MEMPHIS, Tenn. Nyliayh Stewart said she did everything with her cousin Darrius Stewart. They grew up together in the same house and went to the same schools starting in day care the two even had the same second-grade teacher.

She remembered her cousin as sweet and kind-hearted, and she said all his friends would say the same thing about him.

Every memory would be my favorite memory, she told HuffPost.

Nearly eight years ago, Darrius Stewart was in a car that was pulled over by a white Memphis police officer. He was sitting in the back passenger seat. The officer, Connor Schilling, asked for everyones identification in the vehicle and found two active warrants against Stewart.

Police placed the 19-year-old in the back of a patrol car but did not handcuff him.

Police accused him of kicking the patrol car door open and attacking Schilling. After a struggle, Schilling shot Stewart, who died. A Tennessee Bureau of Investigations report found several witnesses disputing Schillings claim about the struggle before the shooting. Stewart was unarmed during the entire encounter.

Amy Weirich, who was Shelby County district attorney at the time, presented a manslaughter case against Schilling to a grand jury, but it declined to indict the officer. The United States Justice Department launched a federal investigation into the shooting but found insufficient evidence for civil rights violations. In 2016, Stewarts family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Memphis and Schilling, but a judge severed the city from the suit due to a lack of evidence that city policies led to his death. In 2020, the family filed another $17 million dollar lawsuit against Schilling alone, which remains ongoing.

The Stewart family, like others in Memphis, has been fighting for justice in cases of police violence for years and the death of Tyre Nichols has energized their push for accountability. Among other things, they want Shelby Countys new district attorney, Steve Mulroy, to reexamine their loved ones cases.

This Has Been Happening

Mulroys office told the Stewart family last week that he had staff members looking into the case.

But vague promises wont be enough for some of the forgotten families of Memphis police violence victims. Some gathered in the city on Saturday with other protesters, who blocked off streets near the downtown area.

John Perry was among them. Police shot and killed his son Jaylin McKenzie late last year. Perry told HuffPost he buried his son in Atlanta on Jan. 6 one day before Nichols died.

The initial police report says officers responded to a suspicious vehicle in a parking lot but never specified the reason for stopping it, nor what officers found suspicious. Authorities claim the driver, a friend of McKenzie, attempted to flee from the officers but ended up crashing into a nearby pole. Four men, including McKenzie, then fled from the car.

The suspect turned and fired at officers, and one officer returned fire, striking the subject, the police account said. But the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the shooting at Mulroys request, did not assert that McKenzie shot first when it released its initial account of what happened. One officer and the subject exchanged gunfire, resulting in the death of the individual, the bureaus statement read.

Perry said police have not given him any details and that they understand what happened. He said he has also asked Memphis police why officers stopped his son but has not received an answer. He also does not know the name of the officer involved yet.