Tag: residency requirements

Categories
News News Blog

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.

[pullquote-1]

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.

Categories
News News Blog

Proposed Change in Fire, Police Residency Requirements Amended

The Memphis City Council continued its discussion Tuesday about lifting the residency requirements for the city’s police and fire personnel, but with a few changes.

The original ordinance, sponsored by council members J. Ford Canale and Gerre Currie, would allow voters to choose whether or not Memphis Police Department (MPD) and Memphis Fire Department (MFD) personnel should have to reside in the city or county, or if they should be allowed to live up to two hours away.

Tuesday Canale proposed four amendments to that ordinance. The first is developing a point system that would create preferential hiring for officers living within the city. The second is implementing a take-home car program for officers living in the city.

The third amendment would change the language of the ordinance, allowing officers to live in bordering counties or within a 50 mile radius instead of the originally proposed two-hour radius.

Finally, Canale recommended that the department only hire outside of the county when the department dips below a full complement of about 2,500 officers.

“We have one goal and only one goal in mind here — to get more men and women to serve the citizens of Memphis,” Canale said. “We’re not on a mission to hire people who don’t live in Memphis. We’re on a mission to put men and women on the street to protect Memphis.”

Councilwoman Cheyenne Johnson questioned why MPD is not able to find enough applicants within the city to fill its roles.

[pullquote-1]

MPD Director Michael Rallings said police departments across the country are experiencing a recruiting crisis and are challenged to find qualified applicants.

MPD Major Sharon Cunningham told the council that of the 13,000 MPD applicants since 2016, only 470 completed the entire application and training process to become officers.

More than half of those who show interest in becoming an officer either never turn in a completed application with the required documents or never show up for the next step in the hiring process.

Of those that do follow through, “Cunningham said 56 percent don’t make it through the physical ability test. Additional applicants are lost after a background check, psychological evaluation, and medical exam.”


After making it through each of these tests, applicants still must graduate from the Police Training Academy. Cunningham said potential officers are often lost here due to injuries.

Rallings added that retention is also an issue, as MPD officers are “highly skilled” and often recruited to work in other departments across the country or here at the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO).

“What does the Sheriff’s office have that we don’t?” Councilwoman Jamita Swearengen responded.

Working for the SCSO is “very different,” Rallings said, noting the county’s lighter workload and lower call volume. “You can’t even compare the level of work. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.”

Shifting the focus away from recruiting efforts, Councilman Berlin Boyd told his colleagues that recruiting more officers won’t change the crime demographic in the city, unless the root cause of poverty is addressed.

No votes have been taken on the ordnance yet. If approved by the council after three votes, voters will make the ultimate decision on the ballot next fall.

Categories
News News Blog

Changing Police, Fire Residency Rules Raises Concern Among City Council Members

CREDIT: Facebook/MPD

Facebook/MPD

A few members of the Memphis City Council voiced reservations Tuesday about lifting the residency requirements for the city’s police and fire personnel.

The ordinance up for discussion would allow voters to choose whether or not Memphis Police Department (MPD) and Memphis Fire Department (MFD) personnel should have to reside in the city or county, or if they should be allowed to live up to two hours away. If approved by the council, voters will make the ultimate decision on the ballot next fall.

Chief operating officer for the city, Doug McGowen, said this is an effort to do “everything in our power to lower the barrier to those who want to serve the citizens of Memphis.”

Currently, 12 percent of MPD officers live outside the city and county, MPD director Michael Rallings said. Forty-two percent live in the city.

[pullquote-1]

Rallings said that removing the residency requirements would aid the department with recruitment and help it reach its goal of having 2,300 commissioned officers. To date, there are 2,062 officers and another 85 in the training academy.

“As we continue to try and hire more officers and firefighters, I would hope we would remove any barrier to that,” Rallings said. “I just ask that you consider placing the issue back on the ballot and let the voters decide.”

Councilman Martavious Jones questioned whether lifting the residency requirements would assist recruiting efforts, as he said police hiring is a problem across the country — not one that is unique to Memphis: “Opening this up does not alleviate are recruitment and hiring problems.”

“Looking at the big picture,” Jones also said that allowing officers to live outside of the city could further exacerbate Memphis’ poverty rate. “Why should we let these high-paying, middle-class jobs leave our city?” he said. “We would open up the floodgates. We would not be doing ourselves any favors by doing anything that drives high-paying jobs out of here.”

Finally, Jones questioned whether it makes sense for first responders to live up to two hours outside of the city, especially in the case of a major emergency.

“First responders living two hours out?” Jones said. “What are they responding to? They can’t respond. I don’t see how this makes the recruiting effort easier or the city safer.”

[pullquote-2]

Councilwoman Cheyenne Johnson also expressed reservations about the ordinance.


“Part of being a part of Memphis administration is believing in Memphis,” Johnson said. “And if you believe in Memphis, you can find a home in Memphis. If citizens can’t believe officers are living next door or in community, it hurts the image the police and fire departments are trying to promote throughout city.”

Councilwoman Gerre Currie, one of the sponsors of the ordinance, disagreed saying that “whether they are two hours out or not I’m not going to second-guess personnel on their efforts.”

The council will return to this discussion in three weeks. MPD officials are slated to give a presentation on the department’s recruiting efforts to date then.