Memphis' Cerelyn C.J. Davis

 




The first woman to lead the city's police force, Cerelyn C.J. Davis, had been hired by Memphis, Tennessee, city council members. Davis was chosen as the new head of the Memphis Police Department by the City Council and would have had a first day on the job on June 14, 2021.  Michael Rallings, who was retiring, was replaced by Davis. Davis, a former officer with the Atlanta Police Department, had been Durham, North Carolina's police chief since 2016. Jim Strickland, the mayor of Memphis, chose Davis because he felt that her experience as a leader in Atlanta and Durham made her stand out.

In 2021, Davis had just recently started working there when she noticed that homicide rates were on the rise and heading for a record. In the downtown area close to her new residence, cars were frequently driving erratically late at night. To deal with the chaos, she had a strategy. A new unit called Scorpion, or Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, was established as part of her most ambitious plan. This team of 40 officers would be sent into some of the most dangerous areas of the city.

After several of the city's officers beat Tyre Nichols to death, the police chief disbanded the Scorpion unit this past Saturday, contradicting an earlier assertion that the unit would remain in place. The decision was made, according to Police Director Cerelyn "CJ" Davis, after she spoke with Nichols' family, local authorities, and other police officers that were not involved with the incident. In a statement, she stated that "it is in the greatest interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit." The police now working with the unit, according to her, "agree completely" with the decision.



The immediate actions taken by Davis and other authorities have so far stood out in the discouraging stream of police deaths in recent years. After the traffic encounter on January 7, Davis fired the five cops responsible for Nichols' death two weeks later. Accusations were announced against them on Thursday, including aggravated kidnapping and second-degree murder. Davis may have set the tone for immediate and effective action when it comes to officers being held accountable for their actions.



https://apnews.com/article/memphis-police-8073875eb5b2249a4b9352daa5a82f81

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/us/cerelyn-davis-memphis-police-chief-tyre-nichols/index.html

https://nypost.com/2023/01/28/memphis-police-chief-cerelyn-davis-fired-from-a-previous-job/


Comments

  1. Keenan M. TaylorFebruary 20, 2023 at 4:24 PM

    Hey Destini! Every city police department Cerelyn C.J. Davis was head of ran her out due to her shocking past. When Davis was with the APD, she was head of the Red Dog Unit that killed a 92-year-old woman in a no-knock warrant, similar to what happened to Breonna Taylor. In the early 2000s, an Atlanta police officer working at a photo process plant came across graphic photos of underage girls in possession of a man, who happened to be the husband of an Atlanta Police Sergeant. When the officer turned in the pictures to the department, no lead was made until years later.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Young Liberal Women, Gen. Z

Image
  They observed recent studies, data, articles, and polling about high numbers of young women who identify as liberal or progressive reporting they feel anxious or depressed or have been informed they have mental health disorders as we were arranging our most recent Times Opinion focus groups.  They gathered 13 progressive young women to discuss their experiences with mental health and, more broadly, whether Generation Zers face particular mental health challenges or if Gen Zers are simply more open about their struggles than previous generations are in an effort to better understand this data as well as the pressures and self-awareness among some young Americans today. Only three of the women stated they frequently felt down, melancholy, or hopeless, despite the fact that dealing with mental health issues was a common experience for them all. Twelve people expressed optimism for the future. Another participant, Molly, 25, stated, "Our age devotes more time and energy to enhan...
Read more

Black Women Working Towards Higher Positions

Image
Despite advancements at lower levels of government and one vice president who broke down barriers, those same barriers have been difficult to maneuver through for others. The first Black woman elected to the California State Assembly was Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, who served from 1967 to 1973. She became the first Black woman elected from the American West to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1973 to 1979. She was the first woman to lead the Congressional Black Caucus and the first Black woman to become vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. Significant obstacles stand in the way of Representative Barbara Lee as she begins her campaign for a California Senate seat. The election is anticipated to be among the most costly and competitive in the nation. She will have to deal with one of the strongest glass barriers in American politics, which makes it more scary. In 1998, when Ms. Lee, then 76, was first elected to Congress, there were 11 Black women servin...
Read more