Image Credit: White House / Facebook, Canva, TN General Assembly
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
This week, Republican Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis-District 31) and Democrat Senator London Lamar (D-Memphis-District 33) responded to President Donald Trump’s recent statement about potentially deploying National Guard troops to Memphis.
In a recent interview with conservative radio host Todd Starnes, Trump stated that he would think about Memphis as he moves forward with an initiative to send troops to U.S. cities with high crime rates.
Starnes asked Trump if the federal government had plans to address the high crime rate in Memphis.
“I will be,” said Trump. “We’re doing sort of a test right now in DC. It’s working unbelievably. Much faster than we thought. We’ve arrested hundreds of criminals, hardline criminals.”
The President added that he put Memphis “early on the list” of potential cities.
“Look, it’s hard to argue with success,” Sen. Taylor told Action 5 News. “I mean, they have not had a single murder in Washington DC since President Trump brought the troops to DC.”
The Republican lawmaker suggested that the National Guard might be able to help local law enforcement by handling administrative duties.
“There are ways that the National Guard could be deployed here that would be something other than Humvees rolling down Union Avenue. That could be doing intakes at the jail. That could be serving as bailiffs in the courts to allow those types of officers to get back on the streets,” said Taylor. “It would have a huge impact in being able to redeploy our law enforcement officers to get them on the streets, protecting Memphians.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Lamar told Action 5 News that she doesn’t want people to think that the National Guard being deployed in Memphis will fix the problem.
“While we welcome any additional help to law enforcement to help mitigate and deter crime in our city. I don’t want people to think that sending federal troops to Memphis and these cities across the country are a solution to the high crime problem,” she said.
“As soon as they leave, if we don’t fix some of these structural issues, the crime rate is gonna go right back up,” Lamar continued. “We need to truly make an investment on making sure families can feed themselves, clothe themselves, and have affordable housing and what you will see is crime going down.”
During an August 11th press conference, Trump provided a list of the 5 cities that might be next to see an influx of National Guard show up to counter high crime rates.
This list included Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Oakland.
Memphis was not mentioned as a consideration until Trump was specifically asked about it by Starnes last week.
“We’ll never solve the crime problem and have zero crime. It’s just unrealistic. But we can have a manageable crime problem,” said Taylor. “Both Democrat and Republican, we have our own ways of wanting to solve this problem and I think we’re finally to the point, we’re all committing to solve the problem for Memphians.”
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
2 Responses
The people that are running Memphis should clean up their own mess. The people voted for them and now they should demand they clean up their city. Corruption runs deep and there is no fixing that unless you get rid of the people at the top.
These Democrat appointees are too firmly entrenched AND protected. Only outside intervention will fix the serious crime problem in Memphis. AND these appointees have no intention of cleaning up years and years of mess.