Memphis Mayor Paul Young is getting community pushback for his refusal to sign off on a U.S. Department of Justice consent decree spurred by a report detailing police brutality. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
Memphis advocacy groups are urging city leaders to sign a federal consent decree to reform the city’s police department after a federal investigation found officers there engage in violent and unconstitutional behavior, mainly toward Black residents.
Mayor Paul Young is not heeding those requests, even though he acknowledges the Department of Justice report on Memphis police tactics is hard to stomach. Much of Young’s opposition centers on the cost of federal legal settlements designed to clear up the problem, which appears to be officers who want to “whup up” on disobedient teens and disabled adults.
The report shows mainly that Memphis police officers will beat the crap out of anyone who refuses to do what they say immediately or shows the slightest hint of disrespect.
De-escalation apparently isn’t part of the police vocabulary.
It’s understandable that Young doesn’t want to be responsible for tying the city to a federal order that could take years to work. After all, Memphis didn’t reach this point overnight, and they won’t get out of the situation soon, consent decree or not.
Instead, Young said this week the city will put together its own approach, in partnership with the Department of Justice, and create a task force to put together recommendations “so we can operationalize any solutions we develop.”
Let’s hope the plan prohibits politi-speak and focuses, instead, on common sense.
For example, the report found officers use force first, demand obedience, and then punish people if they don’t obey.
The investigation cites one instance in which 12 officers responded to a call about a mentally ill man who stole a $2 soft drink from a store. Officers beat him even though he put up his hands and surrendered. Then when he ran screaming “Don’t kill me!” officers held him face-down on the ground and tased him before jailing him for two days for disorderly conduct and theft. (Thanks to the Memphis Flyer for a fine synopsis.)
The investigation found another case in which officers tackled a man for littering in a public park, not because he did anything wrong, but because he was “talking all this s—” and refused to tell them his name. According to the report, officers surrounded him when he dropped a drink as he left the park, then cuffed him and stuffed him in the back of a police car. He later told a lieutenant he tried to follow their orders but was already being charged. “I even offered to pick the can up,” he said.
In other incidents, police beat up a teenage girl at a football game fight, put a man in a headlock as he suffered a mental health crisis and allowed police dogs to bite people who were trying to surrender.
The investigation also turned up an incident in which an officer investigating a stolen vehicle case fired shots at a car in a restaurant drive-through, jeopardizing officers and bystanders.
All of these revelations came about after the department’s SCORPION Unit chased down 29-year-old Tyre Nichols and beat him two years ago, causing his death.
The Black Clergy Collaborative is pushing Mayor Young to reverse course, sign a consent decree and put an end to police officers’ brutal tactics.
“The report details the cruel and shocking treatment of Black Memphians, people with disabilities and children,” confirming what people have known for years, the group said in a statement this week.
Department of Justice opens civil rights probe of Memphis after Tyre Nichols death case
It wants the city to negotiate a resolution that would be overseen by an independent monitor, instead of leaving it up to the mayor, who is busy running the city, and the police department, which is responsible for the abuses in the first place.
“We have no trust or confidence in leaving corrections to the people involved in the unlawful conduct, the persons who failed to supervise them, or those who stood by and said nothing while the unlawful conduct occurred,” the group said.
Young defended his stance in a weekly bulletin, saying consent decrees have cost other cities such as Chicago and Seattle more than $500 million and $200 million respectively while crime has worsened there.
The group said he failed to provide any context for those claims, but even worse, it says he’s using those as an excuse.
Considering the city’s situation, they say it’s “too expensive” not to sign an agreement with the Department of Justice to end “unconstitutional” policing, even if that means hiring a monitor and paying federal fines for violations.
Coffee shop talk is that crime is out of control in Memphis. But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t justify police officers becoming criminals too, whipping and killing people.
Mayor Young told the Lookout this week the city has “always” been working on officer training.
Based on this report, it didn’t work.
And the people of Memphis are making it clear they want better policing – not lawlessness – and somebody besides the city government guarding the status quo.
“Same as it ever was”
Speaking of the Department of Justice, one of Tennessee’s privately-run prisons is under federal investigation for civil rights violations, yet the company operating it is likely to win another contract to keep running the South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton.
The State Building Commission approved a Department of Correction request this week to take bids to run the facility, in spite of a checkered history for CoreCivic in Tennessee. Granted, few companies are prepared to come in and start running prisons, and nobody else is expected to bid. But Tennessee could end the private deal and take over operations, cutting into the profit CoreCivic’s stockholders are making on prisoners.
Such a move could go a long way toward solving the thorny little problem with the Department of Justice investigating Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility. If the report comes in as bad as it did in Memphis, will the state refuse a consent decree or will it have a choice? In their zeal to continue contracting with CoreCivic despite its pathetic track record, state leaders have put themselves in a tight spot.
Private prison contractor CoreCivic hit with two new lawsuits over inmate deaths
Republican lawmakers and the Building Commission have raised a ruckus about financial problems at Tennessee State University, but they’ve hardly made a peep about CoreCivic’s shoddy operations.
Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower’s office wrote a damning report in 2023 about CoreCivic’s weak staffing, which leads to violence and injuries inside four state prisons. But the Building Commission, of which he is a member, appears happy with the arrangement. So do Gov. Bill Lee and Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, who continue to call the private company an important partner.
Call me crazy, but the prediction is they’ll approve a new three-year contract with CoreCivic through 2028 – with no discussion.
Incidentally, Brentwood-based CoreCivic announced this week that its board of directors appointed Patrick Swindle as president and chief operating officer, effective Jan. 1.
Damon Hininger, who has broached the idea of a Tennessee gubernatorial run, will remain as chief executive officer and a board member.
The move comes as the company expects rapid growth in business amid a pro-lock ’em up political landscape. One can’t help but wonder if this is a Hininger step toward elected office.
What the h?
The State Building Commission had a busy week as it dealt with Tennessee State University’s flagging finances while also approving construction of an Agriculture Food and Animal Science Facility and Agriculture Environmental Science Facility – two buildings in one with a total cost of $70 million – at the North Nashville campus. Most of the money comes from the state, and $16.4 million from the feds.
But considering TSU needed a $43 million injection to pay the bills this fall and most likely will require another boost next spring, this is a bit of an oddity.
TSU also will need faculty and staff to run these new buildings, and they’re under strict orders from the Building Commission to cut people and weak academic programs.
It’s akin to adding a bedroom and bath to your house when you can’t make payments on the first mortgage.
Who you calling soft?
The highly-anticipated Beacon Center nominees for Pork of the Year are here at long last (these are their descriptions): 1) the Bluff City Blunder, in which the Memphis Area Transit Authority spent millions of tax dollars on Grizzlies suites and a downtown office despite being in debt to the tune of $60 million 2) “‘Friends’ with Benefits,” a deal in which the Lebanon City Council OK’d a $1.5 million incentive package for an unnamed restaurant, and 3) NFL “Nashville Funding Losers” in which it says Metro Nashville is forcing taxpayers to come up with $80,000 extra for Nissan Stadium improvements while using $2.3 billion from state and local taxpayers to build a domed stadium.
Clearly, the winner should be the stadium debacle, which is exacerbated by the Titans’ season-long struggles.
In advance of the new stadium’s opening, season-ticket holders are being asked to dole out thousands more dollars for personal seat licenses and more expensive tickets to watch a team that can’t play dead in a Western, just three years removed from being a Super Bowl contender. All of this to ensure no one ever has to endure rain again at a Garth Brooks concert.
This is part of the softening of America.
But getting down to the most important matter: Head coach Brian Callahan went on an expletive-filled tirade this week when a reporter asked him about an accusation that the team was “soft.” ESPN’s analysts quickly agreed that the team is “bad” but not “soft.”
Seriously, who is going to look defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons in the eye and tell him he’s “soft”? Not I.
But it’s painfully obvious this team has a problem with blocking, tackling, running, throwing and catching. Management and ownership isn’t much better, either, and that’s a recipe for disaster.
But as someone close to me said, it’s fun to go to the games and drink – at least for the first half.
“’Cause I’ve got friends in low places / Where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases my blues away” – (You already know who sings it*)
* Garth Brooks, “Friends in Low Places”
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