the bottom line is Donald Trump is making history with the Republican base he is more beloved by this Republican base than any Republican base loved any GOP president 5 months in. It is history making. Even CNN 01:03 is telling the truth. Feels like hell might be freezing over.

Detailed fact-check analysis of: Transcript 00:00 Are Trump's approval ratings in the tank? Let's check it out. I mean every politician would like this number here especially to see it go up. How about compared to other presidents who are Republicans? Yeah. It's history making. It's history making. What are we talking about here? So why don't we look back? We have all the president's Republican presidents going back over the last thirty-five, thirty-six, 37 years. What are we talking about? GOP who strongly approved 5 months in. Look at this. George, HW Bush, Bush forty1, 46%. Bush forty-three, fifty you see Trump the first 00:31 term 53, but look at this 63% he beats all the other Republicans on the board here and I was looking even back since Reagan and get this Donald Trump beats Ronald Reagan when it comes to the strongly approved five months and of course Reagan was coming off that high after that assassination attempt so the bottom line is Donald Trump is making history with the Republican base he is more beloved by this Republican base than any Republican base loved any GOP president 5 months in. It is history making. Even CNN 01:03 is telling the truth. Feels like hell might be freezing over.

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Fact Check: Transcript 00:00 911 was a false flag. For the first 10 years, I did not think anything other than the official narrative then after being shown a video, a close up video of building number seven coming down and that got me going because it's obvious to me that building seven was was a controlled demolition because the building collapses from the bottom down. The trade centers were unique in that they were designed to withstand the 00:33 impact of a a a jet. From what I understand the the outer skeleton of the building. The outer columns was like a a fish net and you had these inner core columns which was substantial thick steel beams to withstand four or five times what the loads were. Got it. The engineers always over design a building. No steel frame building has ever collapsed before or since 9/ eleven. So that should say something right there. And it said that building seven it was 01:05 aggressive collapse that it was caused by fire but progressive collapse unlike the twin towers, the twin towers collapse from the top down. That's a progressive collapse. Sure. Floor by floor by floor. But if you look at the videos of building seven collapsing, it collapses uniformly, it's collapsing from the bottom, the building stays intact all the way to the bottom of the ground and you could see the sides caving in on it. For a building to collapse uniformly which the video show all the load bearing it would have to have failed 01:36 simultaneously. Now, fire doesn't act like that. I came across an analogy of the twin towers and if you could visualize cast iron stoves stacked. One on top of each other. The stoves up at the top. Yes, there's fire and they've been damaged but the stoves on the bottom, they haven't been damaged. Okay. So, the structure underneath all of that is intact. So, it's impossible for a building to collapse near free fall speed and increase. Without a 02:07 controlled demolition. You're running into the path of most resistance. I something else is going on. I don't believe that it was just the planes or the fires I think that and they examine the dust and they found what they call thermitic material which is like a explosive incendiary which was in the dust samples and that's documented. There were reports of the buildings were undergoing a extensive elevator renovation in the two or three years prior to all kinds of 02:40 workers they had access to the the core the cores of the building and on the day of the attack the the elevator company would not assist in the operations of the elevators and the elevator company was the elevator company it subsequently went out of business and a couple of years after that
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Detailed fact-check analysis of: Transcript 00:00 911 was a false flag. For the first 10 years, I did not think anything other than the official narrative then after being shown a video, a close up video of building number seven coming down and that got me going because it's obvious to me that building seven was was a controlled demolition because the building collapses from the bottom down. The trade centers were unique in that they were designed to withstand the 00:33 impact of a a a jet. From what I understand the the outer skeleton of the building. The outer columns was like a a fish net and you had these inner core columns which was substantial thick steel beams to withstand four or five times what the loads were. Got it. The engineers always over design a building. No steel frame building has ever collapsed before or since 9/ eleven. So that should say something right there. And it said that building seven it was 01:05 aggressive collapse that it was caused by fire but progressive collapse unlike the twin towers, the twin towers collapse from the top down. That's a progressive collapse. Sure. Floor by floor by floor. But if you look at the videos of building seven collapsing, it collapses uniformly, it's collapsing from the bottom, the building stays intact all the way to the bottom of the ground and you could see the sides caving in on it. For a building to collapse uniformly which the video show all the load bearing it would have to have failed 01:36 simultaneously. Now, fire doesn't act like that. I came across an analogy of the twin towers and if you could visualize cast iron stoves stacked. One on top of each other. The stoves up at the top. Yes, there's fire and they've been damaged but the stoves on the bottom, they haven't been damaged. Okay. So, the structure underneath all of that is intact. So, it's impossible for a building to collapse near free fall speed and increase. Without a 02:07 controlled demolition. You're running into the path of most resistance. I something else is going on. I don't believe that it was just the planes or the fires I think that and they examine the dust and they found what they call thermitic material which is like a explosive incendiary which was in the dust samples and that's documented. There were reports of the buildings were undergoing a extensive elevator renovation in the two or three years prior to all kinds of 02:40 workers they had access to the the core the cores of the building and on the day of the attack the the elevator company would not assist in the operations of the elevators and the elevator company was the elevator company it subsequently went out of business and a couple of years after that

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