Body camera footage of the arrest of Tyre Nichols shows officers boasting about punching him as he lies motionless and hunched over.
In a series of videos captured by Memphis police when they beat and kicked the 29-year-old Black man as they detained him earlier this month, officers can be heard laughing and bragging as the young man lies on the ground next to them.
He would die in hospital several days later.
“I was hitting him with straight haymakers, dog” says one officer.
Another is heard to say: “I jumped in, started rocking him.”
One video clip shows officers dragging Mr Nichols from the driver’s seat of his car as he yells, “Damn, I didn’t do anything ... I am just trying to go home.”
They force him onto the ground as they order him to lay on his stomach, then squirt him in the face with pepper spray.
At that point he is heard to cry out for his mother - “Mom, mom, mom”.
After Mr Nichols first fled from officers - his family’s lawyers say he was trying to go back to his mother’s house nearby - he was later captured not far away.
On the body camera footage, one officer could be heard saying that he was pleased he had been detained.
“I hope they stomp his ass. I hope they stomp his ass,” he said.
