Memphis experienced some difficult days in early September. It began with the news of the shocking early morning murder of Eliza Fletcher, who was jogging near the University of Memphis. And then, just as we were trying to wrap our heads around that heinous crime, the city was terrorized for hours by a raging gunman who drove around hijacking cars and shooting random people, killing three and wounding four. What the hell was going on?
Predictably, such spectacular crimes made the national news for several nights, helped in no small part by the fact that there were videos and photos available to more easily whet the interest of a national audience. Even British papers were reporting from Memphis.
And everybody had an opinion. Fox misinformation maestro Tucker Carlson weirdly laid the blame on “Liberals like Governor Bill Lee,” which gives you an idea of how accurate Tuck-em’s typical takes are. This is a pundit, after all, who just a couple days earlier claimed that “by any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine.”
But still, Memphis was in the news, and not in a good way. On social media, the “I’m so glad I got out of that hell-hole” crowd was having a field day, which always makes me wonder: If life is so great in Keokuk, how come you’re still wasting your day bitching about Memphis on Facebook? But I digress.
Then the 96-year-old Queen of England did Memphis a solid by dropping dead in Scotland. (Surprisingly, despite the presence of Scotland Yard — which should be nearby, if it isn’t — there are still no suspects.) At any rate, thanks to the long and winding royal drama, Memphis was immediately off the national news radar, for which we were all grateful. As I write this, after 27 days or so of shuttling Queen Elizabeth’s coffin around the country, the Brits are about to have a funeral, it appears. By all accounts — including the Beatles’ — Her Majesty was a pretty nice girl. Godspeed. Now it’s up to King Chuck and Queen Camilla to begin performing the arduous duties of being gratuitously rich, entitled, and powerful for absolutely no reason.
Meanwhile, back in Memphis, as the heat of the national news spotlight cooled, we learned more about the crimes that galvanized us in early September. The Daily Memphian reported Monday that more than a year ago, a young black woman named Alicia Franklin reported a rape by the same man who is alleged to have murdered Fletcher. Her rape kit sat in limbo at a lab in Jackson, Tennessee, for months, and even after repeated calls from Franklin, police apparently felt no urgency to pursue the evidence. It was only when the Fletcher case arose that analyzing the earlier rape kit was expedited. Blame is being cast in several directions, including toward the undeniable fact that the state’s three forensics labs are woefully understaffed and under-budgeted. But the bottom line is, if police had pursued the evidence of the earlier rape with the same urgency they did with the Fletcher case, Fletcher might still be alive.
The Commercial Appeal reported on Sunday that the average time for a rape kit to be processed in Tennessee is 34 weeks. This is absurd and unacceptable. The state legislature needs to address this situation, and quickly. Rape kits should be processed within weeks, not months. And there should be no difference in urgency between a case of “just an average Black girl,” as Franklin described herself in the Daily Memphian, and a wealthy white woman.
All this, I suppose, is something of a prelude to this week’s cover story, “370 Great Things About Memphis.” The city has had some tough going lately and it’s easy during times like these to lose sight of the fact that good things — big and small — are happening every day in Memphis; that good people and caring organizations are doing great things to move us forward, to bring us joy and a sense of pride. We stopped counting at “370 great things” only because of space limitations. We could have listed hundreds more. At any rate, sometimes, it’s good to take a few minutes to count your blessings. It couldn’t hurt.
The Memphis Flyer is now seeking candidates for its editor position. Send your resume to hr@contemporary-media.com.
