Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) announced on Monday that he ordered an increased Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) presence on highways and interstates in Shelby County to help contend with the criminal element in Memphis.
Lee issued a press release unveiling “a surge of approximately 40 additional troopers” beginning this week. On November 27, wrote Lee’s office, “an additional 15-20 troopers from other districts across the state will join the surge” and remain in Shelby County “for the foreseeable future.”
Noting “rising crime” in the United States, Lee stated that “Tennessee is implementing proven crime prevention methods to keep our communities safe,” and said commended the troopers for “stepping up to enhance the law enforcement presence in Shelby County and help deter criminal activity in the area.”
Lee then turned to local officials, and seemed to accuse them of allowing criminals to return to the street.
“At the same time, local officials must carry out their responsibility to uphold the law and hold criminals accountable, without resorting to soft on crime plea deals that have serious consequences and too-often result in more crime and more victims,” Lee stated. His press release notes THP has already made more than 21,759 traffic stops in Shelby County since January 2023.
The action follows a letter sent by State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) last week, which urged Lee to take immediate action to curtail Memphis’ growing crime rate.
One of the suggestions Taylor made involved “surges” by THP, as Lee implemented Monday. Taylor also suggested a “monitoring team” to inform citizens of Memphis the number of crimes committed, arrests made, prosecutions, and convictions on a regular basis, and for the Tennessee General Assembly to create new laws to hold prosecutors, judges, and criminals to account.
Following the death of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital employee Alexander Bulakhov earlier this month, Memphis Mayor-elect Paul Young acknowledged that “1 percent” of the city’s residents are “terrorizing our whole city,” and pledged to embark on a “hard-hitting crime plan” to “combat this lawlessness” with “a multi-pronged, hard hitting, and focused effort” in Memphis.
Memphis has suffered a dramatic 22.6 percent reduction in its police force since 2011, decreasing from 2,449 officers in that year to 1,895 in 2022. At around the same time, from 2010 to 2018, the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce reported the city grew by 3.8 percent.
Former Memphis police officer Desmond Mills, Jr. pleaded guilty to using excessive force and conspiring to tamper with a witness in the death of Tyre Nichols on November 2, though neither Mills nor prosecutors acknowledged suspicions that officers targeted Nichols in a vendetta-style attack.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Gov. Bill Lee” by Gov. Bill Lee.
