Push is coming to shove in the public outrage stemming from the shooting death last week of MPD Officer Joseph McKinney. And the shoving, on behalf of stouter crackdowns on local crime, is coming from more sources than ever before.
Mayor Paul Young, who has arguably been somewhat slow on the draw in fleshing out his crime program, cruising along with an interim police chief and nobody yet to fill his ballyhooed position of public safety director, is suddenly all cries and alarms.
Sounding almost like some of the more active Republican critics of Memphis crime in the legislature, Young released a statement including these words: “Together, let’s petition our judges and the DA for stronger, swifter sentencing for violent offenses. If you are part of the judicial system, hear my voice first. We need to work together to do better for our community.”
DA Steve Mulroy himself expressed anger that a $150,000 bond that he’d previously set for previous crimes committed by the youth suspected in the death of Officer McKinney had been somehow amended by a judicial commissioner to allow the youth back on the streets through his own recognizance.
And Shelby County Commissioner Mick Wright, a leading critic of the current crime wave, was warning, on behalf of his commission mates, “We are not finished. … You’re going to see some judges get exited stage left if I have anything to say about it.”
It was a definite irony that, scarcely a week after the MPD had announced the 100th homicide in Memphis this year, Young scheduled this week’s public celebration of his first 100 days in office at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church.
Perhaps the mayor will use that occasion to outline further his and the city council’s plan for a new nonprofit organization to reverse the crime trend.
• Former Shelby County Democratic chair Gabby Salinas, who in recent years ran two close races against established Republican office-holders, has a different situation on her hands this year.
She’s running for the state House District 96 seat being vacated by Democratic incumbent Dwayne Thompson. Not a Republican contestant in sight so far, but Salinas has four Democratic rivals — Eric Dunn, Telisa Franklin, Orrden Williams Jr., and David Winston. She remains the favorite.
• As mentioned in this space of late, Democrats are seriously contesting the state House District 97 seat now held by Republican John Gillespie. Mindful of the potential perils of procrastination, they brought out some heavy artillery last week.
At a fundraiser for party candidate Jesse Huseth at the home of attorney Robert Donati last week, an important attendee was 9th District U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the county’s senior Democratic office-holder, who formally bestowed his endorsement on Huseth and was critical of Gillespie for legislative actions intended to shift various aspects of law-enforcement authority from the city to the state.
Cohen noted that the 97th, which was redistricted by the legislature last year, would now seem to be tilted demographically to Democrats in this election year — “up three points for Huseth and up five points for Biden.”
As Huseth himself put it, the East Memphis-based district had lost “four solid-red precincts and picked up two light-blue precincts and two light-red precincts.”
The point of the redistricting, which was carried out by the General Assembly’s GOP supermajority, remains something of a mystery, although it is said that Gillespie signed off on it, thinking it gave him more potential access to‚ and opportunity to serve, the business community.
• No doubt emboldened by the local unpopularity of Governor Bill Lee’s school-voucher program, which was formally opposed by the Memphis-Shelby County School Board and by the boards of the six municipal school districts as well, Democrats are taking another crack at the state House District 83 seat held by Mark White, House education chair and a champion of vouchers.
At least one Democrat is: political newcomer Noah Nordstrom, an MSCS Spanish teacher.
Brent Taylor (Photo: Senator Brent Taylor | Facebook)
State Senator Brent Taylor, who is functioning as a sort of self-appointed scourge of Shelby County’s existing law-enforcement infrastructure, is at it again — attempting to prod state government into intervening against “the slow movement of cases” through the county’s criminal justice system.
“Crime in Memphis has risen to a level that requires immediate action to save the city,” Taylor proclaimed in a newly released letter to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. He cites figures appearing to show that processing of criminal cases in the county dropped to a level of 40 cases last year, down from “approximately 200 per year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Taylor’s letter poses four questions to the attorney general:
“(1) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to assign judges from one or more judicial districts to other judicial districts for purposes of trying criminal cases?
“(2) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to temporarily assign judges from a certain judicial district to try criminal cases in that same judicial district?
“(3) Does the Governor of Tennessee have the authority to require Shelby County Circuit Court Judges to handle criminal matters in Shelby County?
“(4) Who has the authority to require certain Shelby County Circuit Court Judges to assist with and/or try criminal cases?”
Taylor, who represents state Senate District 31, said in the letter that, if the governor is deemed to have such authority to assign judges — whether from other judicial districts or from other courts within the same district — to help process criminal cases in Shelby County, then he would request the governor do so immediately.
“By prosecuting criminal cases quickly, we will remove violent and repeat criminal offenders from the streets of Memphis so that the law-abiding can raise their families in peace and safety,” he wrote in the letter.
Taylor, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote, “I am determined to pursue any legal avenue available to tackle our serious violent crime problem.”
This new letter is the latest in a series of public statements in which the senator, who was elected to his first term just last year, has inquired of other state officials about the possibility of extending state power into areas that have previously been reserved for local authorities.
In previous missives to the governor, to House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and to the state board of professional responsibility, he has proposed such actions as sending the National Guard into Memphis and reducing the supervisory power of Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
The senator has introduced a legislative package in Nashville that, among other things, would change bail laws, require law enforcement to report undocumented immigrants, and reclassify stolen gun charges.
Another of his proposals would exempt Memphis police from having to uphold a city council prohibition against preemptive traffic stops for suspected minor infractions. At the moment, this matter has achieved hot-button status in city government.
Jim Strickland gets a hug from the Rotary Club’s Edwina Thomas at one of the outgoing mayor’s several farewell addresses. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Memphians had been flummoxed in late 2022 by two heinous crimes — the brazen kidnapping from her jogging trail and murder of schoolteacher Liza Fletcher and a maniacal killing spree by one Ezekiel Kelly, who videoed the shootings of his random victims on social media as he rambled around town that evening in a series of stolen cars.
These were horrific events, and they earned widespread national attention as well.
But the dazed citizens of Memphis had, as they say, seen nothing yet. Nor had the world. In the first weeks of the new year, a young amateur photographer and skateboard enthusiast named Tyre Nichols was stopped while driving home and mauled and killed by members of an out-of-control police unit called, ominously, “SCORPION.”
Understandably, such circumstances, coupled with a dismaying rise in shootings, car thefts, break-ins, and youth violence in general, ensured that public safety and crime control — on both sides of the law — would loom large in the year’s city elections.
Temporarily interrupted by legal confusion over possible residency issues, the mayoral race eventually saw an original field of 11 winnowed down to four main contenders: Sheriff Floyd Bonner, former Mayor Willie Herenton, NAACP head Van Turner, and Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young.
An early favorite, Bonner would see his prospects marred, fairly or not, by publicity regarding an apparent rash of inmate deaths in the county jail. The ultimate victor was Young, a veteran of several more or less technocratic city and county jobs, who had begun the race as a virtual unknown but caught fire, thanks to influential backing, formidable fundraising, and nonstop on-the-clock campaigning.
The outgoing Mayor Jim Strickland, a veteran of two terms, had been vexed by the issue in his turn. He had expended considerable time in recent months lamenting what he called a “revolving door,” whereby members of the judiciary and local prosecutorial authorities were, in his estimation, being lax about getting criminals off the streets and keeping them off.
But, in the course of several year-end farewell appearances as mayor, Strickland found a silver lining or two.
In prepared remarks, Strickland cited “city recruitment and retention programs and incentives to grow our [police] department” closer to a distant goal of 2,500. (Currently, the MPD is about 1,900 strong.) Altogether, 1,136 officers had been added to the force, and 1,301 had been promoted during his tenure, Strickland noted.
Other matters mentioned by Strickland in a wide sweep of claimed accomplishments included a variety of development projects, youth programs, and initiatives for the homeless, along with extensive re-paving, new LED street lighting, and more of the “basics” candidate Strickland had promised to be “brilliant” at when he first ran in 2015.
In the course of his remarks during an unveiling of his official portrait in City Hall, the mayor was openly emotional to the point of tears as he expressed gratitude for the opportunity to have served eight years in “the best job I ever had.”
And now that job is Paul Young’s for the having. One of the bases of candidate Young’s appeal had been his assertion that he didn’t care about the politics of things, that, rather, “I just want to do the work.”
That modest declaration was reassuring in the same way that Strickland’s expressed determination to see to the basics had been.
Young, too, will have to concern himself with the everyday and the commonplace of governing — and no doubt will do well at it.
But to return to our main theme, he will have to wrestle — and wrestle hard — with the overarching theme of public safety.
One reminder is that 2024 will see the trial of a second defendant in the 2018 murder on Front Street of then Chamber of Commerce president Phil Trenary, a random victim who was walking home to his condo after watching the conclusion of a 5K race Downtown.
As many readers may know, there is an ongoing cold-turning-hot war between Republican state Senator Brent Taylor and Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy over various matters of crime control.
Taylor has aimed several initiatives, rhetorical and otherwise, in Mulroy’s direction of late. Representing himself as a zealous advocate of strict law enforcement — a proponent of “aggressive” approaches as against “progressive” ones — Taylor has complained to the media and to Governor Bill Lee and other state officials and agencies, including the State Board of Professional Responsibility, that the Democratic DA has allowed the Memphis crime rate to skyrocket by undue emphasis on restorative justice concepts at the expense of law enforcement per se.
A fresh quote volunteered by the senator via text: “I am not trying to prove whose dick is bigger. But I am trying to show that more voters aligned themselves with my position of aggressive prosecutions.”
Whereupon he cited vote totals from his successful 2022 senate race versus his Democratic opponent — apparently unaware that his victory margin in that district race depended on fewer votes overall than were achieved by Mulroy in his defeat of Republican Amy Weirich in the DA’s race.
Similarly, the senator’s case against Mulroy on the law enforcement score is, to say the least, debatable. As is ever the case, some crime statistics are up; others are down. The senator acknowledges that the DA’s recently launched campaign against gang-led “smash-and-grab” assaults on local businesses has achieved some results. “We just need more arrests,” he says grudgingly.
Current points of contention between the two include the matter of bail-bond policy, which Taylor considers too lax, though current bail policy was arrived at jointly by Mulroy and Weirich, his Republican predecessor. Taylor also professes to be steamed by what he calls “collusion” between Mulroy and Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan in a pair of cases involving the reduction or elimination of sentences imposed on defendants. The senator vows to impose correctives in the forthcoming session of the General Assembly, one of which involves expediting the transfer of juveniles charged with capital crimes to Criminal Court.
Interestingly, in the several months before Taylor and Mulroy acquired their current offices, they had enjoyed a warm, and even cozy, degree of collaboration with each other.
That was in the period of 2021-22 when Taylor, who was already eyeing a district Senate seat that was about to slip out from under the legally vulnerable GOP incumbent Brian Kelsey, was head of the Shelby County Election Commission (dominated 3-2 by Republicans though ostensibly neutral). Mulroy, an activist Democrat par excellence, was pursuing one of his favorite causes, that of local voting via paper ballots.
On several occasions, Taylor, whose party members tended (at that time, anyhow) not to favor that idea, nevertheless exercised what Mulroy considered exemplary fairness in presiding over discussions, in matters of scheduling, and in his parliamentary decisions. In the process, the two of them, quite simply, became buds.
At the moment, that relationship seems fractured — broken on the shoals of partisan differences, political ambition, and state-vs.-local considerations.
The victories in last week’s city council runoff elections of three women over their male opponents further dramatizes an ever-increasing trend toward female dominance in the elective positions of both city and county governments.
To recap the results:
In District 2 (East Memphis), Jerri Green defeated Scott McCormick by a total of 1,752 votes to McCormick’s 1,696. In District 3 (Whitehaven), Pearl Walker won out over Rev. James Kirkwood with 781 votes to Kirkwood’s 767. And, in District 7, incumbent Michalyn Easter-Thomas defeated Jimmy Hassan by 966 votes to 504.
Besides reflecting the trend, the razor-thin victory margins of Green and Walker suggest a slight — but potentially crucial — prevalence of progressivism over conservatism in the council’s showdown votes to come.
Green is a Democrat who has been serving as chief policy advisor to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, while McCormick had significant support among Republican activists; Walker, a community organizer, is an avowed progressive whose opponent was a former ranking MPD officer.
Arguably, the wins of Green and Walker somewhat offset the earlier general election victory of conservative former Councilman Philip Spinosa over progressive Meggan Wurzburg Kiel in District 5 (Midtown/East Memphis). That race had figured as a bona fide ideological showdown of sorts.
Whatever the ultimate political bent of the newly elected council, it will have a female majority of seven women and six men. That will put it in alignment of sorts with the Shelby County Commission, which has the same ratio, with a woman, Miska Clay Bibbs, serving currently as chair. And there is no doubting that the other women on the commission, activists all, are making their influence felt as well.
• Perhaps the most important official position held by a woman at the moment is that of police director, and one of the most frequently vented questions during the recent mayoral contest concerned whether C.J. Davis, who holds the job, could expect to be reappointed by the new mayor.
During the campaign, the mayoral contenders reflected a variety of opinions on the matter, most of them leaning to noncommittal statements of one kind or another.
The victor, Mayor-elect Paul Young, held to a position that he would commit himself neither to hires nor fires of major personnel.
Be that the case or not, Davis, who addressed a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Memphis last week, sounded confident in laying out an agenda for the new year — one that among other things, envisions a significant increase in the MPD’s hands-on corps of sergeants — that she would actually be the person to execute it.
Asked after her remarks about the likelihood of her continuing in office, Davis went the neither-confirm-nor-deny route but made a point of saying that she had enjoyed good relations with Young in their frequent contacts over the years.
• Davis’ speech to the Rotarians followed one to the same group last month by Greater Memphis Chamber president/CEO Ted Townsend, who made a point of downplaying the effect of recent crime outbreaks on the city’s economic development picture.
On a recent recruitment tour, looking for new business, Townsend said, “I didn’t get one question about crime. Not one. I was bracing for it. I prepared for it. I expected it.”
He acknowledged that one national headquarters company located here may have been influenced by “the C-word” and “were thinking about leaving, or wanting to go to Dallas. We fought hard. We set the value proposition, we said work with us, things will be improved. We have not given up on it. You don’t give up on it. … We should fight for Memphis and never give up.”
Reverend Earle Fisher with mayoral candidates Van Turner and Paul Young at the People’s Convention (Photo: Facebook | People’s Convention)
As the recent nonstop turbulent weather subsided somewhat, last weekend saw the culmination of candidate endorsements by the People’s Convention, a citizens movement of some years’ standing, with roots in the inner city and among progressives. That turned out to be a mano a mano between NAACP president Van Turner, the early favorite of Democrats and progressives, and Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO who has undeniable momentum (and cash reserves) feeding his goal of across-the-board support.
Despite a stem-winding address to the 300 or so attendees by Turner in which the candidate recounted his many services in his NAACP work, as a county commissioner, as a Democrat, and as a prime mover in the removal of Confederate memorabilia Downtown, the win went to Young, the election season’s most unstinting mayoral aspirant, who focused his remarks on his past services as a workhorse in city and county government, which, he said, had garnered support for such community additives as the Memphis Sports and Events Center at Liberty Park itself, where the People’s Convention was being held this year under the direction of the Reverend Earle Fisher.
Fisher has in recent years revived the convention, which had first been held in 1991 and had been a force that year in the election of Willie Herenton as the city’s first Black mayor. Ironically, Fisher on last Saturday would chastise both Herenton, a mayoral candidate again, and Sheriff Floyd Bonner, another aspirant, for their no-shows this year at the People’s Convention.
Bonner had opted instead for a well-attended forum on women’s issues, being held simultaneously at the IBEW building on Madison under the auspices of the Democratic Women of Shelby County. Eight other mayoral contenders also participated in that event.
The mayoral-preference vote at the People’s Convention last Saturday was 224 for Young and 116 for Turner, and owed much to the disproportionate sizes of the supportive claque each brought with him.
Other Convention preferences were for Jerri Green in council District 2; Pearl Walker in District 3; Meggan Kiel in District 5; Michalyn Easter-Thomas in District 7; JB Smiley Jr. in Super District 8, Position 1; Janika White in Super District 8, Position 2; Jerred Price in Super District 8, Position 3; and Benji Smith in Super District 9, Position 1.
• Later last Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning), a massive and unruly crowd materialized in Downtown Memphis, resulting in shots being fired. Eight victims were injured, and an MPD officer was roughed up by out-of-control youths.
The event illuminated the issue of crime as a dominant motif in this year’s election. Mayoral candidates Bonner and Herenton especially have emphasized the importance of the issue and their determination to deal with it.
Fisher would also weigh in on the matter, condemning the violence but calling for long-term community-based alternatives to repressive-suppressive techniques for crime control. (Of note to Flyer readers: This week’s cover story by Chris McCoy also considers such alternatives.)
As a kind of footnote to things, the Shelby County Commission last Monday considered, but deferred for two weeks, action on proposals for restrictions on preemptive traffic stops and use of specialized units by the Sheriff’s Department.
Similar curbs were recently imposed on the MPD by the city council.
Editor’s note: After receiving numerous complaints from readers for displaying a photo of Wednesday night’s assailant in this space, we have decided that its news value as an identifier of a dangerous person at-large is no longer applicable, so we’ve removed the picture.
Here is Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s statement in full:
“I want to first, express my deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families who are suffering from this senseless murder rampage. I’m angry for them, and I’m angry that our citizens had to shelter in place for their own safety until the suspect was caught. This is no way for us to live and it is not acceptable.
The people of our city were confronted with the type of violence no one should have to face. Ezekiel Kelly was charged with criminal attempted first degree murder but pled guilty in April of 2021 to the lesser charge of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to three years, but only served 11 months and was released on March 16th, 2022 — less than six months ago.
These evil actions show why truth in sentencing is a must, and we should do all we can to make our city safe. We should not be terrorized by anyone who wants to strike fear in our hearts and take away what we love about Memphis. We must unite around this principle and stand up to the challenge of violent crime in our city.
If Mr. Kelly served his full three-year sentence, he would still be in prison today and four of our fellow citizens would still be alive.
Thank you state legislature, led by [state House Speaker Rep. Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville) and [Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge), for passing truth in sentencing. From now on, three years for aggravated assault means three years.
Our judicial system is too often a revolving door. A citizen emailed me today — ‘until/unless there are real consequences for criminal behavior, it will continue.’
I agree 100 percent. We need the courts and additional state laws to stop this revolving door and I need the public to make their voices heard by those decision makers.
I want to thank the men and women of our Memphis Police Department, and all the supporting law enforcement agencies who supported in capturing the suspect tonight, and aided in the search for Liza Fletcher earlier this week.
This has been a painful week in our city, but I have hope for Memphis, I have love for Memphis, I know that united …..we will endure.”
State House Minority Leader Rep. Karen Camper (D-Memphis):
“Our city is hurting. My heart goes out to the families of those killed and injured tonight. It was an unspeakable horror and it occurred just days after our city was devastated by another tragedy: the terrible murder of elementary school teacher Eliza Fletcher.
“It’s been a sad few months for Memphis. There is a long road ahead and much work ahead for us to do in order to begin to heal our city and we will have those policy discussions. But now we have to lock arms and pray for all of the victims of this week and the past few months and not let these tragic circumstances tear our hearts away from the city we all love.”
Greater Memphis Chamber President and CEO Beverly Robertson:
“The Greater Memphis Chamber and our entire business community are deeply saddened by the tragic events our city has lived through in recent days. We extend our condolences to the families and friends of those lost to these senseless acts of inhumanity.
“The Chamber remains committed to working with our business leaders, elected officials, and residents to thoughtfully identify real solutions that lead to real results. I have already reached out to the mayor and police chief of Memphis to ensure the business community will be at the table as we move forward.
“We all must play a role in driving positive change in our community, and this journey is just starting. Working together, we will make a difference.”
State Rep. London Lamar:
Lamar
“The book of Psalms says ‘I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words.’
This morning, our families in Memphis are crying out for accountability and justice. We are hoping that, together, we can summon the courage to take real action against gun violence.
No community should have to live with the trauma of mass shootings and terrorism. But this isn’t the first senseless tragedy and it won’t be the last if we are unwilling to turn our prayers into action.
I have consistently fought for evidence-based reforms that prevent violent crime. We will continue our work to expand access to mental healthcare. And our mission to end generational poverty never ceases.
But our work is being crippled by policies that make it easier for dangerous people to access deadly weapons. I am a gun owner, but I understand the right to carry must come with meaningful rules and responsibilities.
Again, I am asking anyone at the Capitol who will listen: Please acknowledge the deadly consequences of guns falling into the wrong hands and work with me to end gun violence against our families.”
Taylor
Shelby County Health Department Director Dr. Michelle Taylor:
“The shootings last night in Memphis that left four people dead and three injured, and the kidnapping and death of Eliza Fletcher are a wake-up call for our community.
Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) extends its deepest sympathies to all the victims, their friends and families, and everyone in our community impacted by this past week’s violent events. We also thank the many law enforcement personnel and first responders who risk their lives every day to bring an end to violent crime in our community and make Memphis a “place of good abode,” as it was called when it was founded.
The principles of public health practice are well suited to implement a violence prevention framework that addresses the root causes of violent crime. The key to addressing the endless cycle of shootings and imprisonment in our community is to heal the generational trauma that makes violence appear to be the only option. Adverse childhood experiences and adverse community experiences have increased over time, due to the structural and institutional failures to address the issues leading to inequality and conflict in our community.
Shelby County Health Department is committed to expanding access to behavioral health resources for everyone throughout their lifespan as a first step to addressing the generational traumas that can lead to community violence. SCHD provides a wide range of prevention and screening services. We are expanding our reach by convening behavioral health resources and acting on our analysis of gun violence as a public health crisis in our community. As a part of that work, SCHD has begun a Cure Violence Global pilot program using a local subcontractor (Heal 901) to replicate Cure Violence’s data-driven, evidence-based approach to crime prevention here in Shelby County.
Please join the Shelby County Health Department in our meaningful and collaborative action to bring an end to the senseless violence that harms everyone in our community. To learn more about how to get involved, please visit our website: shelbytnhealth.com.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis):
Cohen
“What has been happening in my hometown is harrowing and disturbing. I have been concerned for some time about the crime situation and have spoken with the relevant public officials about addressing the issue.
I have suggested convening a summit with the two mayors, the District Attorney General, the Police Director, the Shelby County Sheriff, the school board president, and the juvenile court judge. We need a comprehensive approach involving the schools and the juvenile justice system to help reverse these disturbing trends.
“Today I wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland to explain the situation in Memphis, noting the high-profile killings in recent days and weeks, and asking him to look favorably on discretionary grants from the Edward Byrne Memorial Grants Assistance and COPS programs and to provide any and all other assistance available from the Department of Justice. I also asked to speak with him at his earliest convenience.”
Archie waved me over to the pastry case. He sort of crouched down on my level — I was 11 or so at the time and quite a bit shorter than the tanned, mullet-sporting man my mom was dating — and he spoke in something approaching a loud stage whisper. For Archie, that was as close to being incognito as it got. His voice was a boom with a ragged edge. He wore a small gold hoop in his ear, was perpetually clad in a hoodie and shorts, glowed with an incandescent suntan, rode a motorcycle, and had strong opinions about everything. Whispering was not his style.
“Watch this,” he said, as he stuffed a dozen or so cookies in the front pocket of his hoodie.
Stealing isn’t really stealing if it’s food and you need it, he explained. And if you were stealing from someone who could afford to eat the cost. It’s best to steal things that are hard to inventory — bakery items don’t have barcodes, and you don’t really look too conspicuous grabbing things from the serve-yourself section of the store. As long as you act cool, you’re not likely to get caught. Or so Archie said.
That was my first brush with crime. My mother’s boyfriend (at the time) taught me how to steal food from big grocery store chains.
I was a Good Kid though, the kind who never really wanted to make trouble, so of course I was completely petrified. It felt as though someone threw a switch and aimed three or four spotlights at me. Sweat prickled on my brow and the back of my neck. My skin flushed. My back went rigid, and all my movements were strangely stiff. In short, I was a caricature of conspicuousness. I felt sure that someone had seen, that — as foolish as it might sound — everyone knew. The cookies in Archie’s hoodie pocket might as well have cast a cartoonishly green radioactive glow. At any moment, I was sure a plainclothes detective would grab me by the arm and steer me into the store’s interrogation chamber.
Of course, none of that happened. Archie and my mom paid for a few items at the register, we strolled out the automatic door, and Archie offered my younger sister and me a fistful of stolen cookies. If memory serves, I declined. As protégés go, I was off to a rotten start.
Not long after that, my mom decided it was too onerous a task to keep hiding her drug use from me and enlisted me as a sort of partner-in-cover-up, if not an actual partner-in-crime. Though she eventually made the leap to stronger stuff, at the time it was just marijuana, so no big deal. (Though, of course, I was again petrified. Gasp! “Reefer madness! In my own home?!”) Now, I often wonder if my mother ever would have dabbled in more dangerous drugs if there weren’t such a stigma associated with drugs in general. It’s easy to feel locked out of so-called “normal” society, locked into a cycle of illicit activities, black market solutions, and stolen cookies. Would things have been different if she felt like she could have gotten help without being arrested or fired or shamed? If, maybe, it was a little easier for a waitress at a diner to feed and house her kids. If there were more readily accessible services to help single mothers, people with chronic illness — all categories she falls into. In other words, if we viewed crime, which is, after all, a social construct, a little differently. If we spent our resources on prevention, instead of protection and punishment.
This has been much on my mind of late. Maybe because crime has been a hot topic in the Shelby County District Attorney race. Maybe it’s because of the Jan. 6th hearings, detailing some of the most brazen crimes ever committed. High crimes, treason, that the “law and order” crowd seem, well, more or less okay with. I suppose that has something to do with what we consider crime. When asked to imagine an illegal activity, theft might be the first thing to come to mind. That could be because property is so tangible. Or because gains from social spending would take years or even a generation to show clear results. Hard to campaign on that, I suppose. Maybe it just pays to keep people focused away from crime committed on a larger scale.
It can be seen in our national priorities, in our bloated police budgets. It doesn’t seem in keeping with the way society has changed to continue this way, to view criminals and crime as a force of nature, something that just occurs.
I’m biased, of course, but it seems like we’ve thrown dollars at “protection” for decades with little to show for it. There are costs, too, in seeing dangers lurking everywhere, in the belief we need protection from other people. “Tough on crime” sounds good on the surface, or is at least straightforward and easy to digest, but if it worked, wouldn’t we have seen results by now? Call me a bleeding heart, a liberal looney tune, but I can’t help but wonder what the world would look like if we stopped viewing our fellow citizens as dangers against which we need protection, if instead we saw crime as evidence of a social system out of balance. It would take a massive shift in how we view the world, not to mention how cities draw up their budgets. It would be a difficult, lengthy process.
Major violent crime declined in the second half of 2021, according to the latest data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission.
These crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, rose sharply here in 2020 as they did in most urban centers across the United States. Violent crime was up 24 percent in Memphis in 2020, compared to 2019, with big increases in murders and aggravated assaults.
(Credit: Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission)
The trend continued in the first half of 2021, with violent crime rates up 13 percent in Memphis. However, early data from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) show a 2 percent increase in violent crime for Memphis for all of 2021, “indicating an actual decline during the last half of 2021,” according to the Crime Commission.
“Whether or not this is the beginning of a longer downward trend is something time will tell but it is encouraging,” said Crime Commission president Bill Gibbons. “Still, our major violent crime rate remains above what it was in 2019 before the pandemic and substantially above what it was in 2011, the lowest point in our violent crime rate in many years.
This is not the time to slack up on efforts to reduce violent crime but rather just the opposite.
Bill Gibbons
“This is not the time to slack up on efforts to reduce violent crime but rather just the opposite.”
Major property crimes continue a three-year decline. (Credit: Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission)
Major property crimes, like burglaries and motor vehicle thefts, continued a three-year decline last year. These crimes were down 5.5 percent in Memphis in 2021, compared to 2020.
Two 2019 fatal shooting cases moved through courts in Memphis recently, one described as “random” and “unprovoked” and another involving a shopkeeper and a shoplifter.
Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich’s office shared details of both last week.
Last week, a jury convicted Demarcus Z. Wooten, 21, on murder and gun charges, earning him an automatic life sentence. He will be sentenced formally on all charges in February.
Court testimony put Wooten in the back seat of a car with several others in the early-morning hours of June 12th, 2019. At Mt. Moriah and Willow, Wooten shot at another motorist in a car, shattering the car’s window and hitting its door. The driver was not injured. Minutes later, the car stopped at a traffic light at Mt. Moriah and Quince.
Wooten laughed and said, ‘Look at his body.’
“Witnesses said that for no apparent reason Wooten shot 49-year-old Willie C. Gandy in the back as he crossed the street in the crosswalk in front of the car,” reads a statement from Weirich’s office. “Witnesses said the car’s driver continued on Mt. Moriah, but that Wooten told the driver to make a u-turn and that as they passed the shooting scene Wooten laughed and said, ‘Look at his body.’
“When a witness texted him later asking about the shooting, Wooten, a gang member whose nickname is Hot Head, replied ‘He dead’ in a return text with a smiling emoji.”
Also last week, a grand jury indicted Charles Kalb, 59, a Memphis store owner, after he fatally shot Lamorris Robinson, 33, in the back for attempting to steal a chainsaw. The jury indicted Kalb on first-degree murder charges and possession of a prohibited sawed-off shotgun. He is free on $1 million bond.
The store owner is free on $1M bond but faces first-degree murder charges.
At around 1:30 p.m. on October 16, 2019, Kalb said he saw Robinson pick up a chainsaw and run from his store, Mid-South Small Engines, in the 2600 block of Mt. Moriah. Surveillance video shows Kalb grab a shotgun from under the counter, run after the suspect, and shoot him in the back outside the store. Robinson was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
