Memphians had been flummoxed in late 2022 by two heinous crimes — the brazen kidnapping from her jogging trail and murder of schoolteacher Liza Fletcher and a maniacal killing spree by one Ezekiel Kelly, who videoed the shootings of his random victims on social media as he rambled around town that evening in a series of stolen cars.
These were horrific events, and they earned widespread national attention as well.
But the dazed citizens of Memphis had, as they say, seen nothing yet. Nor had the world. In the first weeks of the new year, a young amateur photographer and skateboard enthusiast named Tyre Nichols was stopped while driving home and mauled and killed by members of an out-of-control police unit called, ominously, “SCORPION.”
Understandably, such circumstances, coupled with a dismaying rise in shootings, car thefts, break-ins, and youth violence in general, ensured that public safety and crime control — on both sides of the law — would loom large in the year’s city elections.
Temporarily interrupted by legal confusion over possible residency issues, the mayoral race eventually saw an original field of 11 winnowed down to four main contenders: Sheriff Floyd Bonner, former Mayor Willie Herenton, NAACP head Van Turner, and Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young.
An early favorite, Bonner would see his prospects marred, fairly or not, by publicity regarding an apparent rash of inmate deaths in the county jail. The ultimate victor was Young, a veteran of several more or less technocratic city and county jobs, who had begun the race as a virtual unknown but caught fire, thanks to influential backing, formidable fundraising, and nonstop on-the-clock campaigning.
The outgoing Mayor Jim Strickland, a veteran of two terms, had been vexed by the issue in his turn. He had expended considerable time in recent months lamenting what he called a “revolving door,” whereby members of the judiciary and local prosecutorial authorities were, in his estimation, being lax about getting criminals off the streets and keeping them off.
But, in the course of several year-end farewell appearances as mayor, Strickland found a silver lining or two.
In prepared remarks, Strickland cited “city recruitment and retention programs and incentives to grow our [police] department” closer to a distant goal of 2,500. (Currently, the MPD is about 1,900 strong.) Altogether, 1,136 officers had been added to the force, and 1,301 had been promoted during his tenure, Strickland noted.
Other matters mentioned by Strickland in a wide sweep of claimed accomplishments included a variety of development projects, youth programs, and initiatives for the homeless, along with extensive re-paving, new LED street lighting, and more of the “basics” candidate Strickland had promised to be “brilliant” at when he first ran in 2015.
In the course of his remarks during an unveiling of his official portrait in City Hall, the mayor was openly emotional to the point of tears as he expressed gratitude for the opportunity to have served eight years in “the best job I ever had.”
And now that job is Paul Young’s for the having. One of the bases of candidate Young’s appeal had been his assertion that he didn’t care about the politics of things, that, rather, “I just want to do the work.”
That modest declaration was reassuring in the same way that Strickland’s expressed determination to see to the basics had been.
Young, too, will have to concern himself with the everyday and the commonplace of governing — and no doubt will do well at it.
But to return to our main theme, he will have to wrestle — and wrestle hard — with the overarching theme of public safety.
One reminder is that 2024 will see the trial of a second defendant in the 2018 murder on Front Street of then Chamber of Commerce president Phil Trenary, a random victim who was walking home to his condo after watching the conclusion of a 5K race Downtown.
An uncommon event but a basic one nevertheless.
