A Republican state senator penned a two-page letter to Gov. Bill Lee (R) asking for state assistance to deal with Memphis’ recent crime surge.
Recounting recent spates of violence, many of which have been reported by The Tennessee Star, State Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) said:
My city is under siege. Just this past weekend, Dr. Alexander Bulakhov, a post-doctoral staffer at St. Jude Children’s Hospital, was murdered during a botched robbery while his family watched in horror. Between Friday and Sunday, there were six additional shootings, four smash-and-grab incidents of convenient stores, a FedEx tractor-trailer truck was forced to a complete stop in traffic while a group of thieves looted the trailer, and a marauding band of young people blocked the interstate to use their vehicles to “spin-out.” During this last spectacle, passengers of these “spin-out” vehicles hung from open car windows brandishing firearms in front of terrorized motorists. Multiple videos made viral on social media evidence this type of activity being done in front of police cruisers to taunt law enforcement. The examples listed are just a few of the brazen criminal activities occurring in Memphis leaving law-abiding citizens in terror.
Taylor (pictured above) said that his constituents have asked for the Tennessee National Guard to be deployed to the city, but he said that a deployment would be challenging logistically and likely would be ineffective as “the National Guard serves more as a deterrent to criminal activity in small, localized areas of a city like a downtown area,” and that “[t]he National Guard is relatively untrained in … important aspects of criminal arrests.”
Taylor made three concrete suggestions for help in reducing crime in the city.
The first is what he describes as “surges” by Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) on Memphis interstates and state routes to increase law enforcement presence, in addition to THP patrols.
Another is creating a “monitoring team,” which would disclose to the public “the number of crimes committed, arrests made, prosecutions, and convictions of crimes committed. Memphians have a right to know this information so data from the local prosecutors and judicial system may be challenged or validated.”
Third, Taylor asked for help from his fellow Republicans in the General Assembly to make laws to help hold prosecutors, judges, and criminals accountable.
“Memphis needs help to save it from future ruin,” the letter said. “The State of Tennessee cannot be successful if its most famous city is not successful.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter/X.
Photo “Senator Brent Taylor” by Senator Brent Taylor.Background Photo “Memphis Skyline” by photophone02. CC BY-SA 3.0.
