Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Four killed in two months_ How Safe is Trumps Memphis Task Force

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Four killed in two months_ How Safe is Trumps Memphis Task Force · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: On May thirteenth, forty one year old Darren Pigram went
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  Speaker 1: to work for the last time. It was the breakfast
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  Speaker 1: shift at a burger King in Memphis, Tennessee. Federal agents
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  Speaker 1: showed up to serve him an arrest warrant, but instead
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  Speaker 1: they shot Pigram eight times in front of his coworkers.
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  Speaker 1: He was dead by nine point thirty in the morning.
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  Speaker 1: Officials say he reached for a gun in his waistband.
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  Speaker 1: That's what they say, a claim that is not backed
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  Speaker 1: up by the available security footage. According to Pigram's family,
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  Speaker 1: the officers involved are not facing any charges. Just one
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  Speaker 1: week later, again in Memphis, another deadly encounter unfolded. Twenty
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  Speaker 1: five year old Joan and Neil was reportedly experiencing a
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  Speaker 1: mental health crisis and threatening suicide when his mom called
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  Speaker 1: nine one one. She was trying to save his life. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: a Homeland Security Investigations officer arrived at their doorstep, and
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  Speaker 1: within minutes, Neil, while in his crisis, was shot and killed.
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  Speaker 1: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations later said it was unclear
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  Speaker 1: if Neil died from the gunshot wounds or self inflicted
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  Speaker 1: stab wounds. I've been covering harrowing stories like these just
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  Speaker 1: about every weekend, people killed by federal agents on their homes,
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  Speaker 1: on the street, during traffic stops, at their jobs. Because
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  Speaker 1: these are not isolated incidents, In just two months, four
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  Speaker 1: people in Tennessee have been killed during operations by one unit,
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  Speaker 1: the Memphis Safe Task Force. This quote unquote Safe Task
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  Speaker 1: Force is not your run of the mill police unit.
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  Speaker 1: It is a massive operation made up of a hodgepodge
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  Speaker 1: of twenty seven hundred local and state and federal officers,
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  Speaker 1: including four and fifty Tennessee National Guardsmen, and hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: federal officers from thirteen different agencies, including ICE, Homeland Security,
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  Speaker 1: the US Marshall Service, and more. For perspective, the Memphis
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  Speaker 1: Police Department has nineteen hundred sworn officers total. President Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 1: with the support of Tennis Governor Bill Lee, established a
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  Speaker 1: task force through a presidential memoranda in September twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: and since all those agents were sent to Memphis, Trump
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  Speaker 1: has continuously taken credit and tied it to the city's
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  Speaker 1: reported forty three percent drop in overall crime over a year.
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  Speaker 1: But that really needs some context here. According to the
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  Speaker 1: Memphis Police Department, crime had been on a decline since
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and it hit a twenty five year
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  Speaker 1: low in September twenty twenty five before Trump launched this
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  Speaker 1: task force, and Pro Publica reports this quote. Criminologists say
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  Speaker 1: more analysis is needed to determine how much impact the
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  Speaker 1: task force has had on crime rates. So yeah, the
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  Speaker 1: White House's splashy press release to tell one story, the
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  Speaker 1: actual stats and the reality on the ground. They paint
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  Speaker 1: a much more complicated picture, as The New York Times
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  Speaker 1: puts that Memphis has become a torn city since this
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  Speaker 1: task force descended and their quote aggressive approach to targeted crime.
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  Speaker 1: Let me be clearising none of this exists in the vacuum.
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  Speaker 1: Memphis is a majority black city with a long history
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  Speaker 1: of discriminatory policing. There's an investigation by MLK fifty and
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  Speaker 1: Pro publicad They interviewed black residents who said they felt
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  Speaker 1: quote fear for their safety during what they described as
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  Speaker 1: indiscriminate and intimidating police encounters. Community organizers also told Pro
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  Speaker 1: public to quote, many Hispanic residents are changing their daily
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  Speaker 1: patterns for fear of being detained. And you know this already.
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  Speaker 1: Those concerns are well founded and analysis by the Memphis
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  Speaker 1: Network Local Action News five found that quote, nine hundred
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  Speaker 1: ice arrests were recorded in Shelby County, which is where
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  Speaker 1: Memphis is, in the months following the launch of the
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  Speaker 1: Memphis Safe Task Force, and roughly sixty percent of those
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  Speaker 1: arrests ended in deportation. The Trump administration has not set
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  Speaker 1: an end date for the Memphis Safe Task Force, but
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  Speaker 1: community members in Memphis and organizations like the NAACP have
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  Speaker 1: called for its immediate removal, and some residents have even
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  Speaker 1: launched a lawsuit against the task force, accusing agents of retaliating, intimidating,
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  Speaker 1: harassing civilians who record their activities. It's the same story
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  Speaker 1: for observing and for documenting. Joining me now is Holly McCall,
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  Speaker 1: editor of Tennessee Lookout, which is leading much of the
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  Speaker 1: coverage on the Memphis State Safe Task Force. Holly, thanks
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  Speaker 1: for being here and for your work.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, Thanks, Jacob, I'm glad to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. The Federal Law Enforcement Surgeon. Memphis seems to
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  Speaker 1: have a different energy than other operations that we've seen
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  Speaker 1: in say, Minneapolis, or Chicago or Charlotte. Is that right?
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  Speaker 1: What makes the city and the operation different well, first.
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  Speaker 2: Of all, we hear about ICE operations in other cities,
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  Speaker 2: and that's certainly important to hear about. But as you've
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  Speaker 2: already mentioned, in Memphis, we have this twenty seven hundred
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  Speaker 2: member alphabet soup of federal agencies. The Drug Enforcement Agency
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  Speaker 2: is involved, these fourteen hundred state troopers. Governor Billy had
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  Speaker 2: first said he would not deploy National Guard, that he'd
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  Speaker 2: had no conversations with the Trump administration. A month later,
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  Speaker 2: he said he'd been talking to the Trump administration for
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  Speaker 2: months and would deploy the National Guard for as long
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  Speaker 2: as needed. And so, while we see sort of one
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  Speaker 2: off shootings by ICE and other cities, we've seen eight
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  Speaker 2: use of force incidents by this Memphis Safe Task Force
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  Speaker 2: in the last and less than a year, four of
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  Speaker 2: which were fatal shootings in only two months.
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  Speaker 1: I mentioned a couple of the cases already, but I
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  Speaker 1: just want to mention a few more. Twenty year old
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  Speaker 1: Trin Johnson and forty seven year Oldlfonso Ivy were fatally
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  Speaker 1: shot by the task force earlier this month, and that
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  Speaker 1: prompted more pushback from the community there. What is the
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  Speaker 1: what's the posture like on the ground, both from community
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  Speaker 1: members now and from the task Force after all of
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  Speaker 1: these incidents.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, in the Tyrant Johnson case, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: the federal task Force said that he had a gun,
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  Speaker 2: and that may or may not be true because they
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  Speaker 2: don't wear body cameras. We've seen no video evidence. But
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  Speaker 2: I'd also like to point out, and this is something
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  Speaker 2: that people in Memphis are aware of. Tennessee is an
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  Speaker 2: open gun carry state, and we have lawmakers who every
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  Speaker 2: year in the legislature attempt to pass moral laws to
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  Speaker 2: make it easier to get guns. And so it's certainly
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  Speaker 2: unfair to paint somebody as a criminal for having a gun.
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  Speaker 2: People in Memphis are angry, they are afraid, and frankly,
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  Speaker 2: they feel abandoned because state lawmakers, including most Memphis politicians,
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  Speaker 2: are saying nothing to speak up about this occupation of
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  Speaker 2: the city.
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  Speaker 1: Your outlet, the Tennessee Lookout, reported that the Trump administration
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  Speaker 1: is positioning this task force essentially as a national model.
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  Speaker 1: What do you know about that?
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  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know a whole lot, more frankly
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  Speaker 2: than what he said in Memphis in March. You know,
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  Speaker 2: at this point nothing really surprises me with this administration.
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  Speaker 2: I would not be surprised to see something pop up,
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  Speaker 2: but you know, to be honest, my main concern is
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  Speaker 2: Tennis is a Tennessee and a journalist, and it is
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  Speaker 2: personally painful to me to talk to people in Memphis,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's through reporting or personal conversations. People who are
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  Speaker 2: afraid to get in their car and drive, people who
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  Speaker 2: are being pulled over simply because of the color of
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  Speaker 2: their skin.
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  Speaker 1: Go ahead, sorry, I would just say, as.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned, Memphis has a long history of racial discrimination
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  Speaker 2: and as police force. The Department of Justice had called
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  Speaker 2: for an investigation of the Memphis Police Force under the
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  Speaker 2: Biden administration. Of course, when Donald Trump was elected and
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  Speaker 2: took office, that investigation was scrapped.
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  Speaker 1: If I could quickly, I just want to ask you
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  Speaker 1: about some of the data that underlies all of this
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  Speaker 1: that Pro Public and MLK fifty said twenty five percent
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  Speaker 1: of the arrest have been for violent crimes. For immigrants,
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  Speaker 1: that number is just two percent. It has the reporting,
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  Speaker 1: the data that you have shown that the task force
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  Speaker 1: is even successful at all in reducing crime.
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  Speaker 2: No, it really hasn't. We have nothing to go on
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  Speaker 2: but what the federal agencies say, and we have like
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  Speaker 2: other outlets like MLK made multiple public records request. We
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  Speaker 2: get nothing back. There's no response, and so as much
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  Speaker 2: as local media outlets are trying to raise attention about
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  Speaker 2: this and dig into the stats, it's very hard to
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  Speaker 2: get any information at all. And so what we are
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  Speaker 2: left to go on are personal observations from people on
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  Speaker 2: the streets and then what these federal agencies are saying.
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  Speaker 2: But there's no proof to back this up.
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  Speaker 1: I'll say it once and I will say it again
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  Speaker 1: on this program, local reporting is indispensable, it is essential,
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  Speaker 1: and that is exactly what you are doing at the
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  Speaker 1: Tennessee Lookout. Holly McCauley, editor, editor of the Tennessee Lookout,
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  Speaker 1: I'm appreciative of you being here. Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks Jacob