THREE former Memphis police officers were frustrated, angry and full of adrenalin when they beat Tyre Nichols to death after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023, a prosecutor has told their trial on second-degree murder charges.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith have pleaded not guilty to state charges, but already face the prospect of years behind bars after being convicted of federal civil rights and witness-tampering offences last year.

During opening arguments in their trial on Monday, prosecutor Paul Hagerman showed the jury a police video of the incident.

The footage showed officers pepper-spraying Mr Nichols, a black 29-year-old, and hitting him with a Taser before he ran away from the traffic stop on January 7 2023.

The five officers, all black, gave chase and caught him just steps from his home, then beat him as he called out for his mother.

Mr Hagerman said that two of the officers held the victim’s arms as he was punched and kicked and hit with a police baton. As Mr Nichols sat on the ground afterwards with severe injuries, officers failed to tell medical personnel that he had been hit on the head, the prosecutor said.

An autopsy showed that Mr Nichols had died of blunt force trauma three days later.

The officers had a duty to stop the beating but were “overcome by the moment,” the prosecutor said.

They are charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

In his opening statement, Mr Bean’s attorney John Keith Perry claimed that Mr Nichols was "was actually resisting arrest the whole time” and that the officers just “wanted to do their job effectively.”