Tag: Memphis Police Department

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Split the Baby

I got several calls from Memphis Police and Fire Department employees this week. They were all angry about the proposed cuts and changes to their pension and health-care plans and wanted the Flyer to “tell the truth” about the situation.

The core truth is that the city — as mandated by the state — needs to find a way to pay down its pension obligations in five years. It can do this by cutting costs, raising revenues (taxes), or a combination of the two.

The proposal at hand would turn the current guaranteed pension plan for city employees into a 401k plan. It would also reduce benefits and/or raise the costs of health care for current employees and retirees.

The Memphis City Council majority is determined not to raise property taxes, come hell or high water, the stated rationale being that it will motivate people to leave Memphis. The 6,000 police and fire personnel and other city employees contend that they are being asked to carry the entire burden of fixing the budget mess for the rest of us.

The council has gotten support for its “no new taxes” position from the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce (COC), which launched a campaign against any tax hike. A counter-campaign has sprung up, urging citizens not to patronize businesses that are COC members.

And speaking of hell and high water… one fireman I spoke to alluded to certain “measures” that could be taken to demonstrate how important his department is to the city. He was referencing the rumors that have been circulating for a week or so about a “sick-out” over the Fourth of July weekend.

A sick-out of fire and police personnel on a holiday weekend filled with fireworks and massive downtown crowds would be a PR disaster for both departments, in my opinion, and would only harden the views on both sides of the issue. Especially, if there were a fire or a crime that caused the loss of life due to a lack of response.

That said, taking away promised health benefits, especially from retirees on a fixed pension is just wrong. And remember, these employees don’t get Social Security, so their pension is it when it comes to supporting themselves in their old age.

I’m quite obviously not an expert in city finances, and Lord knows the city has spent enough on consultants and experts to cover my retirement quite nicely. But surely there is a baby to be split here somewhere. A small tax increase isn’t going to send people fleeing en masse. And the switch to a 401k plan isn’t going be the end of the world for city employees.

We need to keep and attract highly qualified police and fire department personnel. A fear of not being safe will send as many people fleeing the city as a tax increase will. It’s time to make a deal — before things get even hotter.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

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News The Fly-By

Documentary Highlights MPD’s 1948 Integration

More than half of the Memphis Police Department (MPD) is made up of African-American officers, but that wasn’t always the case.

In 1948, the MPD welcomed its first nine publicized black officers. The historic occurrence is profiled in a new documentary titled True Blue — Memphis Lawmen of 1948.

The Earnest C. Withers Foundation along with the Afro American Police Association and Cinematic Arts collectively premiered the documentary last weekend at the University of Memphis.

Ernest Withers

Andrew “Rome” Withers, son of famed Civil Rights-era photographer Earnest Withers, who was also one of the first nine black officers, said the documentary profiles the historic feat of the officers and the struggles they experienced.

“Most of them, when they were hired, had to buy their own guns” Withers said. “Their roll call was on Beale Street, separate from the white officers. The pay was different. And, of course, they could not arrest white people at all. They could only detain them until a white officer came.”

True Blue takes a trip through time to highlight the controversial integration of the MPD and how things have changed since then. The documentary focuses on two of the surviving members of the class of 1948, Jerry Williams and Roscoe McWilliams.

The first nine black MPD officers in 1948

True Blue reveals how the MPD’s black officers of 1948 were hired in the first place. After several African-Americans had been severely beaten and shot by white police officers, local residents became enraged. A community meeting was held by Memphis Mayor E.H. Crump, who promised to provide the black community with their own parks and recreational facilities to ease concerns about police brutality. However, one woman stood up and expressed that they would like black policemen instead.

Crump concurred, and African-Americans were allowed to apply for the police force. Out of 160-plus applicants, nine officers were hired. Several more came on board a couple weeks later. They were assigned to patrol the areas of Beale Street and Orange Mound.

Although it’s been publicized that the first black Memphis police officers were hired in 1948, the documentary conveys that there were actually two other classes before them.

One class of black officers was introduced during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878, and the other was in 1919. But according to the MPD’s History Timeline, the first two black men to serve with the MPD, William Cook and John F. Harris, were hired in 1867.

Others who participated in the documentary include MPD Director Toney Armstrong, the wives of Wendell Robinson and R.J. Turner (two of the first nine black officers), and Claudine Penn (the city’s first black female police officer).

Withers said the documentary will be submitted to film festivals around the world, and he hopes a major TV network will broadcast it. They also plan to show True Blue in Shelby County Schools.

“It’s an intriguing story that I think will appeal to people who do not know about Memphis history,” Withers said. “We don’t get enough of our history, so I’m hoping that [True Blue] will appeal to the community and we will get support to continue to make feature films about different aspects of Memphis that are unidentified and unknown. [The film] will bring hope and identification of history that’s never been told before. Not just for us but for generations to come.”

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News The Fly-By

Memphis Police and Fire Consider Moving Offices

CREDIT: Toby Sells

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) headquarters is “crowded and costly.” The Memphis Division of Fire Services headquarters has a nice river view and is “not the highest and best use of the property.” The two departments could cut costs for taxpayers by moving in together and sharing some back-office staffers. 

Toby Sells

Those ideas come from the city’s five-year strategic management plan published in January by the PFM Group consultants. The real estate ideas have come back into focus recently, as the Memphis City Council considers a deal to take over the Donnelly J. Hill State Office Building.

The building is worth about about $2.4 million, and the state would hand over its title to the city for the use of 400 parking spots in the Peabody Place garage for the next 15 years.

The city now has eight leases for office space around town. It pays about $3 million each year in rent to provide office space for about 460 employees. Real estate consultants have told councilmembers they could consolidate many of these offices into the Donnelly building on Civic Plaza, including the Memphis Housing Authority, Housing and Community Development, and Information Technology. 

But much of the conversation on the state building has at least touched on moving MPD. The department is now housed on three floors of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Complex, more commonly known as 201 Poplar. MPD moved there in 1982 but quickly outgrew it. Complaints about space constraints have come from former police directors James Bolden and Larry Godwin and current director Toney Armstrong.     

“Honestly, I think we have outgrown 201 Poplar,” Armstrong told councilmembers in budget discussions in 2012. “We have been able to grow at the uniform patrol level but not at the investigative level, simply because we don’t have the space for it.”

The cost to rent the currently cramped space is $1.4 million per year. That’s way too high, according to the consultant’s five-year plan. At the end of 2012, the average rate for Class A office space — the very best office space — in downtown Memphis was $16.75 per square foot, according to the city’s consultants. Taxpayers are leasing the MPD space in 201 Poplar for about $17.70 per square foot. 

The fire department has largely been left out of the recent conversations about office moves and consolidation, but the PFM report said its Front Street location is “not ideal” and is in “what could be a prime location for development.” 

The five-year plan said that Memphis police and fire should consolidate some of their office functions, and even communications, to save money. And, it said, sharing a physical location would help do just that.

But the Donnelley building wasn’t on the table in January when the five-year plan was published. Instead, the plan said the city should renovate the old police headquarters at 128 Adams, which has been vacant for the past 30 years. 

The renovation price tag of about $30 million puts the project out of reach, the city’s Chief Administrative Officer George Little has said in past budget discussions.

Consultants said the cost would be offset by eliminating rents in other places or could be paid from the sale of the fire department headquarters on Front Street. Or, the report, said 128 Adams could be sold to a private developer.

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News The Fly-By

Blue Crush Continues To Help MPD Combat Crime

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

In 2005, former Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin introduced a plan to crush crime one statistic at a time.

Called Blue CRUSH, the data-driven initiative uses information collected from Memphis Police Department (MPD) reports to determine local crime hotspots. Aggravated assaults, nondomestic violence, robbery, burglary, and vehicle theft are among the crimes targeted.

The location, day, and time an offense occurs is recorded and analyzed, which helps law enforcement determine where they need to deploy more officers. Crime stats in these hotspots are generally lowered as a result.

Blue CRUSH’s citywide launch was covered in the Memphis Flyer article “A Secret Crush” by Bianca Phillips in December 2006, and the initiative was later profiled in-depth in the cover story “Blue Crush” by Preston Lauterbach in April 2007.

Justin Fox Burks

Richard Janikowski

Richard Janikowski, a retired University of Memphis criminology professor, was instrumental in the creation of Blue CRUSH (an acronym for Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History). He along with several other analysts from the University of Memphis’ Center for Community Criminology and Research banded together to create the initiative with the MPD.

“The first year saw some modest decreases, and then things started decreasing across the board,” Janikowski said. “By the end of 2010, violent crime was down in Memphis over 24 percent [and] property crime [was down] over 26 percent. It had real impacts that became noticed throughout the country. Police departments from around the world have been coming to Memphis to look at what’s been done.”

The crime-fighting initiative came about after Godwin called a meeting of high-ranking city officials and law enforcement representatives at a local Piccadilly Cafeteria urging the development of new approaches to combat city crime.

During the meeting, Janikowski informed Godwin he could develop a program pinpointing crime hotspots but needed access to all of the MPD’s data on an ongoing basis. After being provided with data packages composed of information on various crimes, Janikowski and his colleagues began examining them on a daily basis, determining what information was useful and how they could best utilize it. They produced information packages for precinct commanders, showing criminal hotspots and frequent days and times criminal activity took place in those areas.

Pilot operations of Blue CRUSH were conducted throughout the end of 2005 and into 2006, exploring what tactics worked and how they could best be adapted. The initiative launched citywide in late 2006.

Nearly a decade later, Blue CRUSH has been responsible for triggering thousands of arrests. And Janikowski said MPD commanders and analysts continue to discover better ways to suppress local crime.

“Commanders have mastered the use of data, how to deploy task forces, and directed patrol,” Janikowski said. “They’ve developed new analysts and new technologies to apply.”

Nevertheless, annually, the MPD experiences a decrease in manpower due to budget cuts, reduction in promotions, and limited resources for recruiting and training new officers.

Janikowski said the MPD’s decline in manpower leaves open the opportunity for Blue CRUSH to become a lost cause.

“I don’t care what you call the crime initiative, the data and the analysis are tools, but the work is done by those men and women in blue on the streets,” he said. “They’re the critical variable. None of it works without them. The problem right now is literally every week MPD’s number of sworn officers is declining. It has been declining for a number of years.”

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News The Fly-By

Memphis Police Director To Re-Design the Department

Many were surprised to learn last week that efforts are under way to “redesign” the Memphis Police Department (MPD).

Police Director Toney Armstrong delivered the news in a Memphis City Council budget hearing in his standard, flat, professional monotone that made the announcement seem expected, though many said it was the first they’d heard of the project.

The crux of the announcement was that the MPD’s proposed budget for next year includes about 188 fewer police officers than it had last year. The current budget allows Armstrong to have as many as 2,470 officers.

But it’s more than simply the number of officers influencing Armstrong’s decision to redesign the department. Armstrong had been directed by the city’s Chief Administrative Officer, George Little, to revise the department’s mission statement — that is, change what kind of services the MPD provides and how it delivers those services. The directive sprang from tight financial times for city leaders who are pressured to maintain services to taxpayers, which get more expensive every year, and pay at least $15 million more next year into the city’s ailing pension fund.   

“We’re at a time of reckoning when we need to decide what level of service we can afford to provide,” Little said Tuesday.

Armstrong said the redesign process is moving ahead, but it is far from complete, and he prompted city council members for guidance. 

“We are in the process of essentially designing a new police department,” Armstrong said. “As the police department stands now, we have [a complement of] 2,470 officers. If we scale back to 2,282 as we’ve proposed in this budget, there will be a level of services we will not be able to perform. We have to make decisions on what to do and what not to do.”

Fewer officers would likely come with a reduced mission. For example, the MPD could choose not to respond to burglar alarms or to fender benders. These ideas have been discussed in the past but were formalized in the city’s five-year strategic plan from consulting firm The PFM Group.

That study proposed a raft of changes that included a reduced list of services from the MPD, lowering pay for some police positions, hiring civilians to do office work that is currently performed by higher-wage sworn officers, cutting back on pay for college incentives and length of service, and cutting some holidays and sick days. 

Perhaps the biggest move suggested by PFM is to consolidate the office and dispatch services of the MPD and the Memphis Fire Department (MFD). The study said as many as 130 governments have consolidated police and fire to some degree. Some have even cross-trained police officers and firefighters to do both jobs, it said. 

But the study suggested the MPD and the MFD maintain independence but share back-office support and dispatchers. Doing so would save $7.6 million over five years with a reduction of 35 employees.  

Michael Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association, said he read PFM’s report but didn’t know until Armstrong said it last week that the MPD was up for a redesign.

“The director’s got to do what the director’s got to do,” Williams said. “But what I heard him say to the council was, actually, the council has to decide what level of service do they want to provide to the citizens. If they want a full-service department, they have to increase the complement. If they do not, then the citizens have to be told and have to understand that they aren’t going to receive the same services they’re used to.”

• MPD calls 2012 – 1,637,200

• Radio dispatcher salary – $50,345 (34 percent higher than peer cities)

• MPD portion of city’s 2013 budget – 36.6 percent

• MPD/MFD holiday pay 2013 – $11.8 million

• MPD employees – increased by 314 from 2008-2013

Source: PFM Group

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News News Blog

MPD Collecting Unwanted Prescription Drugs At Kroger

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

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Before locals enter their community Kroger to shop this Saturday, they’ll have the opportunity to dispose of expired or unwanted prescription drugs from their medicine cabinets in bins outside the establishment.

As part of the 8th annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, Memphis Police Department and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials will be present at four different Kroger locations with bins for people to safely and anonymously dispose unwanted, unused prescription drugs this Saturday (April 26th).

The take-back, which heightens the prevention of possible pill abuse and inappropriate distribution, will last from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The four Kroger branches that MPD and DEA officials will be on site at are 3444 Plaza Ave, 3860 Austin Peay Highway, 676 Germantown Parkway, and 7942 Winchester Road. People can also dispose prescription drugs at Emmanuel United Methodist (2404 Kirby Road).

“This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue,” a MPD press release stated. “Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.”

Last October, Americans turned in 324 tons (over 647,000 pounds) of prescription drugs at over 4,114 sites operated by the DEA and its thousands of state and local law enforcement partners, according to the MPD. When those results are combined with what was collected in its seven previous Take Back events, DEA and its partners have taken in over 3.4 million pounds—more than 1,700 tons—of pills.

MPD spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said illegal prescription drug distribution is prevalent locally. She said the prescription drugs collected Saturday will be weighed and transported to a burn facility out of state and destroyed.

Earlier this month, more than three dozen people involved in a prescription drug-ring were indicted during “Operation Whitehaven Dilaudid Family.” The ring was responsible for illegally distributing large amounts of Dilaudid and other prescription pills throughout the area.

More than 20 of the individuals indicted are facing state drug charges. Another 15 defendants are facing federal drug charges. Charges carry penalties of up to 25 years in prison without parole.

“Many of the 23 defendants indicted on state drug charges are family members whose drug-trafficking operation has been in business for more than 15 years,” Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich said in a press release.

Law enforcement seized 10 vehicles, $53,807 in cash, 111 Dilaudid pills and 154 grams of powder cocaine during the undercover operation.

The MPD’s Organized Crime Unit, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Marshal’s Service executed “Operation Whitehaven Dilaudid Family” collectively.

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News News Blog

No Weapons Found During East High School Lockdown (Update)

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The Memphis Police Department’s public information office has released a statement that says no weapons or armed suspects were discovered during its search of East High School earlier today.

The school was placed on lockdown after a student safety tip alleged there were armed men inside the school. MPD officers conducted a perimeter search at the school before ceasing the lockdown and allowing classes to resume. However, concerned parents were allowed to pick up their children, which several dozen did.

Several parents outside of the school said the incident stemmed from an occurrence yesterday (April 10th) involving a student(s) and an outside individual(s) who was allegedly armed. That person(s) allegedly returned to the school looking for the same student(s). Parents alleged that the incident is gang-related. However, the MPD’s press statement doesn’t confirm that the issue is connected with gang activity.

Check out the MPD’s press release below.

On Friday, April 11, 2014, at approximately 9:35 pm, officers responded to an armed party call at East High School, 3206 Poplar Avenue.

Upon arriving on the scene, officers were advised that the school was on lock-down and there were possibly several armed males inside of the school. A perimeter was established and a search within the school for the possible armed suspects began by utilizing MPD patrol officers, MPD’s Canine Unit, Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies, and Shelby County School Security.

The preliminary investigation revealed that a student at East High School reported to a school security officer that another student/s was armed and inside the school. Officers were further advised that this reporting may have stemmed from an altercation that occurred yesterday. On Wednesday, April 10, 2014, an Aggravated Assault was reported to have occurred on the sidewalk near the school. The altercation involved several individuals, both students and non-students. During the altercation, one of the suspects was reportedly armed with a hand gun. It has not been determined that the individual who was armed was a student at East High School, but the reporting student from today’s alert had received information that someone connected with this investigation was armed in the school.

After conducting a search of the school, officers found no armed suspects. Officers also confirmed with the reporting student that the potential suspects were not physically seen, but he/she was only reporting what they had been told by other students.

Although this incident ended as a “false alarm”, it is important that parents and students know the urgency of reporting armed parties within our school systems. Parents should stress the importance to their children as it relates to immediately reporting any suspicious, criminal or life threatening activities that may occur in or around school property. The students’ and faculty’s safety is the utmost importance. The Memphis Police Department will continue to work with Shelby County Schools, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and Shelby County School Security to ensure the safety of every student and faculty member.

The investigation into the incident (Report#1404005516ME) that occurred yesterday is ongoing. No charges have been filed.

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News The Fly-By

Blight Battle

Besides keeping the city’s streets safe, Memphis police officers are also tasked with keeping streets clean.

Last week, officers from every local Memphis Police Department (MPD) precinct participated in a two-day course on how to identify and combat “environmental crimes,” such as littering, abandoned houses, illegal dumping, and water pollution.

The course featured lectures on battling things that negatively impact the community, such as blight, poor yard maintenance, noise violations, and pets running off-leash.

“The best way to resolve [environmental] issues is to inform uniform patrol officers how to enforce the statutes involving environmental crime,” said MPD officer Milton Bonds, a moderator for the training course. “We hope that we can make a difference and help rebuild the community.”

The training course took place Wednesday, March 12th, and Thursday, March 13th, at the Memphis Police Training Academy. The MPD presented the course in conjunction with Memphis Code Enforcement and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Wednesday’s session provided officers with an introduction to environmental crime and how to recognize and report occurrences. Blight, which impacts neighborhoods, businesses, property values, and crime levels, was the main focus.

“In certain cases, MPD officers are in areas where they see first-hand violations pertaining to environmental crimes,” said MPD spokesperson Karen Rudolph. “This training allowed officers the opportunity to see how taking strides to improve blight issues can also improve our community as a whole. Officers can address these issues within their respective areas and help to maintain a beautiful Memphis.”

On Thursday, officers were taught procedures for investigating environmental crime scenes, determining if a crime is civil or criminal, and how to organize a case for prosecution.

There was also a court presentation and mock court exercise orchestrated by Environmental Court referee John Cameron. Cameron focused on code violations, such as high grass and weeds, and illegally parked and inoperable vehicles.

“If you think of a city as an organism, neglected properties are like cancer cells,” Cameron said. “As they spread, they can even mass together like tumors. Any number of factors has caused the disease to spread, whether through foreclosure, lack of money, or persons making bad, and at times, criminal decisions. Whatever caused the problem, it must be dealt with for the health of Memphis and the whole region.”

Cameron said fighting environmental crime becomes more complicated every year, but Judge Larry Potter’s Environmental Court provides the city with a way to deal with the issue more quickly and effectively. People committing environmental crimes can be cited with ordinance violations or penalized with misdemeanor and felony charges depending on the nature of the offense.

“I don’t believe there is one solution to the cancer of blight attacking Memphis,” Cameron said. “If anything, the more people we have in the fight, the better. We all have a role to play.”

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News The Fly-By

Memorandum of Understanding

When my wife and I got married two wonderful years ago, our rings signified we had our own “memorandum of understanding.” One of the clearest terms of our agreement was that if I cheated with another woman, I could, or make that would, be subject to bodily harm, as opposed to the offending paramour I might take up with. I have readily and wholeheartedly accepted that particular stipulation.

In a not so subtle way, it brings me to the recent public relations fiasco that transpired between Memphis Police Department (MPD) Director Toney Armstrong and Memphis Police Association (MPA) President Mike Williams. Within the space of 48 hours, both men argued, filed lawsuits against one another, and then “kissed and made up” at a hastily arranged news conference last week.

Their disagreement apparently stemmed from the ever-outspoken Williams taking issue with crime statistics indicating overall crime in the city was down. Williams asserted to a television reporter it wasn’t true. An irate Armstrong then filed disciplinary action against Williams, based on verbal misconduct, which led to the union president and two other MPA leaders being assigned back to their regular police beats. Within hours of the decision, MPA threatened a lawsuit. Despite backing from the administration of Mayor A C Wharton, Armstrong would later rescind his decision and reinstate Williams and the others back to their statuses as full-time union representatives. Before the media hordes, both men spoke of the need to engage in a joint mission to stand together in the common cause of crime fighting.

Where do I begin to express the sense of lunacy, displayed on both sides, that all of this entailed? First, by reported accounts, Armstrong apparently laid a trap for Williams by calling him into a meeting in response to a reporter’s baiting inquiries about Williams’ reaction to the statistics. True, he told the reporter he didn’t want any cameras to record the sensitive conversation. But why invite a reporter in at all? Could this not have been handled by inviting Williams to his office for a private conversation between two men who came up through the ranks together as colleagues? He had to have known it would make headlines. It’s like the old analogy about a man taking in a snake as a pet, and when the snake bites him he expresses surprise when the answer is “well, you knew I was a snake, and this is what I do!” Reporters are supposed to report.

As for Williams, his mea culpa statement during the news conference — alleging the media sparked a “tit for tat that inflated his comments” — is in a word, laughable. Consider the source.

Since taking over the reins as MPA president in April 2011 from the ineffectual leadership of J. D. Sewell, Williams’ self-determined “mission” has been to cast the Wharton administration as the “dark star” that’s taking direct aim at destroying city employee unions. In his efforts, fostered under the guise of full union approval, he’s pulled some outlandish and troubling displays of discontent. Not the least of which was last year’s MPA-sponsored billboard campaign warning visitors to enter the “dangerous” city of Memphis “at their own risk.” I don’t think in the annals of any other city’s history has such a foreboding message been as boldly plastered for public consumption.

In fact, that act alone might be construed as being in violation of the apparently flexible interpretation of the city’s Memorandum of Understanding with the police and fire unions. In January 1981, four years after the police and firefighter strikes of 1977, the Labor Law Journal, in citing the violent acts that had taken place during the eight-day strike, said the unions “had attempted to alter the structure of government by coercive means.” So, short of not making arrests, not issuing valid tickets, or not patrolling crime-riddled neighborhoods, could anything be more detrimental to the image of the city than telling people their lives are in danger if they come here?

Just as I have with my beloved, I know there is clarity to be had between MPD and MPA, based on one simple principle: Do the job you have sworn to do! The idea that a department and a union comprised of the same personnel can’t understand they share the common ground of ensuring the safety of more than 600,000 people is ludicrous. Your memo of understanding should have that printed in the biggest and boldest of letters.

Yeah, and it should be billboard size.

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News News Blog

Reeds Jewelers Robbery Suspects Arrested in Houston

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Three of the suspects responsible for robbing Reeds Jewelers inside Wolfchase Galleria for more than $530,000 worth of Rolex watches have been apprehended in Houston, Texas.

The suspects have been identified as Chadwick Bailey, 40; Andrew Penrice, 31; and Dalton Francis, 29. All three are residents of Houston. They’re currently awaiting extradition to Memphis.

Information on the suspects’ capture was disclosed during a press conference held Tuesday morning, February 11th, by the Memphis Police Department and District Attorney General’s Office at 201 Poplar. It was also revealed that there are two more suspects currently at large — Rodrick Walker, 34, and Maurice Williams, 26. Walker is presumed to be in Houston while Williams is believed to be in California. There’s also another individual that the MPD is considering to be “a person of interest,” according to MPD deputy director Anthony Berryhill.

Berryhill said evidence was obtained from the scene that led investigators to believe the suspects responsible for the heist were not local but actually residents of the Houston area. Although he couldn’t disclose what evidence led law enforcement to suspect that, it was revealed days after the heist took place that a cellphone, clothing and a couple sledge hammers were recovered at Wolfchase Galleria. It’s presumed that this evidence helped officers locate the suspects.

Berryhill said during the press conference that MPD investigators contacted Houston Police Department for assistance with its investigation. He said MPD investigators also traveled to Houston to continue their investigation into the case on February 5th.

“From the Memphis Police Department’s perspective, it’s always a great thing when we can come together with outside agencies and we can put a plan together and that plan works,” Berryhill said. “The collaboration with Houston, TX along with the Attorney General’s office here in Memphis has resulted in these arrests, and we’ll be looking forward to going forward when we get the other two people in custody.”

On January 18th, six men dressed in black with hoodies entered Reeds Jewelers inside Wolfchase. Four of the assailants carried sledgehammers, which they used to smash open jewelry showcases and retrieve $539,000 worth of Rolex watches. They subsequently fled the scene, leaving in two separate vehicles. They managed to commit the robbery and exit the store in less than a minute, according to Berryhill.

Berryhill said he couldn’t address if the suspects had any connection to Memphis, due to the investigation still being fresh. He also couldn’t comment on the possibility that the suspects have committed heists in other areas or if any of the watches were located on them at the time of their capture.

The date that the suspects will be extradited to Memphis wasn’t revealed during the press conference.