Tag: Memphis Police

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Memphis Police Get Body Cameras

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong announced that 500 officers will soon begin wearing body cameras. 

The announcement came at a press conference at the MPD’s Real Time Crime Center. Armstrong said that 50 officers are being trained with the cameras each day, and by early October, 500 officers will be using the cameras. By the end of the year, they should have 2,000 cameras deployed and operational. Every officer will have a camera assigned to him or her, Armstrong said.

The body cameras have been discussed for quite some time, but Mayor A C Wharton, who spoke at the conference, said the city was on target with its goal of outfitting officers with cameras.

“In spite of the fact that we’ve had some of the roughest periods, especially with loss of Officer Bolton, there have been quite a few questions about whether we have fallen behind,” Wharton said.

But he maintains the process is on-track. He said it simply takes awhile to get the technology up and running.

“This is not simply about placing a gadget on the lapel of each officer. It’s much more than that, with all the aspects of technology,” Wharton said.

Armstrong also said that in-car video has been installed in five squad cars, and four more cars will have cameras by October 1st. He said there will be cameras in more than 400 vehicles by January 2016.

Wharton pointed out that crime in Memphis is on the decrease with major violent crimes down 20 percent from 2006, when the county’s Operation Safe Community initiative was launched.

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Memphis Police Officer Killed During Traffic Stop

Sean Bolton

Memphis Police officer Sean Bolton was shot and killed during a traffic stop Saturday night in Parkway Village.

Bolton was shot multiple times after he pulled a car over at Cottonwood and Perkins around 9:18 p.m. The suspect is still at large, according to police. 

A citizen witness used Bolton’s radio to call for help. Bolton was rushed to the Regional Medical Center in critical condition. He was later pronounced dead.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong and Mayor A C Wharton held a press conference outside the Regional Medical Center Saturday night.

“There’s a theme that black lives matter, and at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, do all lives matter, regardless of race, creed, color, economic status, what profession a person holds? All lives matter. And this is just a reminder of just of dangerous this job is,” Armstrong said.

Bolton’s death is the third police killing in the line of duty in four years. In July 2011, Officer Timothy Warren was shot and killed at the DoubleTree Hotel downtown. And in December 2012, Officer Martoiya Lang was fatally shot while serving a warrant at a home in East Memphis.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Nothing From Nothing …

Sometimes on Tuesday morning, I stare at my laptop, looking for words. Sometimes, I say to myself, “I got nothing.”

So, what I can say about two young men who were killed in encounters with area police officers last weekend? Not enough is known about either case at this point to be able do anything but ask the obvious question: Why were trained police officers unable to subdue two unarmed men who had not committed a crime without hog-tying or shooting them?

In the case of Darrius Stewart, the 19-year-old man shot by a Memphis cop who claimed he was attacked with his own handcuffs, we have the small comfort of knowing the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is going to examine the incident rather than the district attorney’s office, which is notoriously cozy with the Memphis Police Department (MPD). The case, of course, is further inflamed by the fact that the officer involved is white and Stewart was black.

I say “small comfort” because TBI records are sealed by state law, so we won’t be privy to whom they interviewed, what the witnesses’ and officers’ testimonies were, etc. unless TBI decides to release its evidence. We can only hope they will conduct a transparent and unbiased inquiry that sheds real light on the case. That doesn’t always happen.

You may remember an incident in 2013, in which a young black man, Steven Askew, was sleeping in his car outside his girlfriend’s apartment, waiting for her to get home. Two MPD officers knocked on his car window, then shot him a couple dozen times in the back. The officers claimed they killed Askew because he pulled a gun on them. The incident was investigated by the DA’s office, which cleared the cops of wrongdoing, even though one of the officers had a lengthy and ugly history of misconduct, anger-issue counseling, and departmental reprimands. Even though the officers used very questionable police techniques.

Askew’s family filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the department and the city — which I predict they will win. This case was pre-Ferguson. If it had happened last week, I have no doubt the TBI would have been involved at an early stage rather than leaving the case for the local DA to resolve.

Meanwhile, down in Southaven, there was the case of Troy Goode, a young man who was acting erratically in a strip mall after leaving a Widespread Panic concert. Police eventually subdued Goode, hog-tied him, and sent him to a hospital, where he died shortly after arriving. Goode was apparently asthmatic and on hallucinogens, which could have contributed to his death, but hog-tying is not a smart police technique. The city of Memphis paid several million dollars to settle a police hog-tying death a few years back.

Stewart’s family has retained counsel, and I would be very surprised if a lawsuit isn’t filed. There’s no word yet on whether Goode’s family will take legal action, but I wouldn’t bet against it.

Being a police officer is a harrowing and difficult job. Mistakes get made, sometimes fatal ones. Anger and emotion spring up to fill the void of losing a loved one. Speculation and premature conclusions abound. Lawsuits get filed. Then settlements happen, settlements which often cost taxpayers millions. But the dead are still dead.

Last weekend, two young men died; now two families are in pain. Beyond that, I got nothing.

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Former Memphis Police Officer Indicted for Murder

Jaselyn Grant

Former Memphis Police officer Jaselyn Grant, 34, has been indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the off-duty shooting death of her 29-year-old wife, Keara Crowder, last November.

Grant killed Crowder after a domestic dispute in their southeast Shelby County home on November 19th. Grant is also being indicted on charges of attempted first-degree murder for shooting at Crowder’s 12-year-old son as he attempted to run away from the house for safety.

She is also charged with employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony and aggravated assault.

Grant is currently free on a $250,000 bond. Her case is being handled by the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office’s Intimate Partner/Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit.

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City Council Discusses Adding Cateria Stokes to Homicide Reward List

Cateria Stokes, the 15-year-old girl who was killed during a drive-by shooting at her house on April 10th, may be the next name added to the city’s reward list for information on homicide suspects.

Cateria Stokes

The Memphis City Council’s Public Safety Committee discussed adding Stokes’ name to the list in their meeting Tuesday morning, and the resolution will be voted on in the full council meeting Tuesday night. If passed, tipsters with information on Stokes’ killer, who remains unknown at this time, could be given a $100,000 reward.

Other names on the city’s homicide reward list include former Memphis Grizzly Lorenzen Wright, Larry Joseph Larkin, Joey Lacy, Cora Gatewood, Calvin Riley, Napoleon Yates, Marco Antonio Calero, Jack Lassiter, and Deryck DeShaun Davenport.

The Public Safety Committee also heard the monthly rape kit update. A member of the rape kit task force told council members that the construction storage room for DNA evidence was moving along and “seeing lots of progress.” As of March, there were 5,246 rape kits that remained untested. That’s down from 5,246 untested in February.

Council members also discussed an ordinance to give the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) more teeth, including the power to subpoena officers and information. The CLERB, which is currently inactive, is designed to provide oversight for citizen complaints against police wrongdoing. Both Director Toney Armstrong and Memphis Police Association President Mike Williams took issue with the idea giving the board subpoena power, claiming that it could impact the officers’ Fifth Amendment rights.

But City Council member Shea Flinn, who once served on an earlier incarnation of the CLERB, urged the council to take action soon and give the CLERB more power.

“All politics aside, this board is about when things don’t go right. And the reason this board wasn’t taken seriously by the city council [in its past incarnation] is because the board wasn’t serious. It had no power,” Flinn said. “And in these economic times, when we’re paying staff [to serve on the board], we cannot do nothing.”

Flinn said a CLERB with more power could help build trust between citizens and law enforcement. The CLERB amendment will be heard in its first reading at Tuesday night’s council meeting.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Good Cop. Bad Cop.

Let’s say you read a story about a doctor who amputated a patient’s left leg by mistake. He was supposed to remove the right leg, but he was in a hurry and misread a chart, and he was tired from having worked 12 hours straight and, well, he screwed up. That doctor would be criticized in the media. He’d be sued for malpractice. He’d have to go before the medical board and might lose his medical license.

But his incompetence wouldn’t be seen as an indictment of the entire medical profession or an attack on all doctors. His fellow doctors wouldn’t demand an apology from the media or start demonizing patients. They know, as we do, that getting rid of incompetent doctors is a good thing for all of us, including hospitals and other doctors.

The same standards hold true for most professions. It’s just common sense. You want to toss out the bad apples.

So why isn’t that the case when it comes to cops? Why isn’t it possible to acknowledge the difficulty of the job they perform and still criticize those cops who are bad at doing it? In Cleveland, Ohio, the police basically assassinated a 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice. The cop who did it has a history of mental issues and was deemed unsuitable for police work by another police department. There are protests in the streets and some of the city’s professional athletes are wearing T-shirts that condemn the killing, which was ruled a homicide.

But in Cleveland, as in other cities, the police are rallying around the officer in question. The union head is demanding an apology from the athletes and their teams. Battle lines are forming on social media; there are countless posts about the great work that cops do, and about how difficult their job is. Criticizing the behavior of some officers is portrayed as being anti-police or as being ignorant of how difficult their job is.

I get it. Being a cop is a thankless, life-threatening job. Most cops are good men and women. But police departments need to man up and acknowledge their bad apples. Closing ranks behind the blue “code of silence” is hurting them more than it’s helping them, as is the symbiotic relationship between district attorneys and cops that so often results in a sham grand jury “investigation.”

I’ve grown to respect Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong’s quiet approach to the current situation. His department’s non-confrontational response to local protesters has been spot on, and we should be grateful for it. It’s important that the police recognize that there’s a difference between a legal, organized protest and running through the streets and setting businesses on fire.

And it’s equally important for police leadership to recognize that the “thin blue line” is there to serve and protect us, and when someone in uniform fails in those duties, it’s in their own best interest that he or she be held accountable by their superiors — and their peers.

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News The Fly-By

Ferguson Decision Brings To Mind Memphis Police-involved Shootings

CREDIT: Louis Goggans

Protests were organized across the country last week, following a Ferguson, Missouri, grand jury’s decision to not indict police officer Darren Wilson in the August killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Some in Ferguson held peaceful protests. But others looted and vandalized local shops and burned buildings and cop cars. In other areas of the country, including Memphis, demonstrations in opposition to the decision remained peaceful.

Louis Goggans

A protester at the Ferguson solidarity demonstration in Memphis last week

On Tuesday, November 25th, more than 100 people gathered at the intersection of Poplar and Highland, holding signs and chanting. Jordan Brock, a 24-year-old University of Memphis student, was among the peaceful group of protesters. However, he said he didn’t feel like the local protest would bring change.

“I was under the impression that we were going to march somewhere to try to talk to some kind of public official [and] get some answers to prevent a Mike Brown [incident] happening in Memphis,” Brock said. “But no, it was just us with signs on the intersection making good chants every five minutes. I understand that everybody wanted to be a part of a movement, but there’s no point of doing that if you don’t know what you’re protesting about.”

On August 9th, Wilson, 28, reportedly stopped Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson as they walked down the middle of a two-lane street in Ferguson. While in his Chevrolet Tahoe police vehicle, Wilson requested the two get on the sidewalk. After an exchange of words, a tussle ensued in the SUV between Wilson and Brown.

During the struggle, Wilson’s weapon was unholstered and discharged inside his SUV, according to reports. After being grazed in the hand by one of the bullets, Brown reportedly ran away from Wilson, who pursued him.

But at some point, Brown allegedly stopped running, turned around, and charged toward Wilson, according to Wilson’s account of the story. Subsequently, Wilson fired 10 shots, several of which struck Brown in his head, chest, and right arm, killing him.

Despite avoiding indictment in the shooting, Wilson resigned from the Ferguson police department on Saturday. He attributed his resignation to being concerned about his continued employment jeopardizing the safety of colleagues.

Although locals have focused attention on Ferguson, numerous controversial police-involved shootings have taken place over recent years in Memphis.

Following the December 2012 death of Martoiya Lang, a police officer who was fatally shot while serving a search warrant at an East Memphis home, several people were shot by Memphis police officers.

Memphis attorney Howard Manis is the defense attorney for the families of two of those victims: 24-year-old Steven Askew and 67-year-old Donald Moore. Both families have filed lawsuits against the MPD and city of Memphis, alleging civil rights violations.

On January 11, 2013, Memphis police officer Phillip Penny fatally shot Moore with an assault rifle at his Cordova home. Penny alleged that Moore pointed a gun at him and several Memphis Animal Services employees who were there to serve an animal cruelty warrant.

A week later, on January 17th, Memphis police officers Ned Aufdenkamp and Matthew Dyess shot and killed Askew as he sat in his car in the parking lot of the Windsor Place Apartments. The officers shot Askew nine times after he allegedly pointed his handgun at them.

Manis said with police-involved shootings occurring locally as well as across the nation, it’s imperative for officers to receive additional training on how to handle people of all races during intense situations.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of the police, and the police shouldn’t be afraid of us,” Manis said. “No matter what the color of our skin, what neighborhood we live in, the way we dress [or] act, no one should make generalized assumptions about people and then act solely based on those assumptions.”

According to Memphis Police Department policy, “Officers shall use only the necessary amount of force that is consistent with the accomplishment of their duties, and must exhaust every other reasonable means of prevention, apprehension, or defense before resorting to the use of deadly force.

“Officers are authorized to use deadly force in self-defense if they have been attacked with deadly force, are being threatened with the use of deadly force, or has probable cause and reasonably perceives an immediate threat of deadly force. An officer can also use defense if a third party has been attacked with deadly force, is being threatened with the use of deadly force, is in danger of serious bodily injury or death; or where the officer has probable cause and reasonably perceives an immediate threat of deadly force to a third party.”

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News The Fly-By

Memphis Police Department Hit with “Blue Flu” Protest

CREDIT: MPA Facebook Page

The “blue flu” protest by Memphis police officers is rooted in changes to their health-care benefits and proposed changes to their retirement benefits. Some have called the benefits “generous,” but others contend they match the tough and sometimes gruesome work of being a cop in Memphis.

The changes prompted hundreds of Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers to call in sick before, during, and after the Independence Day holiday weekend. The protest was not sanctioned by the Memphis Police Association (MPA), according to the police union’s president Michael Williams.  

Last month, the Memphis City Council approved a

24 percent increase to the premiums city employees and some retirees pay for their city-sponsored health insurance. The increase was a compromise down from the 57 percent rate hike proposed by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton. 

The council also cut from the city’s health plan the spouses of city employees if they can get insurance from their employer. Also, a fee on tobacco users was raised from $50 to $120 per pay period.

These health-care changes are on the books but won’t take effect until later this year or the beginning of next year. But what about those benefits? 

The city’s five-year plan from the PFM Group, expert consultants hired by the city, was delivered in January and said that some of the city’s employee health-care benefits are actually better than those of other cities comparable to Memphis. 

• Health insurance premiums —The original 70 percent/30 percent split between the city and employee has shifted over the years to a 75.7 percent/23.1 percent split in 2012, the plan says. The shift raised the cost to the city by

$3.8 million from 2010 to 2012. 

Expenses to cover those costs rose 36.6 percent from 2008 to 2012, the study says. The same costs rose only 22.8 percent in the same time for similar public and private employers. 

• Health insurance deductibles – Memphis city employees pay $100 per person up to $300. Metro Nashville employees pay $2,000, the study says. Atlanta employees pay $900. Boston employees pay $400. “This constitutes a generous benefit to [Memphis] city employees compared to other public and private employers,” the study says.

George Little, the city’s chief administrative officer, said Wharton administration officials have used the five-year plan in making policy decisions. But changing employee health-care options to curtail city spending has been suggested by similar studies going back to Willie Herenton’s administration, Little said.  

 “[The benefits are] higher than the peer cities and better than — I mean way, way better — than most folks in the private sector are getting right now,” Little said.

But Williams said officers here deserve better benefits packages because they don’t get Social Security benefits like those in the private sector, and they have hazardous jobs that take a toll on their bodies and that “no one else wants to do.”

“We arrive on a crime scene with carnage and dead babies and bodies that have been decomposing for days or children that have been molested,” Williams said. “So, to say our packages are better; they may not be better.”

The city council is still debating changes to employee pension benefits, which the five-year plan contends has some components “richer than comparable jurisdictions.” 

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Organization Looks to Improve Police Review Board

Memphis United Facebook

  • Memphis United Facebook

Memphis United has announced a campaign involving social media and town hall meetings to improve the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board, which has been reinstated by the Wharton administration after being inactive for four years, according to the organization. The Flyer covered Memphis United’s early work on this issue in February.

At a press conference Thursday evening, members of the group spoke about their experiences with the Memphis Police Department and the Internal Affairs Bureau. Speakers included Paul Garner, an organizer with the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, who was arrested while filming officers last year. His process took months to complete with Internal Affairs and went nowhere.

“[The review board] existed nowhere but on paper,” Garner said to reporters. “Now, it has no subpoena power and no punitive authority.”

The board was also only allowed to review investigations that were completed by Internal Affairs.

Deborah Robinson, a freelance journalist from Las Vegas, also spoke to reporters after having an incident with Memphis police last month, where she was allegedly questioned and assaulted while filming an arrest at a bus terminal.

In December, the Memphis Police Department released its formal policy on recording, instructing officers to refrain from asking for identification or reasons for recording as well as stopping those in the process of recording.

“The officers ignored the policy,” Robinson said.

For inspiration, Memphis United looked at Knoxville as a model for the proposed improvements to the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board.

The first town hall meeting for citizens to offer input into Memphis United’s work to “make [the board] more effective” is June 24th at 6 p.m. in the Lewis Davis CME Church, located in the Chickasaw Gardens neighborhood. The organization also has a hashtag for people to share experiences with Memphis police on social media, #CLERBspeakout2014.

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News News Blog

Full PDF Report of Memphis Animal Services Undercover Investigation

In this week’s Memphis Flyer, we reported on the past actions of Memphis Animal Services field supervisor Glenn Andrews, who was named in the same Memphis Police undercover investigation that netted former MAS employees Frank Lightfoot, Billy Stewart, and Archie Elliot on animal cruelty charges in late 2011 and early 2012.

In the undercover report taken at that time, Andrews is mentioned multiple times — once for kicking a dog and several times for giving animals to fellow employees without following the shelter’s foster protocols. Read the full story here, or view the PDF of the undercover officer’s report below.

Arrington_undercover_report_MAS_investigation.pdf