Tag: shelby county sheriff’s office

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Sentences Come for Shoplifting Ring, Machine Gun Possession, and 2002 Cooper-Young Shooting

Photo: Max Fleischmann on Unsplash

The new acting U.S. attorney here announced new sentences recently for the crimes of running an organized retail theft ring, shooting a machine gun at the cops (on a warning about putting down a cell phone while driving), and a resentencing for the 2002 shooting of a pizza delivery person in Cooper-Young.

Shoplifting conspiracy

Four Memphians were sentenced in the last two months for an organized retail theft conspiracy worth millions. 

Acting U.S. Attorney Reagan Fondren’s office said the scheme stretched three years from April 2018 to May 2020. In it, three people — Latasha Brooks, 42; Coyoti Carter, 47; and Tarnisha Woods, 49 — would go to stores and shoplift “large quantities of health and beauty products including memory supplements, hair regrowth treatments, weight loss aids, and allergy medicines.” 

Afterward, Keith Guy, 38, would pay Brooks for the stolen goods. Brooks would then pay Carter and Woods for their work. Guy then sold the stolen goods to resellers on the internet. He used the U.S. Postal Service to ship hundreds of parcels to locations across the country. 

Investigation officials estimated the total retail value of the products stolen in the scheme at over $4 million. 

The four were indicted by a grand jury in December. They all pleaded guilty. Earlier this month, Guy was sentenced to 34 months in prison. In August, Brooks was sentenced to 34 months, Carter was sentenced to one year and one day, and Woods was sentenced to 15 months in prison.     

Cell phone warning turns to machine gun sentence 

On February 1, 2022, a Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy saw Jaquan Bridges, 22, driving slowly near I-240 and Walnut Grove while looking at his cell phone. The deputy activated emergency equipment to alert Bridges (either flashed the car’s lights, wooped the siren, or both) to put the phone down. 

“Bridges rolled down his passenger-side window and fired gunshots at the deputy’s vehicle, striking it several times,” reads a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office. “Bridges then fled, leading deputies on a high-speed pursuit for 10 miles, before Bridges hit at least three other vehicles and crashed into a concrete barrier.  

“When Bridges was taken into custody, deputies recovered a Glock .40 caliber pistol with an attached machine gun conversion device (known as a ‘switch’) and extended magazine.” 

Two years later, Bridges pleaded guilty to the charges. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to nine years for possessing a machine gun. 

Resentencing in 2002 Cooper-Young shooting

The original sentence for Louie Holloway, 43, of Memphis, was vacated in 2022 after changes in gun laws in Tennessee. (It’s unclear which law change brought the decision to vacate: constitutional carry or allowing short-barreled rifles and shotguns).  

Holloway was serving life in prison for the 2002 murder and attempted robbery of John Stambaugh, a University of Memphis student who was delivering pizza in Cooper-Young. 

(Read Bruce VanWyngarden’s great column on the ordeal from the time here.)

After his sentence was vacated, however, the district court immediately scheduled a resentencing hearing. In that one, Holloway was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system. 

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Tennessee Hate Crimes Rose in 2021

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Tennessee hate crimes rose in 2021 — the most recent year recorded — for the second year in a row, according to new state and federal data. 

Each year the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) issue reports on hate crime. Law enforcement agencies must report crime data, and in years past, they could report to either the FBI or the TBI. Last year was the first year the FBI mandated all agencies report to them. However, the transition is not yet complete as some agencies are unable or unwilling to comply with the FBI mandate.

The U.S. Department of Justice said because of this “data cannot reliably be compared across years.” It also makes it tough to complete a picture of hate-crime activity in Tennessee.

However, state data show 133 hate crimes recorded in 2021, higher than the 122 recorded in 2020, and the 112 hate crimes recorded in 2019. The information in both reports also illuminates the flash points of friction in the state. 

For example, most hate crimes in Tennessee in 2021 were based on race and ethnicity (62). Most of these (46) were against Black people. Twenty crimes were against whites. However, TBI data show that most hate-crime victims (67) were white, followed by Black victims (34).

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

The next most-affected group was the LGBTQ community with 13 crimes reported. Most of Tennessee’s hate crime victims (29) were between 35 and 44 years of age. 

“No one in this country should be forced to live their life in fear of being attacked because of what they look like, whom they love, or where they worship,” said the DOJ’s Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “The department will continue to use all of the tools and resources at our disposal to stand up to bias-motivated violence in our communities.”

Tennessee hate crimes mostly happened in homes or residences (55) but they also happened in commercial spaces (27), schools (20), government buildings (8), public transportation (26), roads and alleys (17), parking lots or garages (9), and recreational spaces (6).

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

Most of these crimes were simple assaults (133). In them, offenders used their hands, fists, feet, arms, and teeth (30). They also used “dangerous weapons” (15), firearms (6), motor vehicles (3), asphyxiation by strangulation, gas, or drowning (1), fire or explosives (1), and in 17 cases the weapon was unknown. 

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

Thursday and Friday tied for the day that saw most hate crimes (25) committed in Tennessee. Saturdays (16) and Sundays (9) were the lowest. Most hate crimes were committed between the hours of noon-2:59 p.m. (24) and from 3 p.m. to 5:59 p.m. (24). The fewest hate crimes (3) occurred between the hours of 3 a.m.-5:59 a.m. 

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

In Tennessee, most hate crime cases are not solved. In 2021, 40 hate crime cases were cleared with an arrest. However, 83 cases were not cleared. In other cases, prosecution was declined or the victim refuse to cooperate.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

The Memphis Police Department recorded six hate-crime incidents in 2021, according to the FBI data. Three of these were anti-Black, two were anti-Hispanic or Latino, and one was anti-LGBTQ. In them, there were six counts of intimidation, one aggravated assault, one case of destruction of property, one robbery, and one simple assault. 

Three incidents were in homes, two on roadways, and one on an industrial site.  Six offenders were Black and three were white. 

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) recorded four hate crimes in 2021. Three of those were anti-Black, one was anti-white, all of them simple assaults. Two happened in schools, one in a restaurant, and the other in an unknown location. All four offenders were Black, according to the data, and one victim was a law enforcement officer.

Germantown Police Department recorded one hate crime, an anti-Asian simple assault by a thief person that happened in a restaurant. Millington Police Department recorded one anti-LGBTQ simple assault by a Black person recorded in a restaurant.

Bartlett Police Department recorded two hate crimes in 2021, one anti-Black, the other anti-white. One happened in a home, the other in a medical setting like a doctor’s office, drug store, or hospital. 

Of the suburban cities that reported such data to the FBI, Collierville had the most in 2021. Two of them were anti-Black, one was anti-LGBTQ, and another was anti-Protestant. The victims were three individuals and one religious organization. 

The University of Memphis reported zero hate crimes to the FBI. So did the state park rangers at Meeman-Shelby State Forest, law enforcement at Memphis International Airport, and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Neither Lakeland nor Arlington reported data to the FBI.  

However, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) said national reporting of the data is “consistently inconsistent,” noting that the 2021 is “drastically incomplete” making comparison between previous years “almost meaningless.”

For example, the SPLC said, about 3,500 agencies did not report any data to the FBI in the 2020 report, including 10 cities with populations over 100,000. And another 60 police departments in cities with populations over 100,000 reported zero hate crimes.

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Judge Lipman Refuses to Lift Jail Covid Decree

Shelby County Jail (Credit: Shelby County Sheriff's Department).

U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman entered an order on Tuesday denying a motion from the Shelby County Sheriff’s office to terminate a consent decree of last June mandating improved access to Covid-19 prevention for prisoners in the Shelby County Jail.

 The consent order was the result of litigation on inmates’ behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.

Judge Sheryl Halle Lipman

In seeking termination of the decree, the motion from Sheriff Floyd  Bonner had claimed, essentially,  that, pursuant to the consent decree, the Department had offered all inmates access to a vaccine and provided adequate educational materials and incentives to take the vaccine.

Lipman rejected this argument, finding that, contrary to the assertions of head jailer Kirk Fields, it was not clear that all detainees had indeed been offered a vaccine. 

She found further that it was even less clear that all inmates had received the educational materials that the Sheriff’s Department contended had gone out to each detainee, or that the educational materials had indeed been adequate.

In denying the Department’s motion to terminate the decree, Lipman cited testimony from two experts, one provided by the plaintiffs and another by the court itself, asserting that the vaccination rate for jail inmates remained at a “shockingly low rate” of between 11 and 24 percent.

The judge said that such a rate, “in the midst of the virulent Delta variant, signals a population in deep peril,” and concluded, “The consent decree did not enshrine mere box-checking. It enshrined meaningful protection for plaintiffs, a medically vulnerable group.”

Hence, she said, “Defendants have failed to satisfy their burden that the Consent Decree has been terminated. Thus, their Motion to Terminate the Consent Decree is denied.”

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Politics Beat Blog

ACLU Seeks Jail Compliance with COVID Order


The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN), which last month successfully sued to obtain a federal court order requiring that the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department provide COVID protective measures to inmates at the county jail, filed a motion late Wednesday asking Judge Sheryl Halle Lipman to compel enforcement of her earlier order.

Announcing its action, ACLU-TN said, “the April 9th agreement was meant to ensure that medically vulnerable people living in the jail are sufficiently protected as long as COVID-19 threatens their health and safety. However, less than a week after the court approved the consent decree, the Sheriff’s Office informed the plaintiffs that they believed the protections negotiated under the settlement had terminated, without demonstrating that people living in the Shelby County Jail are adequately protected from COVID-19.”

Accordingly, the ACLU-TN asked the court to order that the sheriff: 

  • offer adequate educational materials and non-punitive incentives to increase the vaccination rate in the jail;

• provide sufficient socially-distanced out-of-cell time;

• prioritize and expedite release plans for detainees who can be released, and to increase the availability of pretrial release options

• make an effort to adopt the recommendations of the ventilation expert from this lawsuit

Lindsay Kee, director of strategic communications for ACLU-TN, added, “We also asked the court to clarify that its April 9th order does not terminate until a sufficient vaccine education effort has been made, sufficient and regular opportunities to receive the vaccine have been offered, and vaccines have been fully administered in accordance with CDC guidelines, including all doses and aftercare.”

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Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy Arrested In Domestic Violence Incident

Michael Stevenson

Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy Michael Stevenson, who serves as the school resource officer at Kingsbury High School, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with aggravated assault and domestic violence after a situation with his pregnant wife.

Stevenson’s wife, who is 16 weeks pregnant, told detectives that Stevenson became angry and pushed her against a wall, slammed her onto the bed, and choked her after she woke him up to discuss marital issues. 

She called police, and Stevenson was arrested without incident. He’s been relieved of duty without pay pending an internal investigation. Stevenson has been with the sheriff’s office since 2009.

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Former Sheriff’s Detective Pleads Guilty in Sex Case

James Bishof

A former Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) detective has been sentenced to six years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman.

In July 2011, James Bishof, then 58, was on duty at the SCSO’s General Investigation Bureau inside 201 Poplar. A 22-year-old woman who was involved in a domestic violence case visited the bureau to discuss her case.

While at the office, Bishof convinced the woman to disrobe in a women’s bathroom, according to the Shelby County District Attorney General’s (SCDAG) office. He subsequently took nude photographs of her, which he claimed to need to document injuries for his investigation.

After taking the photos, Bishof said he would need to come to her home with a better camera to take additional photos for the investigation. When he arrived to the victim’s home, Bishof had her undress again. He took more explicit photos of her. He also touched her inappropriately and made sexual remarks, according to the SCDAG’s office.

Bishof, who is now 61 and no longer with the sheriff’s department, has pled guilty to official oppression and assault involving offensive contact. He has been sentenced to six years in prison for official oppression and six months on the assault.

On Feb. 27th, Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee will determine whether Bishof will serve his sentences in prison, on probation or in some combination of the two. He also would be eligible for diversion.

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News The Fly-By

New Fund Established to Help Test City’s Rape Kits

Testing the thousands of backlogged rape kits that surfaced in Memphis last year is estimated to cost more than $6.5 million, and officials said this month that more than $3.7 million is still needed to reach that goal. 

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) have funded the effort so far through direct support from the Memphis City Council, grants from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a $750,000 challenge grant from the Plough Foundation that will be issued once the funding gap is closed.

But a curious new source of funds has emerged. A private, anonymous donor gave $10,000 to the effort this month. The anonymous donor parked those funds at the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis (CFGM). In doing so, the donor established the Sexual Assault Resource Fund, which is now open to anyone looking to help clear the rape kit backlog. 

“I think it’s really going to fill the gap,” said Sutton Mora Hayes, vice president of the CFGM. “It will help get additional testing that needs to be done, but it will also help the organizations that work with victims. It will help [the organizations] with training and capacity building.”

Hayes said, for example, the fund could be used to support hiring more victims’ counselors at the Shelby County Rape Crisis Center. Or it could be used, she said, for technical assistance, policy work, training law enforcement, or just processing more rape kits. The final decision on how the funds are used is up to a panel comprised of members from the Cross-Functional Team, which oversees the rape kit testing project.

Funds like this are not unusual to the CFGM, Hayes said. The foundation has worked with the city and county on several projects in the past, including the purchase of the land for the Shelby Farms Greenline. 

In related news, construction is set to begin next month on a new building to store rape kits and all DNA evidence for the MPD and the SCSO. 

Rape kits have been moved over the years from the old MPD headquarters at 128 Adams, to 201 Poplar, and then to the MPD’s property and evidence storage facility in the old International Harvester building. These moves were part of the confusion that led to the rape kit backlog.

The new space will be built at the Harvester location with the capacity to store about 60,000 kits. The facility will be climate-controlled and come with a price tag of about $1 million. Construction is estimated to take about four months.

Progress is being made in the situation with 222 investigations launched since the untested rape kits surfaced in May 2013. But fixing the problem will be anything but quick or cheap in the long run.  

Testing all of the kits could take up to five years, according to a report from the Cross-Functional Team. The one-time glut of cases into the system has created a glut of work for law enforcement and prosecutors. Both will need more employees (and more money to pay them) to conclude the project.

Rape kit backlog by the numbers:

• 12,374 total rape kits discovered 

• 6,722 not yet tested

• Nearly 5,000 of those kits collected before DNA testing existed

• 2,495 now being tested, majority at a private lab

• 222 investigations initiated based on testing

• 90 investigations remain active

• 132 investigations have been closed

• 20 individuals identified as being previously convicted

• 34 indictments issued

• 14 of those are suspects based on hits from the FBI’s Combined DNA Index (CODIS) System

• 20 suspects remain as John Doe, not identified

• 18 cases closed because victim or suspect has died

• 21 cases closed because victims have been contacted but did not want to participate in a further investigation

• 27 cases not caught before the statute of limitations expired

• 3 cases investigated did not meet the statute definitions of a crime

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News The Fly-By

Memphis Police and Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Appoint LGBT Police Liaisons

In 2008, a surveillance video of a transgender Shelby County Jail inmate being beaten by police officers in the booking area of the jail sent shockwaves through the LGBT community.

Memphis Police officer Bridges McRae wrapped handcuffs around his fist and punched inmate Duanna Johnson in the head. He also used a chemical spray on Johnson, who later told the media that McRae called her “he/she” and “faggot.” McRae was later sentenced to two years in prison, but for some in the LGBT community, the distrust of police lingered.

“When you have situations like watching an officer beat a person in the jail, that carries a lot of weight. It’s hard to overcome that. It damages trust,” said Will Batts, director of the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC).

Now two police liaisons to the LGBT community — Davin Clemons from the Memphis Police Department (MPD) and Barbara Tolbert from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) — are hoping to restore that trust and ensure that their fellow officers are sensitive to LGBT issues.

It’s been more than a decade since the LGBT community has had a law enforcement liaison, and Batts said one is sorely needed.

“We needed somebody in the departments that we could refer people to, that they would feel safe being honest with,” Batts said.

An area of particular concern, Batts said, is the issue of same-sex domestic violence victims feeling comfortable opening up about their sexual orientation to police. He said police relations with the transgender community could be improved as well.

“Tennessee is the only state with a law against changing your gender marker on your birth certificate, and that puts you in conflict [with police] if your ID doesn’t match your appearance,” Batts said. “And it’s hard for transgender women of color to find adequate employment and housing, and they sometimes find themselves doing survival things that put them in conflict with the police department.”

But now, with the liaisons in place, if someone from the LGBT community has a negative interaction with police, they can turn to Clemons and Tolbert for help.

“If they feel violated or feel like the police are unsympathetic because of their sexual orientation, they can contact me,” said Clemons, who works with the MPD’s TACT Unit. “I will go through my chain of command and submit a memo and let my commanders know what has occurred.”

Clemons, an ordained elder at the Cathedral of Praise Church of Memphis, Inc., was already active in the equality movement before he was chosen for the liaison role. He’s a member of Clergy Defending Rights for All, which worked with the Tennessee Equality Project to push the non-discrimination ordinance for city workers that passed two years ago. He said he’ll help to educate his fellow officers on cultural sensitivity.

“I’m not trying to force sexual orientation on anyone. I’m just trying to make sure we uphold the oath that we took to be respectful of people’s cultures and their rights,” Clemons said. “I know I’ll get some backlash from some officers, but I think overall, most officers understand that Memphis is a melting pot, and we work with people who are same-gender-loving, white, black, Muslim, Asian, Hispanic. We have to respect the citizens we render services to.”

Tolbert, a detective in the SCSO Special Victims Unit, said part of their role as liaisons is simply to be a sympathetic ear.

“People just want to be heard. They want someone to listen to their concerns without any repercussions. I’m that person. They can discuss any matters with me and know they will not be judged,” Tolbert said.

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Memphis Gaydar News

Meet Memphis’ New LGBT Police Liaisons

Police-cap-and-truncheon-on-rainbow-suface-ripple.jpg

Local law enforcement has assigned two officers to act as liaisons to the LGBT community.

Detective Barbara Tolbert of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and Officer Davin Clemons of the Memphis Police Department will be on-hand at the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (892 S. Cooper) on Thursday, Aug. 21st at 6:30 p.m.

The meeting is intended to be “a safe place where members of the LGBTQ community can express concerns candidly or ask questions pertaining to any past or current issues that are related to our local law enforcement authorities,” according to the MGLCC announcement about the meeting.

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Gun Found In a Student’s Backpack at Overton High

A gun was detected in the backpack of an Overton High School student this morning as the 15-year-old boy passed through the school’s metal detectors.

A .25-caliber RG26 handgun was retrieved from the backpack. It was not loaded, but the backpack also contained a magazine with five live rounds.

Shelby County Sheriff’s officers were called to the scene. They arrested the student and charged him with possession of a weapon on school property. He was transported to Shelby County Juvenile Court.

A .25-caliber RG25 handgun

  • A .25-caliber RG25 handgun