2nd Memphis Citizen In A Week Killed By Federal Agents

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DEA Drug Enforcement Administration Sign on Office Wall — Source: asbe / Getty

For the second time in less than a week, a U.S. citizen in Memphis has been fatally shot by officers with a federal task force created by President Donald Trump and deployed to the city by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

Earlier this week, we reported that two Tennessee National Guard members, assigned to the federal crime-fighting patrol, fatally shot 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson, whom officers claimed they were pursuing after responding to a call about shots fired in the area. Now, not four days later, Tennessee authorities are investigating the second fatal shooting by an officer with the same task force.

From the New York Times:

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday that the shooting involved a Drug Enforcement Administration agent with a team of agents trying to serve an arrest warrant at a Memphis hotel on Wednesday morning.

A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said agents forced their way into the hotel room after commands to open the door were ignored. A man inside pointed a handgun at the group, and the agent shot and killed the man, the spokesman said. The state bureau said it would investigate the shooting, but did not identify the man or the agent involved.

“The Memphis Safe Task Force will remain in Memphis since dangerous criminals are still on the street,” Brady McCarron, the marshals spokesman, said. “Attempted violence against law enforcement will never be tolerated.”

The task force, he added, “has made the city of Memphis safer by arresting criminals, driving down crime, and locating missing children.”

It should be noted that Trump and his administration have spent the last year and a half crediting themselves for lowering violent crime in cities where violent crime was already in decline, as it has been across the country for years, despite Trump’s persistent claims that the opposite is true.

The president has used his false narrative around U.S. crime rates to justify sending the National Guard into numerous cities, most of which have been Democrat-led and/or are largely Black areas, including Memphis. As we noted in our previous report, Trump was blocked from deploying National Guard troops to Memphis by federal judge last year, just as he was blocked from deploying troops into several of the aforementioned Democrat-led cities.

It’s unclear how bad crime in Memphis was before the task force was deployed, but, according to the Times, it has resulted in more than 2,000 arrests and the confiscation of hundreds of firearms. Still, many Memphis residents are reportedly split on whether the task force is welcome, not to mention that there’s a pending lawsuit accusing officials of retaliating against those who attempt to monitor their operations.

More from the Times:

Some Memphis residents have welcomed the task force, expressing weariness and frustration with the high crime rates that have long plagued the city. Others, however, have accused the agents of using aggressive tactics and causing more fear and distrust in a majority-Black city with a painful history of discriminatory policing.

There is also an ongoing lawsuit against leaders of the task force, accusing agents of retaliating against efforts to document the task force’s arrests and detainment of both residents and undocumented immigrants.

“Every Memphian deserves to feel safe and public safety depends not only on reducing violence but also on maintaining trust between government and the communities it serves,” Raumesh Akbari and London Lamar, Democratic state senators, said in a statement after Mr. Johnson’s death early Sunday. “That trust is strengthened through transparency, accountability and an independent review of the facts.”

Steve Mulroy, the district attorney for Shelby County, which includes Memphis, has directed the state bureau to investigate both Johnson’s killing and that of the more recent victim. We’ll have to wait and see how all of that plays out.