(The Center Square) – Gov. Bill Lee said Friday the state will allocate $100 million in grants to help combat crime in Memphis as federal officials begin supporting local law enforcement next week.
The Memphis Safe Task Force will include support from 13 federal agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the governor said at a news conference. Some agencies will arrive in Memphis on Monday but Lee said he didn’t have exact numbers as to how many.
“It will begin a phased operational approach,” Lee said. “It will happen over the next weeks and months and most importantly this will be a sustained effort.”
The U.S. Marshals Service will chair the task force. The National Guard, called in by second-term Republican President Donald Trump in an executive order last week, will play a “critical support” role, according to the governor. They will not be armed and will not have arrest powers unless the city requests it, he said.
The federal agencies will fund their operations, Lee told reporters. The Center Square was unsuccessful prior to publication of getting comment from the governor’s office on how the $100 million in state grants will be funded.
Democrats have said previously that the National Guard was not needed in Memphis, citing a decrease in crime.
“As a lifelong Memphian, I want to be clear: We do not need the National Guard occupying our city,” Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, said in a previous statement. The last time a U.S. president sent the Guard to Memphis was in 1968, after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel and our community was in deep grief and unrest. Other times the Guard was deployed to Southern cities, it was to enforce civil rights laws when segregationists refused to comply. That history matters – because what we are seeing now is not about justice, it’s about politics.”
Memphis Mayor Paul Jones said crime decreased in Memphis in 2024 and numbers will likely show another decrease in 2025.
“But the reality is still the reality,” Young said. “Crime still exists. I never said crime was over.”
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said the agency has looked for more federal support for several years.
“Today we are pleased to know that there are 13 agencies that will be working with us over the next few weeks so that we can see a difference in our city,” Davis said.
Lee said sustainability is the key to the success of the task force.
“This has to work,” Lee said. “We all believe very much that this is the moment and time we have been given to collaboratively work together for the people of Memphis.”
