Memphis police chief is NC native and Durham’s former chief of police. Who is she?

The police chief in Memphis, where protests ignited after police beat a Black man to death, has been in the national spotlight since the incident occurred.

Cerelyn Davis, who goes by C.J., is a North Carolina native who was Durham’s former chief of police. She was born in a military family stationed at Fort Bragg.

She spent five years as Durham’s police chief, leaving in 2021 to take the job in Memphis. In both cities, she was the first African American woman to lead the department.

“It’s no secret that other eyes around the country have been following her. And this isn’t surprising at all,” Mayor Pro Tempore Mark-Anthony Middleton told The News & Observer when Davis resigned. “It’s disappointing that she may be leaving, but not surprising at all. She’s a star, and stars rise.”

Davis, who made appearances on national media before releasing body-worn camera footage of the incident, called for protests to remain nonviolent. Change must come, she said.

“I expect you to feel outrage at the disregard of basic human rights,” she said. “Those five officers and others failed our community and failed the Nichols family.”

What happened to Tyre Nichols?

Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, died in the hospital Jan. 10, three days after Memphis police officers beat him during a traffic stop.

Footage of the beating was released Friday night, and protests began in Memphis and elsewhere around the country.

“This is not just a professional failing,” Davis said in a video released by her office Wednesday. “This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual. This incident was heinous, reckless and inhumane.

“You will see this for yourselves.”

Ben Crump, the Nichols family attorney, likened the video to the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police, which sparked deadly riots.

“It is appalling,” Crump told reporters.

Davis fired all five officers present last week: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith. Others are under investigation, she said.

The five officers were charged with second-degree murder Thursday and other crimes, including aggravated kidnapping and official misconduct.

Who is Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis?

Davis, a law enforcement veteran, had been deputy chief of Atlanta’s police department before stepping into her position in Durham in 2016.

Then, the Durham Police Department faced public criticism over mounting homicide rates and racial disparities in traffic stops and misdemeanor marijuana enforcement, The News & Observer reported.

Davis made changes that included requiring officers to cite — not arrest — for certain marijuana offenses and other misdemeanors; reducing the number of traffic stops for minor violations; requiring body cameras; and sending qualifying young people to a misdemeanor diversion program.

She also started a gang unit and expanded it in 2020 after a troubling rise in shootings. That year, Davis’ last full year as chief, a record number of people got shot in Durham.

“We absolutely have gangs,” Davis said in her first appearance before the Durham Crime Cabinet. “And the sooner you recognize that and start putting strategies in place to deal with it the better.”

She was part of the national conversation on police reform in 2020 sparked by Minneapolis police’s killing of George Floyd.

“I believe that we need to have sweeping changes and police reform where we are supported with legislation and that agencies are held accountable with accreditation to ensure every agency large and small has the best practices in place, “ Davis said on “Good Morning America” in June 2020.

That same month, she told a Senate committee the U.S. should ban chokeholds, create a national officer-misconduct database and reevaluate qualified immunity for police officers.

Davis said officers who lose qualified immunity — a federal doctrine shielding police officers from lawsuits over their conduct as long as the officers didn’t violate “clearly established” law — should not have indemnification, meaning they should pay damages for their misconduct.

“If an officer is found to be wrong or criminally in the wrong, then they shouldn’t be protected by the department,” Davis said at the hearing in Washington D.C.

Davis also was featured on national TV in 2017 alongside Durham’s current police chief, Patrice Andrews, in a segment journalist Megyn Kelly held on Black women in law enforcement.

“If your idea of a police chief is a gruff cigar-chomping tough guy, then you need to meet C.J. Davis,” Kelly started the segment.

Davis said she still gets followed in stores, then discussed with Kelly how the average male officer is eight-and-half times more likely than a female officer to face an excessive force complaint.