Titled "Seventh Memphis Officer Dismissed in Tyre Nichols Case: Decertification Documents Reveal Adrian Blake"
Recently acquired documents by CNN from the Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission reveal that Adrian Blake, a Memphis police officer, was terminated on February 23rd, just days after Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was brutally beaten by police officers following a traffic stop on January 7th. Seven weeks have passed since the events, without any evidence indicating that Blake participated actively in the attack.
Nichols tragically passed away on January 10th due to the sustained blows, according to official reports. In early February, Memphis notified the public that six police officers had been dismissed in connection to the incident, with five facing criminal charges for Nichols' death. In March, it was announced that an additional officer had been let go, without disclosing the officer's name.
The Memphis Police Department filed a petition for decertification against Blake on March 3rd, which CNN acquired through a public records request. In the document, Blake is not directly named in regards to the Nichols incident, but he is referred to in relation to an event on January 7th involving a man who died on January 10th. The document mentions that Blake observed several officers beating the man, but did not intervene or report the incident. Blake also denied having witnessed such actions.
When contacted by CNN for comment, Blake did not respond.
Declassified details
According to the decertification document, Blake responded to a distress call on January 7th involved in foot pursuit of a person evading the police. The document also states that his body-worn camera captured multiple officers attempting to apprehend a male individual who was lying on the ground.
The document goes on to say that Blake observed two police officers kicking the man while he was on the ground but did not intervene or report the event to the incident commander. Also, Blake did not mention the incident during his post-event interviews, and he later denied having witnessed the police action.
Blake was hired by the Memphis Police Department in 2019.
The police interaction with Nichols started after members of the "Professional Scorpions" unit of the Memphis Police Department detained Nichols for reckless driving on January 7th. Pyrotechnic devices, pepper spray, and physical force were used throughout the ordeal, as revealed by body-worn camera footage and CCTV video. The beating, combined with Nichols' eventual death, sparked widespread protests and controversy around the treatment of Black people by law enforcement agencies in the United States.
Five former Memphis police officers – Tadaris Bean, Justin Smith, Emmett Martin III, Demetrius Haley, and Desmond Mills Jr. – were arrested in February and charged with various crimes relating to Nichols' death. The most severe charge against both individuals is second-degree murder.
A federally-convened grand jury indicted five individuals on federal civil rights, conspiracy, and obstruction charges in September.
Late last month, Mills pleaded guilty in two of the four federal charges against him and agreed to plead guilty to any state charges related to the case. In exchange, he will be recommended for a sentence reduction and will testify against the other defendants. According to prosecutors, Mills agreed to cooperate fully with a state-level investigation into the practices and patterns of the Memphis Police Department.
As Mills arrived at the scene, he pursued Nichols, used pepper spray, and struck Nichols several times with a baton. According to a statement in his plea agreement, Mills did not provide any aid to Nichols after the beating, did not report the use of force to his superior officers, and falsely claimed they were following procedure in the police report. Misleading and deceptive statements.
It was revealed in February that Preston Hemphill was the sixth Memphis police officer dismissed in connection to the Nichols incident. The police accused Hemphill of violating departmental guidelines, including those related to personal conduct and honesty. Hemphill, however, was not charged with any criminal offenses.
CNN's Eric Levenson contributed to this report.
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