Fired Over the Nichols Scene, Re-Hired With Back Pay "As If He Never Left"

The Tennessee POST Commission on August 21 lifted the certification suspension of Adrian Blakes, an officer MPD fired in 2023 for failing to intervene or report what he saw the night Tyre Nichols was beaten. MPD's own legal advisor told the commission he gets his full job back with back pay. The grievance decision that ordered it is not public.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - One of the officers the Memphis Police Department fired over the Tyre Nichols case is coming back, with back pay, and the decision that put him back was not made in public.

The Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, the state body that certifies law enforcement officers, on Friday, August 21, 2026 lifted the suspension on the certification of Adrian Blakes, clearing the way for his return to MPD, per FOX13 and Action News 5. "He will be given his full job back, and he'll be awarded back pay as if he never left," MPD legal advisor Jimmy Thomas told the commission during an informal hearing, per FOX13.

What Blakes was fired for is in the department's own documents, as described in both outlets' accounts: responding to the scene on January 7, 2023, he witnessed two officers kick Nichols while Nichols was on the ground, did not intervene, did not report the conduct to a scene supervisor, and then denied witnessing it in his investigative interview. He was terminated February 23, 2023, one of the officers disciplined over the case beyond the five who faced murder charges, and MPD submitted him for decertification that year. He was never criminally charged, per Action News 5.

The reversal came through the grievance process. Blakes challenged his termination, won, and the POST Commission, whose suspension of his certification had been pending the outcome of that employment appeal, lifted it once the appeal went his way. The grievance decision itself, the document that found the termination could not stand, has not been made public in either outlet's account.

Nichols died January 10, 2023, three days after the traffic stop and beating by officers of the since-disbanded SCORPION unit. The firings that followed were the department's public accounting: this conduct, the chief said then, was incompatible with the badge. The grievance machinery has now returned a different answer for at least one officer, and it did so without the public seeing the reasoning.

Why It Matters for Memphis

The 2023 terminations were presented as accountability. If they are reversible through arbitration that runs out of public view, the accountability was provisional, and the public record should say so. The back pay commitment also carries a cost: roughly three and a half years of an officer's salary, paid from public funds, for a termination the process found defective.

The Transparency Gap

Who holds the authority here. Three bodies, and the public saw only one of them. MPD fired Blakes, and that action was announced publicly in 2023. The grievance or civil service process reversed it, and that forum is not open to the public and produced a decision nobody outside it has read. The Tennessee POST Commission holds certification and acted on August 21 only because the employment appeal had already been decided; its role was to follow the outcome, not to review the conduct. The city's law division and the Office of the Mayor hold the personnel record and the payroll obligation. No court reviewed any of it, and no criminal charge was ever filed.

What has not been disclosed. The grievance decision itself is not public, so the finding that the termination could not stand has never been explained. The back pay figure has not been stated, only characterized as full. The total count of officers disciplined over the Nichols case, and how many of those disciplinary actions have been challenged or reversed, has not been published. Whether MPD intends to contest the reinstatement, and whether Blakes returns to patrol or to another assignment, is unstated.

Why the gap matters, and what we are requesting. A department that fires officers in public and rehires them in private has an accountability record the public cannot audit. The question is not whether Blakes deserved reinstatement, which the process has answered, but whether the 2023 terminations were durable at all, and how many more of them are exposed to the same reversal. That is answerable only from documents. The 901 Report is requesting the grievance or civil service decision ordering reinstatement, the back pay calculation and the budget line charged, MPD's full 2023 disciplinary disposition list for the Nichols case with current status for each officer, and the POST Commission's August 21, 2026 meeting record. We will report what those records show.

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Fired Over the Nichols Scene, Re-Hired With Back Pay "As If He Never Left"

Why It Matters for Memphis

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