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Black Leaders Express Concern on Police Referendum Ahead of Council Vote


The Memphis City Council will reconsider a referendum on police and fire residency requirements set to be on the November ballot at its meeting Tuesday.

The council voted in February not to rescind an ordinance passed by the previous council to allow voters to decide if public safety officials should live within 50 miles of the city. Now, the council will return to that ordinance, deciding whether or not to keep it on the November ballot.

Ahead of the council’s vote, a coalition of Black clergy members gathered virtually to express concerns about the referendum and relaxing the residency requirements for police officers.

Rev. Earle Fisher of Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church said the city’s premise behind relaxing residency requirements is that “violent crime is best managed by an increase in police officers, thus we must relax requirements because we can’t recruit enough personnel.”

But, Fisher says the group disagrees with that premise: “We do not need more officers to solve the problem. It’s a matter of quality, not quantity.”

“We decrease crime by decreasing poverty, by investing more in public education than we invest in incarceration, by making it easier to get a job paying a livable wage than it is to get access to guns and drugs,” Fisher says. “To this end, we implore every city council member to do the right things and vote to remove this referendum.”

The vote signifies “our broader long-term commitment to change,” Fisher said.

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Rev. Roz Nichols of Freedom Chapel Christian Church said the group “expects and demands for us to have safety officers that will serve and live as residents in our community. We do believe that residency matters.”

“Substantial transformation,” Nichols said, will come in the form of funding for agencies to “appropriately” respond to mental health crises, at-risk youth, homelessness, and domestic violence.

“These are not new issues, but we are at a critical moment when we are looking for transformational change,” Nichols said. “How can the $9.8 million from the justice department be appropriated to fund those things that help support community safety?”

Nichols said she and the other clergy members “expect the city council to move in the direction of systemic change and not perpetuate the status quo” by removing the referendum from the November ballot.

“More officers, regardless of their residency, will not be the solution to the real crises we face,” she said.

The city council will take the first of three votes on the ordinance to remove the residency requirement question from the November ballot Tuesday (today) during its 3:30 meeting. Tune in here.

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Police, Fire Residency Question to Remain on November Ballot

CREDIT: Memphis Police Department/Facebook

Memphis Police Department/Facebook

Voters will get to decide if police and fire personnel should be able to live within 50 miles of the city.

The Memphis City Council voted 7-5 Tuesday to not rescind a decision made by the previous council to place the referendum question on the November ballot.

Ahead of the vote, Councilman Jeff Warren, who voted in favor of keeping the question on the ballot, encouraged council members to let the voters decide.

“We’ve heard from the police and fire chief,” Warren said. “There is wisdom in what they’ve said.”

Warren said there is also validity in the concerns from community leaders who are wary about having police officers not living in Memphis police their community. But, Warren said he is ”counting on the police academy to weed people out who don’t need to be here.”

Also voting in favor of the referendum was Councilman J. Ford Canale, who addressed another concern voiced by council members throughout the month-long conversation — how much money would the city lose if the employees in question could live outside of the city?

Canale said that the estimated $7.3 million loss in property tax that would result from all 4,000 public safety employees moving out of the city is much lower than the combined $39.5 million that the police and fire departments estimate spending in overtime this year.

Council Chairwoman Patrice Robinson told officials that the departments and the council need to work together to remove other barriers that stymie recruitment, such as grooming policies. She suggested forming an ad hoc committee led by Councilwoman Jamita Swearengen to come up with recommendations for the departments to remove other barriers.

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“Even after we vote on this and allow citizens to vote on it or not have it, we still have that same issue,” Robinson said. “How do we make this a more attractive position in the community?”

The issue of reforming the departments’ grooming policies was first brought up by Councilman Martavious Jones and echoed by Councilman JB Smiley Jr., who said in order to hire more officers, the police department should consider changing it’s grooming requirements related to tattoos and facial hair. He said it’s “something we need to start talking about sooner than later.”


“Our generation makes up a large bulk of the population,” Smiley said. “If we truly want to have new officers willing to serve, it’s almost apparent that we have to make ways for that group of people to feel comfortable.”

To that, Michael Rallings, Memphis Police Department director, told the council that he will “make a deal with you. I’ll allow facial hair and tattoos if you let the voters vote on residency.”

Rallings said the department is currently working on drafting a new grooming policy, but that is it a process.

Rallings also added that the department isn’t “able to pick and choose what we do. I think we need to do all of it,” naming a take-home-car program, the residency requirement, and grooming policies as just a few examples of ways the department can increase recruitment.

After the vote, Swearengen said she will move forward with forming a task force to access other ways to reduce barriers for potential hires.

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Man Sentenced to Life for Setting Girlfriend on Fire

Gregory Powell

A man who set his girlfriend on fire last year has been sentenced to life in prison.

Gregory Powell, 58, pled guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in the death of his live-in girlfriend, Alice Wells, inside their duplex on October 19th, 2013. The residence was located at 3509 Coleman Ave. near North Highland.

In the midst of an argument, Powell struck his 56-year-old girlfriend in the head, which knocked her unconscious. According to the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office, Powell subsequently retrieved a gas can and doused her with gasoline.

Powell then placed Wells in the bathroom tub, set her on fire and watched her burn. He reportedly extinguished the fire and covered Wells’ body with a bed sheet.

Powell eventually left and drove to 201 Poplar. Noticing two police officers, he alerted them and stated, “I did something bad to my girlfriend. I set her on fire. I think she’s dead.”

According to reports, the officers retrieved Powell’s address and had patrol officers stop by the Coleman Avenue residence. Upon entrance of the home, law enforcement discovered Wells’ badly burned body in the rear bathroom.

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Elvis Collection Lost in California Fire

From the New York Daily News: Lilly Lawrence’s extensive Elvis memorabilia collection — which included a Ford Fairlane and several of his movie scripts — was lost to the fires in Southern California. She did manage to save his Army uniform.

According to the story, Lawrence is the daughter of the former oil minister of Iran and is a “politically active philanthropist.” Her 10,500-square-foot home in Malibu was destroyed by the fires sweeping through Southern California.

Many of the Elvis items were bought from Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley at a sale at Graceland several years ago.

Despite the loss, Lawrence is circumspect. “My possessions do not possess me,” she told the Daily News. “I’m more concerned about the boys in Iraq than my possessions.”

Read the story here.

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Damage Control

CREDIT: Memphis Heritage's Don Newman Collection

For years, Memphis Heritage has fought to save the old Lowenstein building near Court Square from demolition. But after last week’s destructive blaze downtown, executive director June West feared the fight might be over.

“If a building has nine lives, it may be the Lowenstein building. They’ve been trying to tear it down for years because of neglect,” says West. “It would be awfully sad if it met its match.”

Last month it seemed as though Memphis Heritage had succeeded in saving the building. The structure, built in the 1880s, was slated, along with the Lincoln America Tower and the Court Square Annex, to be transformed into a $49 million mixed-use development.

The blaze consumed most of the annex building, and the remaining structure was brought down by a wrecking ball shortly after. There is still a question whether the Lowenstein building and the Lincoln America Tower can be salvaged.

“If, for any reason, they decide those buildings cannot stand, I want to hear it from some really outstanding civil engineers,” says West.

West says the Lowenstein building was constructed partially from cast iron. The Lincoln America Tower, which was built in 1924 as a smaller version of New York City’s Woolworth Building, was covered with terra-cotta tile.

“That tile has been put in a kiln and fired to an outrageous level,” says West. “It had to be the wood filler, the construction inside both buildings, that caught on fire.”

Termite-infested wood at the First United Methodist Church on Poplar at Second is believed to be what fueled the fire, which began around 3 a.m. Heavy winds caused embers from that fire to float over to Court Square.

West hopes to see the development project move forward using what’s left of the remaining buildings. The development was insured and will move forward in some form.

“My gut is the Lowenstein and Lincoln buildings will be okay,” says West. “But you never know until the jury comes in and the fire marshal says this is what we have to do. But to lose those two landmarks, as well as the church, would just be devastating to downtown.”