The horrific beating death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis has rapidly been driving the national conversation on policing with a renewed level of energy reminiscent of the 2020 “summer of love.” This week, the NAACP called for the firing of all of the law enforcement officials, including Sheriff’s Deputies who were present during the assault even if they did not take part in it. It’s not an unreasonable demand. Less desirable is the suddenly renewed debate in Congress over federal “police reform” laws. It seems obvious that Democrats in Washington are using Nichols’ death as an excuse to run that flag up the pole again and they’re drooling over the prospect of getting another bite at the “defund the police” apple.

But the actual story that’s driving all of this activity remains something of a mystery. What really happened on the night when five members of the now-defunct SCORPION police task force pulled over Nichols and beat him so badly that he succumbed to his wounds a couple of days later?

Thus far, the mainstream media has seemed to be content with the standard narrative that has grown and been repeated surrounding the incident. A group of white supremacist cops (who inconveniently all happened to be Black) observed Nichols “driving erratically.” They proceeded to pull him over and decided to teach him a lesson about “driving while Black.” The beating got far out of hand, resulting in injuries that would eventually prove fatal.

But after watching the painful video of the assault several times (which wasn’t easy), I still find myself feeling that something just isn’t right with this story. None of this makes sense and we should be pressing for more answers. I’ll ask you to bear with me for a moment while I put on my conspiracy theory hat and walk through a couple of aspects of this tale. Then you can decide for yourself if there is something large and important missing from the current news coverage.

First, what were five members of what was described as an elite violent crime unit doing on traffic duty that night when they probably should have been hunting down gang kingpins? These weren’t run-of-the-mill rookies fresh out of the police academy. They were experienced officers tasked with the job of tracking down some of the most dangerous criminals in Memphis.

In the interest of fairness, let’s assume that these SCORPION cops were on some other official business when they happened to allegedly see Nichols “driving erratically.” Any police officer might be forgiven for stepping in and checking out the driver to stave off the possibility of someone being killed in a DWI crash. Fair enough.

So erratic driving is frequently observed by the police and there is a standard response when that takes place. The police would typically pull the driver over, ask for their license and registration, and then administer a sobriety test. But as can be seen in the opening seconds of the video, these cops didn’t do that. They rushed the car and they were already screaming at Nichols. As soon as the car was unlocked, they yanked open the door and dragged the driver out and onto the pavement. We all know what happened after that.

Call me crazy if you wish, but that doesn’t look like the typical actions most police officers would exhibit with a suspected drunk driver. This looks like it was done with a purpose. I don’t believe that there was ever any consideration of administering a breathalyzer test to some random driver and taking him to the drunk tank. So what else explains this?

I’m not qualified to read people’s minds, but those officers looked like they were hunting for Tyre Nichols. Why? I am once again left with nothing but speculation. One of the more charitable (to the police) explanations might be that he was already on their radar because of their major crime unit investigations. If they recognized him or his vehicle, perhaps they might have decided to strike while the iron was hot. But Nichols had no criminal record and nobody who has been interviewed has so much as suggested that he was involved with gang activity. That simply doesn’t add up.

Could one or more of the cops have had a personal beef with Nichols and decided to act on it? Again, while anything is possible, how would they even have known him, so say nothing of harboring such intense anger that they would beat him that badly?

As I already said, none of this makes sense. And I hope that some of the local journalists in Memphis are still digging into the details. If this really was all completely random, then those five officers weren’t just bad cops. They were homicidal maniacs. And that’s an even more disturbing possibility than the idea of them having some sort of unknown motive to hunt Nichols down intentionally.