The trouble with specialized police units

+ gambling and sports fandom US Edition - Today's top story: Tyre Nichols' death underscores the troubled history of specialized police units [View in browser]( US Edition | 2 February 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Tyre Nichols was laid to rest yesterday, having succumbed a few weeks ago to injuries he received during a vicious beating by members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit. That it was officers of the law meting out such brutality should no longer come as a shock given the frequency of such incidents. Nor should it surprise anyone that the officers involved were part of an “elite” unit, argue University of South Carolina’s Seth Stoughton and Ian Adams. Former cops themselves, Stoughton and Adams know that these specialized squads [have long been a problem](. Encouraged to adopt aggressive policing tactics and to judge success by the number of arrests they make, units like those that Nichols’ tormentors came from are prone to going rogue. “Treating aggressive crime fighting as the highest priority in policing can cultivate a corrosive culture in which bad behavior is often tolerated, even encouraged – to the detriment of community relations,” Stoughton and Adams write. Also today: - [How ChatGPT can get your creative juices flowing]( - [Why some remote workers are yearning for their commutes]( - [The Founding Father who’s generating backlash at Princeton]( Matt Williams Senior Breaking News and International Editor [Tyre Nichols’ death underscores the troubled history of specialized police units]( Ian T. Adams, University of South Carolina; Seth W. Stoughton, University of South Carolina The officers charged in the murder of a Black man in Memphis, Tenn., were part of the elite SCORPION squad. Such units have an ugly history. 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