Town’s Democratic mayor, Paul Younger, says the ‘determination has been made’ however he doesn’t suppose it’s going to drive down crime.
US President Donald Trump will prolong federal regulation enforcement motion to town of Memphis, Tennessee, in a transfer that may embrace sending in Nationwide Guard troops and organising a “Memphis State Activity Power” to sort out crime, although police say total criminal offences are at a 25-year low.
Trump introduced the transfer in an executive order on Monday to rid Memphis of what he referred to as the “large ranges of violent crime which have overwhelmed its native authorities’s capability to reply successfully”.
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The chief order didn’t set out a timeline for when the Memphis process drive, which will even embrace the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Marshals Service, will likely be deployed.
Trump described the duty drive as a “duplicate” of his crackdown on Washington, DC, in August, in response to the Related Press information company, which noticed the US president deploy the Nationwide Guard on the streets of the US capital.
Trump has pushed for the same navy involvement in policing in Baltimore and Chicago, which, like Memphis and Washington, DC, are Democratic strongholds.
Trump’s Memphis process drive has the backing of Tennessee’s Republican governor, Invoice Lee, who joined Trump within the White Home for the announcement.
“I’ve been in workplace for seven years. I’m uninterested in crime holding the good metropolis of Memphis again,” Lee stated throughout a signing ceremony.
In latest weeks, @POTUS has restored regulation & order to DC.
Immediately, I used to be proud to face with him as he signed an order to do the identical for one more American metropolis: Memphis. In 2024, Memphis had the very best fee of violent crime per capita – almost 7 occasions the nationwide common.
Metropolis by… pic.twitter.com/mrwH4cvccZ
— Lawyer Normal Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) September 16, 2025
Memphis’s Democratic mayor, Paul Younger, stated on X that he didn’t suppose deploying the Nationwide Guard would drive down crime, however “the choice has been made”.
“Yesterday morning, we discovered that the Governor & President have determined to put the Nationwide Guard & different sources in Memphis, which they’ve the authority to do. I need to be clear: I didn’t ask for the Nationwide Guard and I don’t suppose it’s the strategy to drive down crime,” Younger stated on X.
Yesterday morning, we discovered that the Governor & President have determined to put the Nationwide Guard & different sources in Memphis, which they’ve the authority to do.
I need to be clear: I didn’t ask for the Nationwide Guard and I don’t suppose it’s the strategy to drive down crime. pic.twitter.com/gYO2LSEtC5
— Paul Younger (@mayorpaulyoung) September 13, 2025
Memphis is thought globally for its music business and its historic ties to rock and roll, soul and the blues. Final yr, it reported the very best violent crime fee amongst US cities of 100,000 individuals or extra, in response to 2024 FBI crime knowledge.
A evaluate by Al Jazeera of FBI crime statistics discovered the speed of violent crime – which incorporates homicide, negligent manslaughter, rape, theft and aggravated assault – for Memphis was 2,501 per 100,000 individuals in 2024. Town was adopted by Oakland, California, at 1,925 per 100,000 and Detroit, Michigan, at 1,781 per 100,000 individuals.
Memphis police, nonetheless, say this determine doesn’t paint a full image of town’s violent crime state of affairs amid “historic crime reductions” within the first eight months of 2025.
“General crime is at a 25-year low, with theft, housebreaking, and larceny additionally reaching 25-year lows. Homicide is at a six-year low, aggravated assault at a five-year low, and sexual assault at a twenty-year low,” police stated final week.
Regardless of this decline, town reported 146 homicides up to now in 2025 and 4,308 instances of aggravated assault.
