From New York Times, I'm Michael Baboro. This is Italy.

The death of Tyree Nichols at the hands of police in Memphis last month has intensified

calls for fundamental reform in policing.

What happened to Tyree in Memphis happens too often.

We have to do better.

All the way up to President Biden, who hosted Nichols' parents at his State of the Union

Address on Tuesday night and demanded that Congress finally take action.

Let's come together to finish the job on police before we do something.

Today, my colleague, Mike Baker, on what a Times investigation has uncovered about the

special unit of police officers accused of killing Nichols and what it tells us about

the challenges of preventing police brutality.

It's Wednesday, February Eve.

Mike for the past week or so, you and our colleagues have been investigating this special

unit of police officers in Memphis, the Scorpion unit, whose members have been charged

with murdering Tyree Nichols.

Tell us the story that you've uncovered about this unit starting with how it was that

it came into being.

Yes, so this was a specialized crime fighting unit focused on hotspot neighborhoods where

the city had seen high rates of crime, high rates of violent crime, and wanted to take

some extra steps to address it.

These types of units, these hotspot units, we've seen them over decades in cities around

the country in Los Angeles and New York and Atlanta and Chicago.

...