Remember that meme of former Police Commissioner Michael Harrison smiling over a chessboard? There are a lot more where that came from.

Harrison standing over a phoenix rising over flames. Harrison in front of sports cars and a flaming motorcycle. Another labeled “True King.”

The chess meme was posted to Instagram by Harrison’s wife, just days after his abrupt exit from the Police Department. With questions about the circumstances of his departure, the image prompted speculation — had he somehow outmaneuvered city officials? Was he simply plotting his next move?

Harrison discussed his exit on Wednesday with The Banner and media partner WJZ, and also addressed the Instagram post.

Harrison said they were sent to his wife, CC, by a woman who frequently sits behind them at church and made the images using an AI generator. The chess game was not the only one.

“She sent me about a dozen,” he said.

Among them was a second chessboard image, showing a queen surrounded by pawns laying on the board. One shows a hand holding a compass. There’s even an animated one, with a lion and twinkling stars.

“I decided to shine a little light on your husband!” the artist told Harrison’s wife.

Okay. But of all those images to post, in that moment?

“No caption needed,” CC Harrison wrote in the post, which is no longer on her Instagram page.

CC Harrison said she didn’t think much of it at the time, and was disappointed to see some of the speculation after a reporter posted it to Twitter.

She said her husband is known to tell people, “I’m always playing chess; I’m never playing checkers.”

“Anybody who knows my husband, really knows my husband, knows he has that saying. Staff, family, people around us. They know becasue he’s got an analytical mind,” she said. “I saw the one with the chess pieces and I thought, ‘This is him.’”

“The other items, I’m not so sure,” she said.

justin.fenton@thebaltimorebanner.com