MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people, according to the findings of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation launched after the beating death of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in 2023.

A report released Wednesday marked the conclusion of the investigation that began six months after Nichols was kicked, punched and hit with a police baton as five officers tried to arrest him after he fled a traffic stop.

The report says that “Memphis police officers regularly violate the rights of the people they are sworn to serve.”

“The people of Memphis deserve a police department and city that protects their civil and constitutional rights, garners trust and keeps them safe,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in an emailed statement.

The city said in a letter released earlier Wednesday that it would not agree to negotiate federal oversight of its police department until it could review and challenge results of the investigation.

City officials had no immediate comment on the report but said they plan to hold a news conference Thursday after Justice Department officials hold their own news conference in Memphis on Thursday morning to address the findings.

Police video showed officers pepper spraying Nichols and hitting him with a Taser before he ran away from a traffic stop. Five officers chased down Nichols and kicked, punched and hit him with a police baton just steps from his home as he called out for his mother. The video showed the officers milling about, talking and laughing as Nichols struggled with his injuries.

Nichols died on Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. The five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired, charged in state court with murder, and indicted by a federal grand jury on civil rights and witness tampering charges.

Nichols was Black, as are the former officers. His death led to national protests, raised the volume on calls for police reforms in the U.S., and directed intense scrutiny towards the police department in Memphis, a majority Black city.

The report specifically mentions the Nichols case, and it addresses the police department’s practice of using traffic stops to address violent crime. The police department has encouraged officers in specialized units, task forces, and on patrol to prioritize street enforcement, and officers and community members have described this approach as “saturation,” or flooding neighborhoods with traffic stops, the report said.

“This strategy involves frequent contact with the public and gives wide discretion to officers, which requires close supervision and clear rules to direct officers’ activity,” the report said. “But MPD does not ensure that officers conduct themselves in a lawful manner.”

The report said prosecutors and judges told federal investigators that officers do not understand the constitutional limits on their authority. Officers stop and detain people without adequate justification, and they conduct invasive searches of people and cars, the report said.

“Black people in Memphis disproportionately experience these violations,” the report said. “MPD has never assessed its practices for evidence of discrimination. We found that officers treat Black people more harshly than white people who engage in similar conduct.”

The investigation found that Memphis officers resort to force likely to cause pain or injury “almost immediately in response to low-level, nonviolent offenses, even when people are not aggressive.”

The report says officers pepper sprayed, kicked and fired a Taser at an unarmed man with a mental illness who tried to take a $2 soda from a gas station. By the end of an encounter outside the gas station, at least nine police cars and 12 officers had responded to the incident, for which the man served two days in jail for theft and disorderly conduct.