Tag: Shelby County Crime

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‘All Hands on Deck’

DA Mulroy with Bartlett Mayor David Parsons and Millington Chamber director Terry Roland (Photo: Jackson Baker)

How much of the current sense that Memphis and Shelby County are threatened by a crime tsunami is a matter of perception, and how much is based on fact? That was one of the issues focused on during a summit in Bartlett last week in which DA Steve Mulroy and officials and other representatives of the outer county confronted both each other and the fear that things are getting out of control.

The roundtable meeting, hosted by Bank of Bartlett president Harold Byrd, was held last Thursday at the Bartlett campus of the College of Applied Technology (TCAT). There was a palpable sense of urgency to the event, conducted in the immediate aftermath of the shooting death of MPD Officer Joseph McKinney and a lethal fire-fight at an Orange Mound block party.

Mulroy took the opportunity to outline to the group various emergency crime-control procedures that his office was undertaking, and he cited a new report from the Shelby County Crime Commission showing that crime statistics had actually receded during the last quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024.

Among others, Mayor Mike Wissman of Arlington was skeptical. “What you give us sounds good on paper. … But we’re not seeing that. I mean, every time we turn on the TV, the first five stories are all crime. And most of them [involve] repeat offenders. … It all sounds great. But we’re not seeing results. It’s very frustrating.”

Mayor Stan Joyner of Collierville also disputed “all the talk that crime is down,” suggesting that newly released repeat offenders were beating arresting officers back home from court to renew their illegal activities.

“I share your frustration,” Mulroy said, noting that violent crime had been building steadily for a decade in Shelby County before he took office. “I will tell you this, it’s absolutely the case that I find what’s going on right now unacceptable. And I’m trying to do everything that I can to bend that curve.”

As for the apparently reassuring crime statistics, Mulroy said, “They may be true, but they’ve gone down from an unacceptably high level. And so the trend may be a positive one, and we all pray that the trend goes down, but the absolute level of crime is still unacceptable, right?”

There was general agreement on the point and on other aspects of the moment, including the effect of rising crime concerns on retarding economic progress and the contention of Millington Chamber of Commerce official Terry Roland that Memphis was the only Tennessee city to lose population last year. “We’re the stopping point,” Roland said, suggesting that Shelby County’s outer communities were a major factor in restraining even more dramatic population loss.

Said Mulroy: “I get it that we want to avoid the vicious cycle of, you know, crime perception leading to less investment leading to less prosperity, leading to more poverty into more crime. We definitely do not want to get in that vicious cycle, which is why we need an all hands on deck approach. … I totally agree that we need to stop pointing fingers, and we need to start joining hands. And we need to show a unified front to the state. You know, let’s figure out what it is we want from the state on a consensus basis and then try to go get it.”

Bartlett Chamber of Commerce president John Threadgill made an effort to put the crime problem in a more general context: “We’re in fairly good company, y’all. We’re ranked in the top 10 as far as violent crime, but we’re in there with St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore. There’s a lot of cities out there that have the same issues we have. We’re not the only ones. I’m a native of Nashville. And I can guarantee you folks in Nashville think they have too much crime.”

All in all, that was the import of last week’s meeting, that crime was everybody’s problem and, locally and even statewide, communities were in this together.

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Local Psychiatrist Encourages ‘More Effective’ Solution For Teens Who Commit Crimes

Lucas Trautman Photo credit: Bob Bayne


Law enforcement should want a “more effective” solution when dealing with juvenile crimes, according to Dr. Lucas Trautman, a licensed psychiatrist.

Trautman wants to “scream from the rooftops,” about the success of therapeutic treatment and resources for teenagers who have committed crimes, which takes into consideration the trauma of the person.

As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, Trautman has worked with teenagers who he said are currently driving the “extreme violent crime wave in Memphis.” Those who find their way to Trautman are usually considered to be a threat to themselves, others, or “psychotic where they can’t protect themselves in the community and keep themselves safe.”

“We’ll get someone who has a mental illness, like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia and they’re homicidal, and they’re imminently going to kill some people,” said Trautman.

Data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission show that while “serious juvenile crime” has decreased by 13 percent in the last year, the same data show that delinquent juvenile charges have increased almost 16 percent from 2022 (4,300) to 2023 (4,546).

Trautman said that the “knee-jerk” reactions to these crimes, and the people that commit them, are “terrifying.” However, he believes that people forget that at their core, they’re still teenagers.

“People carjacking with AK-47s are teenagers. They’re like 15, 16 years old,” Trautman said. “If you read about them in the paper, you’re terrified. But when you know them, and you give them treatment, and you give them a trauma-informed approach, and believe in them, they’re still teenagers. They do awesome.”

The Memphian’s approach is not only informed by success stories, but by his own experience. Trautman said that his middle school years were marked by misbehavior and bad decisions. However, through high school wrestling he found out how transformative consistent mentorship could be.

“Outside of medicine and outside of psychiatry, I’ve been a huge believer [in mentorship], and I’ve seen the impact that mentorship can have and consistency and believing in a teenager can have,” said Trautman. He continued this work through a gym he started five years ago in the Binghampton community, Stardust Jiu-Jitsu.

“They respond very positively, as I did in eighth-grade, to a coach, or in this case a psychiatrist, saying ‘you did this great. Let me give you a leadership opportunity,’” Trautman said. “You had this traumatic thing happen to you, and now you have this dysfunctional behavior. Let me give you some ideas about how we can do things differently that don’t make your life blow up at every turn.”

Trautman explained that this approach is marked by dignity and respect, which takes a two-pronged approach, involving him not only hearing these individuals out, and in turn imparting knowledge about trauma and functional behavior.

“It’s really fulfilling because I’m taking the most violent kids in the city, who have really, significant high-risk behaviors that are comparable to behaviors we see in teens in cities like Mexico City or Mogadishu,” said Trautman. “These are like good kids. They’re teenagers that are very receptive to all the things that we’re receptive to. They’re one wrestling coach, one theater program, one cheer squad, one football team away from making much more functional decisions.”

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Report Shows Overall Crime Down But a Rise in Major Violent Crime

A new report from the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission’s office shows that overall crime within the city fell during 2020, but major violent crime, specifically murder and aggravated assaults, rose at a “disturbing pace.”

Major property crime, which includes burglaries, motor vehicle thefts, and other felony thefts, dropped 8.9 percent in Memphis and 8.4 percent countywide. These drops culminate with a 35.3 percent drop of property crime in the city of Memphis and a 36.4 percent drop countywide over the last 15 years.

The Crime Commission attributes the decrease in crime to a “plummeting” burglary rate. In Memphis, reported burglaries were down 26.1 percent compared to 2019. While the report mentions that it is possible this is due to an increased number of people staying at home because of COVID-19, the burglary rate in Memphis fallen 66.1 percent citywide since 2006.

For Memphians, major violent crime remained a constant threat throughout 2020. Major violent crime, which is represented by murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults, was up 24.3 percent citywide and 23.1 percent countywide. Leading the increase were an abnormally high rate of murders, with a 49 percent increase in the number of murders throughout Memphis compared to last year. Countywide there was a 45.9 percent increase in murders.

Reported aggravated assaults were up as well. Aggravated assaults increased by 35.4 percent in the city, and 34.3 percent countywide. Despite the rise in both aggravated assaults and murders, robberies city and countywide were down 12.1 percent and 13.8 percent respectively.

One of the critical factors pointed to by the reported as a driver for the increases in crime was the amount of gun violence throughout the city. The Memphis Police Department recorded a record-breaking 332 homicides in 2020. Of the 332 homicides, 262 of them were with firearms. All in all, there were 6,454 reported violent incidents that involved a firearm, which constituted a 24.6 percent jump when compared to 2019.

The Crime Commission’s president and executive director, Bill Gibbons, said that the city will need more resources to solve the crime problem throughout Memphis.

“We’ve identified evidenced-based practices that, if implemented correctly, will work to reduce violent gun crime significantly. We have leaders committed to them, but it takes resources,” Gibbons said.

The full report can be found on the Crime Commission’s website.