Mercer also wrote that Bernice “physically interfered with an arrest.” No arrest had occurred at the time she reached for her husband. She had simply reacted when Mercer grabbed him.
Prosecutors noticed. So did the public. Demonstrations began outside city hall.
Some marches were organized by long-standing civil-rights organizations. Others came from younger residents who had learned about older complaint files only after Mercer’s arrest. Signs carried Walter and Bernice’s names alongside those of residents whose accusations had been dismissed years earlier.
Adrian never led the demonstrations. His responsibility as chief was to protect the demonstrators’ rights and ensure officers did not treat criticism as hostility. He issued one instruction repeatedly: insults directed at police were not criminal threats.
That became important during the second weekend. A young patrol officer wanted to arrest a teenager screaming profanity toward a police line. Captain Lena Morris stopped him.
“You don’t have to like the First Amendment,” she told him. “You still work under it.” Adrian heard about the exchange later and asked the academy to use the sentence.
Inside headquarters, the audit continued. Investigators found altered narratives, missing body-camera segments, delayed complaint intake, and files closed without interviewing obvious witnesses. Several officers who had stayed silent for years finally agreed to speak.
One detective told investigators, “We were taught that speaking up made you disloyal.” Adrian asked whether he still believed that.
The detective looked toward the table. “I think staying silent made us disloyal to everybody else.” The line later appeared in the public report.
Three supervisors were placed on administrative leave. One retired rather than complete a disciplinary interview. Another gave up his supervisory rank and returned to patrol.
Thomas Reddick, who had fought the audit from the beginning, walked into Adrian’s office one evening carrying a worn folder. He placed it on the desk and did not sit. “You need this.”
Inside were handwritten notes from meetings stretching back almost nine years. Complaint numbers. Officer names.
Short descriptions. Several involved Mercer.
Adrian looked up. “Why do you have these?” Thomas stared through the office window.
“Because every time I told myself something wasn’t serious enough to fight about, I wrote it down.” Adrian closed the folder halfway.
“Why?” Thomas took a long time answering. “Some part of me knew we were lying to ourselves.”
“Why didn’t you act?” Thomas finally looked at him.
“Because I wanted to become deputy chief.” The honesty was ugly enough to be useful.
Thomas continued. “I kept telling myself I could change things when I had more authority.” Adrian said nothing.
“Then I got more authority.” Thomas looked toward the folder. “And found another reason to wait.”
Adrian removed Thomas from any Professional Standards oversight but allowed him to remain while investigators evaluated his role. Thomas accepted the decision without argument. Months later, his testimony would become important in multiple administrative cases.
The city established a joint accountability task force made up of outside investigators, neighborhood representatives, civil-rights attorneys, current officers, former officers, and training experts. Meetings were rarely comfortable. Residents arrived carrying years of distrust, while officers arrived feeling blamed for decisions made before some of them entered the academy.