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Mark LeSure, a retired Memphis police officer and military veteran who has been outspoken about the police officers accused of murdering Tyre Nichols has been found dead.
Mark LeSure, a former sergeant with the Memphis Police Department’s (MPD) homicide unit, was found unresponsive outside of his Memphis home on Sunday, according to local news reports.
Officers from the Memphis Police Department responded to a man down call at the 4200 block of Falcon Drive at 8 a.m. Sunday, where the former officer, Sgt. Mark LeSure, was found dead at the scene, according to the department.
MPD Public Information Officer Theresa Carlson said in an email statement that a positive identification was made Tuesday afternoon.
The cause of death, according to Carlson, is still under investigation.
Who was Mark LeSure, ex-Memphis Cop?
LeSure joined the Memphis Police Department in 1992 after he spent 10 years as a military police officer in the U.S. Army.
He retired from the department in 2021 and went back to school to get his bachelor of arts degree in criminal justice policy in Spring 2023 from LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, according to the school’s commencement program.
While in school, he pledged to Omega Psi Phi Fraternity in the fall of 2022, as shown on his graduation stole in an image on his Facebook page.
He was known for speaking out against the killing of Tyre Nichols by Memphis Police officers, and against the force itself.
Nichols, 29, was fatally injured after being beaten by Memphis police officers in January 2023 during a traffic stop, dying three days later.
In January, Mr LeSure spoke to NBC News, telling the outlet that the department didn’t have enough senior staff to train the new officers.
He also told the New York Times that cuts had forced many of the department’s longest-serving officers to retire.
He told NBC: “Rookies were getting put on specialised units where they had no business being.”
Mr LeSure was also known as a mentor in the local community. Neighbour and friend Randie
Fleming said: “He had outreach ministries to young people in the community, a few blocks away. Westwood community center and now they just lost a mentor.
“It’s one thing you hear gang members shooting and killing each other, dying, but someone who is an upstanding guy, he served his community.”
