An attorney for one of the officers charged with the murder of Tyre Nichols said he doesn’t believe his client “is capable of” the accusations against him.
“When this video comes out, I expect that Mr. Mills will not be delivering blows that cause death,” Blake Ballin, the attorney representing Desmond Mills, Jr., said in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. “I’ve sat down with Mr. Mills, I’ve looked him in the eye, I know the kind of person he is; I’ve talked with other people who have seen the video, and I just don’t believe that Mr. Mills is capable of committing that act.”
Ballin said he has not watched the video himself yet, but he’s spoken to people who have seen the footage.
“The levels of culpability amongst these five officers are different, and I expect that you’re going to see in this video that my client Desmond Mills is not, in fact, guilty of the crimes he’s been charged with,” he said.
Ballin said his client is “remorseful” to be “connected to the death” of Nichols.
“He is remorseful that he is attached to anything like this, that he is involved or connected to the death of somebody who, whose life should not have been taken. That is devastating to him.”
Ballin also called Mills a “victim” of the system he worked within.
“Just because Mr. Mills was a part of that system doesn’t mean that he can’t also be a victim of it, and so it’s my job to protect him and to protect his rights,” he said. “I believe Desmond Mills is a good person.”
“I caution everyone to look at this with an open mind and to treat each of these officers as individuals,” Ballin said.
edition.cnn.com 2023-01-27 15:10:56