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Memphis City Council Hears From MPD on Gang Violence

CREDIT: Memphis Police Department/Facebook

The Memphis City Council met with Memphis Police Department leaders today to discuss gang violence and crime prevention in the city. Deputy Chief Michael Hardy and Major Frank Winston gave a presentation that outlined where local gang activity is concentrated and demonstrated their expertise on the subject.

Memphis Police Department/Facebook

Hardy and Wilson said gangs in the Memphis area are generally managed under three major umbrella organizations: Folk Nation, People Nation, and Latino Gangs. Commonly known as Black Disciple Gangsters, Disciple Gangsters, and Playboy Surenos, these are the most prevalent in Memphis. They recruit young teens in their neighborhoods then send them off to commit a plethora of crimes, including grand theft auto, robbery, and obtaining illegal guns.         

There are 13,400 gang members on record in Memphis, and MPD says there are countless more juveniles who face little to no penalty for their criminal actions. MPD is working diligently to dismantle gang violence. Currently there are multiple federally funded programs that aid in this effort. 

“So what we’re saying now is that they’re coming together. And we call those local hybrid gangs now,” said Winston. A hybrid gang may be made up of childhood friends from differing gangs that collude to commit crimes. 

Last fall, MPD participated in “Operation Relentless Pursuit,” a federal effort to reduce gang violence in multiple cities, including Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, and Milwaukee.

“Every year, at every peak season we get a directive to target a certain neighborhood. The last one we completed was in Ridgeway Station and was very successful,” said Winston. The MPD, and the homicide Bureau, brought in over 28 individuals who committed homicides in Memphis and Shelby County.

In 2020, MPD entered 339 people to their Tracking Active Gang-members (TAG) database, including 661 felony arrests, 183 misdemeanor arrests, and 91 homicides recovered. Officers gave 37 gang presentations in schools and community meetings but said that COVID has made it difficult to do outreach. 

‘We need resources and tougher sentences on multi-offense violent criminals in the state, but we also have to look at the fact that we’ve got first-time juvenile offenders that desperately, desperately need resources,” said Councilman Chase Carlisle “And if there’s still an opportunity to save them, we’ve really got to figure out how to partner with the county commission and the state government on how to figure out a way to prevent a repeat offenders.” 

The MPD Gang Unit strongly suggested mentoring, community outreach, and local support of community policing to combat gang violence in the area.




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Gang Affiliation Complicates Domestic Violence Matters

In most domestic violence cases, there are two primary people involved — an abuser and a victim. But for those who are being abused by a gang member, there may be multiple abusers, according to the Family Safety Center’s Executive Director Olliette Murry-Drobot.

“It used to be that when an abuser was in a gang, there was a ‘hands-off’ mentality, as the other members of the gang didn’t interfere in the relationship — it was the abuser’s woman, his business,” Murry-Drobot said. “But, that’s changed, and we have seen a lot more victims being further victimized by their abuser’s fellow gang members. While incarcerated, the abuser has ‘eyes’ on her at all times, receiving reports back about her whereabouts, who she’s spending time with, and such.”

None of the clients of Family Safety Center (FSC) of Memphis and Shelby County who are currently dealing with gang-related domestic violence were willing to speak with the Flyer, but Angie Galyean, an FSC navigator, spoke about her role helping these women escape from abusive situations.

“I notice in more of my higher-risk cases that there’s a gang affiliation there. When there is, there’s also an intimidation factor. You’re not just being intimidated by one offender, you’re also potentially being intimidated by all the other gang members,” Galyean said.

She said gang members are often more violent as abusers, and they have access to more resources, such as guns and bail money from fellow gang members when the offender is locked up.

“If the offender is in jail, all he has to do is make a phone call to one of his fellow gang members, and they can reach out and threaten the victim,” Galyean said.

In non-gang-related cases, Galyean says the FSC will sometimes urge the victims to move across town to get away from their abuser. But in these gang cases, she said it’s not so simple.

“Here in Memphis, the gang members are everywhere, in every part of town. So we’ll encourage them to move some place out of town if that’s a good idea,” Galyean said. “But if their next best option is to go live with their cousin in Atlanta, that may not be a good idea either. If the offender is part of a larger gang, that gang will have reach into other major cities. It’s really difficult. I’m not going to lie.”

Something that makes these cases even more difficult, said Galyean, is the average age of these victims. She said, when there’s gang affiliation in a domestic violence situation, more often than not, the victims are teenagers. If they’re still in high school, moving out of the city isn’t an option. Teenagers can’t even get an order of protection on their own, but rather, their parents must file for the order.

Galyean said it’s hard to say how many such cases end up at the FSC — which helps women with protection orders, safety planning, housing, counseling, and other resources. That’s because some victims facing violence from gang members aren’t willing to tell their FSC navigator about the gang affiliation.

“There’s a fear that if they tell somebody, the gang may retaliate. The victims often have information about gang culture and illegal activities,” Galyean said.

When the FSC does know about gang affiliation, the center can work with the Memphis Police Department and Shelby County Sheriff’s Department’s gang units.

“If it’s one gang member, it’s not considered gang activity. But if it’s two gang members, it is,” Galyean said. “If that happens, we let the domestic violence units know, and they pass that along to the gang units.”

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City Receives More Than $1 Million in Grants to Combat Gangs, Domestic Violence

Edward Stanton

  • Edward Stanton

From the mob of teens that beat down three people at the Poplar Plaza Kroger to the woman who was shot by her ex-boyfriend in the Colonial Target parking lot, gangs and domestic violence have been making headlines lately.

But two grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which collectively exceed $1 million, will be used to combat both of the aforementioned issues.

In a DOJ press release, Edward Stanton, United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, disclosed on Wednesday, September 10th, that the City of Memphis had been awarded the “Grant to Encourage Arrest Policies and Enforcement of Protection Orders.” Totaling $900,000, the grant will help enforce protection orders and protect victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

The City of Memphis, along with the Shelby County Rape Crisis Center, will collaboratively use the grant to “improve post-testing requirements for victim notifications, investigations, and prosecution of increased sexual assault cases resulting from the processing of the backlog of sexual assault kits,” according to the press release.

The city also received a $148,885 “Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant,” which will be used to reduce gang and gun violence locally. In collaboration with the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) task force, a collective comprised of federal, state, and local law enforcement committed to lowering violent crime, the city will use the grant to “expand its data analysis and tracking capabilities, in order to ensure more efficient and targeted law enforcement efforts against gang and gun violence.”

The grant will also enable the PSN task force and city to collaboratively deter more youth away from the criminal justice system, develop more effective community outreach efforts, and also implement more aggressive prosecutions.

“Events of recent weeks have served as a tragic reminder of the need to protect victims of domestic violence and hold accountable those who commit violent crimes,” Stanton said in a statement. “The new $900,000 grant from the DOJ Office on Violence Against Women will help local authorities process the backlog in sexual assault kits and prosecute those who commit such heinous acts to the fullest extent the law allows. And the Project Safe Neighborhoods grant will bolster our ongoing efforts to track down and bring to justice those who illegally possess and use firearms. Together, these grants total over a million dollars, and they underscore the Department of Justice’s commitment to keeping our citizens safe and protecting victims — especially victims of domestic violence.”

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Little G’s

About 10 years ago, gangs in Shelby County were confined to impoverished communities and their members were mostly young, African-American men from broken homes. These days, that isn’t the case.

“There’s no place left in Shelby County where we don’t have gang members,” says Reggie Henderson, chief prosecutor in the district attorney’s gang and narcotics unit. “I prosecute kids who come from wealthy families where both the mother and father have goods jobs and nice homes. Some gangs that were traditionally African American have white members now. All the old restrictions are gone.”

Law enforcement officials in Memphis say gang numbers are on the rise, although there is no comprehensive research on exactly how many gang members live in the area. As part of the Operation Safe Community plan unveiled earlier this month, the U.S. Attorney’s office will lead an effort to answer that question.

But Shelby County district attorney Bill Gibbons estimates that there are about 15,000 gang members in Memphis. Gibbons keeps a database of known gang members — those who admit membership after being arrested — and there are approximately 8,000 individuals on that list alone.

“We have about 5,000 hardcore gang members whose day-to-day lives focus on gang activity,” says Gibbons. “Then we have another 5,000 who are active in gangs but may also have jobs or go to college. Then we have another 5,000 that we call ‘wannabes.’ They’re 12- to 14-year-olds seeking gang affiliation.”

If Gibbons’ numbers are accurate, 1.6 percent of the county’s 900,000 residents are involved in a gang. And rising gang affiliation may be behind a recent spike in violent crime. From 2004 to 2005, the number of reported violent crimes involving three or more suspects — an indication of gang activity — increased by 38 percent.

Not only is gang affiliation on the rise, but members are targeting younger children in their recruiting efforts.

“Our greatest concern should be that recruiting of new gang members is occurring in elementary and middle school,” says Mike Heidingsfield, director of the Memphis/Shelby County Crime Commission. “From the media, we get a sense that [gang members] are young men in their early 20s, but it begins long before that. Schools are the single biggest center for gang recruitment.”

Gibbons says older gang members wait until school lets out, and then they talk to the kids in the time before their parents come home from work.

Henderson says there are over 100 active gangs in Memphis, but many of them are neighborhood sects of nationally affiliated gangs, such as the Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Crips, and Bloods. Unlike in most major cities, however, gangs in Memphis do not have a problem working together to make the local drug and sex trades more profitable. In August, the Memphis Police Department raided seven drug houses on Given Avenue in Binghamton. Police director Larry Godwin said that the illegal activity in the neighborhood involved Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples working together.

“Money seems to bring people together in Memphis,” says Henderson. “If there’s something to be gained, they can get along with each other.”

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Business Deal

It’s about five minutes until 11 p.m. — closing time at the Kirby Parkway Liquor store — on August 26th. A young man sporting an Afro and a long-sleeved camouflaged shirt walks in, asking for tequila.

He picks up a bottle and heads to the register. As an employee rings him up, he points a pistol at the cashier’s head and screams, “Open the drawer!”

The situation is an increasingly common scenario at local businesses. Through August 31st of this year, business robberies are up 45 percent from last year. Business burglaries are up 29 percent.

“I think there’s increased gang involvement surrounding the business robberies,” says Lt. Jeffrey Polk, director of the Memphis Police Department’s robbery bureau. “Drugs play a heavy factor. We’re seeing a lot of males in their 20s.”

Polk says some gang-related robberies are part of the gang initiation process used by members of the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples. Others provide gangs with money to fuel the drug trade. Polk has even dealt with cases in which the money stolen was intended to bond a fellow gang member out of jail. “It boils down to good old-fashioned greed,” says Polk. “To some of these folks, robbery is their job.”

Laura Burgess, an employee at the Kirby Parkway Liquor store, says police suspected the robbery at her store may have been part of a gang initiation.

From January through the end of August, 490 local businesses have been robbed, meaning something was taken by the use of force, threats, or intimidation. Another 2,124 businesses have been burglarized, meaning someone has broken into a building with the intent to steal.

Sharonda Hampton, director of MPD’s burglary bureau, says her department saw a large spike in crime during the summer months.

“Lately, they’ve been hitting the pharmacies. That’s where the drugs are,” says Hampton. “They’re also hitting a lot of beauty supply stores.”

A few weeks ago, a beauty supply shop in Whitehaven was burgled of $6,000 worth of human hair, as well as $200 from the shop’s register.

At Kirby Parkway Liquor store, Burgess says they’ll be extra cautious about keeping the doors locked at night.

“It would scare customers away if we installed bullet-proof glass,” says Burgess. “Those Germantown housewives wouldn’t even come in here.”