Ever since her 20-year-old son was killed by Memphis police nearly two months ago, Ashley McKenzie Smith has been fighting to receive basic information about his final moments. 

“Everything we know is what’s on the Internet,” she said. “If Jaylin was totally in the wrong, they would have already released the video.” 

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The official response to the shooting death of her son, Jaylin Keshawn McKenzie, stands in sharp contrast to the Memphis Police Department’s handling of the beating death of Tyre Nichols.

MPD’s swift release of body camera footage and the quick firing and prosecution of officers involved in Nichols’s death have prompted nationwide praise. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Nichols’ family, hailed the development as a model of transparency.

Yet an examination by the Institute for Public Service Reporting found the Nichols case is an outlier among major use-of-force cases in Memphis. According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, it’s been called to Memphis seven times since late November to investigate instances in which officers were involved with the deaths of individuals. 

Transparency advocates say a timely release of information builds community trust and helps protect police who act lawfully during dangerous encounters.

However, authorities haven’t publicly released a single frame of video in any of those cases except the January 2023 beating of Nichols, after which MPD released footage from three different body cameras and a pole-mounted camera.

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This is a major deviation from past actions, as typically MPD and the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office have waited on TBI investigations, which can take a year or more, before video and other details are released.

“It shouldn’t take a year. It’s inexplicable to the public why it would take a year,'' said Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, a nonprofit that advocates for public access to government records and proceedings.

Some jurisdictions produce bodycam footage must faster, Fisher said, pointing to Colorado. That state requires police to release unredacted footage within 21 days following a complaint of police misconduct.

“As every month passes, people are like, ‘Well, why aren’t they letting that out?’” Fisher said. 

Part of the reason that key details aren’t released earlier in use-of-force instances is that delays are baked into Tennessee state law.

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“Each of the investigations you’ve referenced remains active and ongoing,’’ TBI spokesperson Keli McAlister wrote in an email that said the state law enforcement agency is limited in the details it can release while a case is ongoing.

However, state law doesn’t preclude local authorities from quickly releasing bodycam footage and other details on their own.

“In the case of the Tyre Nichols case, that video was not released by our agency,’’ TBI said in a follow-up email.

Flurry of cases

Since her son’s death, Smith, who lives in Atlanta, has set up news alerts on her phone trying to learn more about MPD. She’s been alarmed at how many reports of police shootings she’s seen.

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“These are people you’re supposed to trust,” said Smith, who hasn’t left her house since her son’s death in December except for the funeral and a trip to Memphis to see where he was killed. 

Memphis police initially said Smith’s son had fired at officers.

According to police, it happened as Jaylin McKenzie and three others fled a traffic stop the night of Dec. 16. Smith said her family has asked for the police report, bodycam footage and details on the officers involved but received none of it. Police wouldn’t even share if a gun had been recovered from the scene, she said. 

“We know nothing. We are blindsided,” she said. “I literally buried my son, and I still don’t know what’s wrong or what happened that night.” 

McKenzie’s death is among a flurry of officer-involved shootings in Memphis over the past 11 weeks.

Six people have been shot in that time. Four of them died.

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The fatal shootings include the Dec. 9 death of Latoris A. Taylor, 40, whom police say shot at officers who were chasing him during the investigation of a carjacking in Westwood.

Also killed was James West Jr., 39, of Sarah, Mississippi. Police said West died during an exchange of gunfire during an investigation of a suspicious vehicle at a gas station in Parkway Village on Dec. 5. An officer was also injured during the altercation. The injuries were described as minor.

On Thursday, Feb. 2, police shot and killed a man during an exchange of gunfire inside the Poplar-White Station Library in East Memphis. An officer was critically injured when he was struck by gunfire; killed was Torence Jackson Jr., 28, of Indianapolis.

Authorities said the shooting followed a reported trespassing at a nearby business that led to a separate confrontation inside the library at 5094 Poplar Ave.

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Police did not use their guns in the Nichols incident, but Nichols died three days after police punched, kicked, clubbed and pepper-sprayed him following a traffic stop Jan. 7 by members of MPD’s SCORPION squad. 

The use-of-force investigations follow a familiar path: Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy asks the TBI to investigate. During the investigation, bodycam footage and most other details — including the names of officers — typically are withheld. The investigations generally take several months to a year or longer to complete, when footage and sensitive details are then released.

Asked Thursday if authorities had released bodycam footage, reports or the names of officers in any of the five officer-involved shootings in November and December 2022 — or whether there were plans to speed release of that footage following the beating death of Nichols — District Attorney spokesperson Erica R. Williams said in an email, “None of that has been released to the public as they are ongoing investigations being conducted by TBI.’’

Asked the same, MPD public affairs manager Kim Elder said in an email, “These are ongoing TBI investigations. Any additional information at this time would have to come from TBI.’’

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TBI’s McAlister pointed to a state law that allows TBI to release information or evidence from officer-involved shooting investigations only after “the completion of the prosecutorial function” or after prosecutors elect to either not charge an officer or have secured a conviction.

The Institute asked in a follow-up email if there was a way to release bodycam and other footage more quickly. By then, McAlister was no longer available; she was out the door and on her way to yet another police shooting: The exchange of gunfire inside the Poplar-White Station Library.

“I’m fielding inquiries for Keli as she responds to the current OIS (officer-involved shooting) in Memphis,’’ TBI spokesperson Susan Niland wrote in a reply email.

“The statute that Keli sent you applies to what TBI is able or not able to provide.''

Turning point?

But as Memphis officials proved last month, they have the capability of releasing footage and other sensitive details on their own.

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“It is absolutely incumbent on me … (that) we communicate with honesty and transparency and that there is absolute accountability for those responsible for Tyre’s death,’’ Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said in a rare video statement on Jan. 25, in which she explained the department’s swift response.

Yet even now, many people – including Nichols’ family – are skeptical about MPD’s commitment to transparency.

“When we got the news, it was very, very difficult. It was surrounded by lies and deceit, trying to cover it up,’’ Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, told mourners at Nichols’ funeral Wednesday, Feb. 1, at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that the initial incident report written by officers in the hours following the Jan. 7 encounter with Nichols “was starkly at odds with what videos have since revealed.”

The document reportedly describes Nichols as an aggressive suspect who “had started to fight” with officers and had even reached for an officer’s gun — allegations that don’t appear in the videos released by MPD. The Times said a photograph of the police report was first posted online by controversial talk show host Thaddeus Matthews. District Attorney Mulroy, in turn, said he had a copy of a report “with the same account,’’ the newspaper reported.

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In an email to The Institute earlier this week, Mulroy spokesperson Williams said Mulroy “can’t confirm that to be the official report, (but) says the narrative in that report is the same one that he’s seen.’’ 

Moving forward, transparency advocate Fisher said that officials should strike the proper balance between protecting the integrity of investigations and informing the public.

“Police do need some time to do interviews, you know, and to investigate before the bodycam footage or other footage is seen by the people they’re investigating,'' she said. “So they need some time to accomplish that and to gather evidence. There’s no question there. Right? No question. However, it does seem to take way too long ....

“If they were getting things out there sooner, and I don’t know what sooner would be — 30 days or something like that — people wouldn’t be suspicious.”

Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City, a nonprofit criminal justice reform organization. He questions the narrative advanced in The New York Times and other national media outlets the MPD’s handling of the Nichols’ case represents a “shift” in how local police respond to use-of-force controversies. 

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“I don’t think it represents a turning point so much as a response to a particularly heinous and awful video,’’ Spickler said.

As for Smith, the mother of police shooting victim Jaylin McKenzie, trust in the police has become a difficult proposition.

For Christmas, she bought a police uniform for her stepdaughter to add to her dress-up collection. The night after her son was killed, she pulled the gift out from under the Christmas tree.

“I have no faith in the police. They’re scary at this point to me,” she said. “It’s scary when you send your kids out and not just some regular person that’s taking your child’s life but someone that you’re supposed to trust and have the utmost respect for is the one breaking the community down.”