Hundreds of federal law enforcement officers deployed to Memphis amid new safety task force
By Karina Tsui, Devon M. Sayers, CNN
Memphis (CNN) — A Tuesday night town hall in Memphis drew dozens of residents with questions about how a long-threatened federal law enforcement surge in yet another Democratic-run US city will play out.
Hours earlier, US Attorney General Pam Bondi had announced: “Our operation in Memphis is now underway,” with nine arrests and two “illegal guns” seized Monday. “Additionally, 219 officers were special deputized and our Joint Operations Center is up and running.”
The attorney general will travel to the city this week with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, she told Fox News on Tuesday.
The deployment of federal authorities in Memphis is happening alongside similar enforcement actions in cities like Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Chicago. President Donald Trump aims to do the same in Portland, Oregon, where local officials are pushing back on his claim crime has gone unchecked.
The action in Memphis came just hours after Trump suggested US cities could be used as a “training ground” for the nation’s military.
Trump wants the Memphis task force to model what he has called the success of stationing 2,000 National Guard troops in Washington. The Memphis operation, he said, calls for “large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods with law enforcement personnel” and “strict enforcement of applicable quality-of-life, nuisance, and public-safety laws.”
Federal and state law enforcement personnel, some in FBI vests, staged around sunrise Wednesday outside a county jail east of central Memphis. About 100 vehicles, including RVs and command trucks marked with US Marshals Service and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation logos, parked in nearby lots and fields.
While Memphis has experienced high numbers of violent crimes such as homicides and carjackings in recent years, Democratic and Republican officials have noted the city is seeing decreases this year in some crime categories.
Mayor Paul Young met Monday with federal agency officials, and talks continue about how agents can support Memphis police, he said.
“All of this is about building upon the success that we’ve already built,” Young told CNN affiliate WHBQ at Tuesday’s town hall. “We know that we’ve seen historic reductions in crime over the past 20 or so months, and we want to continue to build upon that.”
“We do have every reason to believe that they are going to be collaborative and work with our police department throughout this process,” the Democrat said, noting there wouldn’t be an uptick in checkpoints, like in DC.
Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee would not expect more than 150 National Guard members to be sent to Memphis, he has said. There wouldn’t be tanks rolling through the city, and troops wouldn’t make arrests or be armed unless local authorities request it.
Despite Trump’s comparing Memphis with Washington, the federal operation in Tennessee’s second-most populous city is different than in the nation’s capital, where troops report to the Secretary of the Army. Orders in Memphis would subject troops to the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars them from engaging in law enforcement.
Opponents of a troop deployment in Memphis who gathered Saturday at City Hall argued federal resources instead should go to education, crime prevention, youth services and hospitals.
At the town hall Tuesday, some residents expressed worries about the task force, while others said they were looking forward to a possible reduction in crime due to the presence of federal troops.
“I am glad they’re here,” Aqueelah Parker told WHBQ. “If it’s going to help the city I have no problems. I’m good.”
The-CNN-Wire
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