Nashville, Tenn. (AP) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would send the national guard to fix crime concerns in Memphis, Tennessee.
Trump said about Fox News and said: “The mayor is happy” and “The governor is happy” about the upcoming commitment. He called the city “deeply worrying” and said “We will repair it as we did in Washington”, where he sent the National Guard and exceeded the federal law enforcement authorities.
The Republican governor of Tennessee used the troops as part of a wider boost in criminal prosecution in Memphis, but Trump’s claim brought back the democratic leader of Memphis, who is the majority of the majority.
“I didn’t ask the national guard and I don’t think it is the way to catch the crime,” Mayor Paul Young told a press conference on Friday and was recognized that the city remained high on too many “bad lists”.
Several Memphis leaders said they greet federal aid, but do not believe that the military must include it. Young undertaken to improve the commitment to strengthen the community without distracting from the ongoing law enforcement efforts. He said federal officials should aim at the “root source of violent crimes” and mentioned rehabilitation and psychological health services, jobs and apartment needs.
Governor Bill Lee said he intended to speak to the president on Friday to develop details of the mission. He said he still ironed the best role for the National Guard next to the FBI, the State Highway Patrol, the city police and other law enforcement authorities.
“I am grateful for the unshakable support and the commitment of the President to provide any resource that is necessary for Memphians,” said Lee in an explanation. “Memphis stays on a way to size and we won’t let you hold back.”
The governor’s consent to the national guard stands in a piercing contrast to democratic leaders in states such as California and Illinois, which argue that similar missions undermine the local authority and ignite tensions. The president has also proposed that he could send soldiers to New Orleans, another majority black town, which Democrats led in a Republican state.
The crime is below, but troops come
Since Trump used the national guard in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, he has openly thought about sending troops in some of the most democratic cities in the country – including Chicago and Portland, Oregon – even if the data has shown that most violent crime has decreased in these places and throughout the country in recent years.
Trump said on Friday that he decided to send troops to Memphis after Jim Vena Jim Vena, CEO of Union Pacific, who regularly visited the Fedex board on the board of Fedex, asked him to tackle crime there at the beginning of this week.
The president was announced only a few days after the Memphis police had decreased in the first eight months of 2025 in all major crime categories compared to the same period in previous years. The overall crime reached a low point of 25 years, while the murder reached a low point of six years, the police said.
Memphis weapons and top-class murders
Despite the general decline, Memphis has dealt with stubborn violence of arms for years. In 2023, the city set a record with more than 390 murders.
Memphis has also found several top -class murders in recent years. The rapper and the independent music label owner Young Dolph were fatally shot in a cookie business in November 2021.
In September 2022, school teacher Eliza Fletcher was kidnapped during a run in the early morning and her body later found near a free duplex. Days later a man drove a day -long shooting when he drove through the city, which led to urban protection in the position. Three people were killed and three more injured.
Some Republicans want the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to check the crime reporting of the Memphis police authority.
Officials in Tennessee seem to be shared
The Republican Senator Brent Taylor, who supports the use of Memphis troops, said on Friday that the National Guard could provide the law enforcement authorities “administrative and logistical support” and enable local officials to concentrate on the police. The two Republican US senators of the state support the intervention.
The governor said on Thursday that, in addition to state and local law enforcement agencies, the mission would give a animated for a current FBI surgery in Memphis, which “has already arrested hundreds of the most violent criminals”.
Steve Mulroy, the district prosecutor of Shelby County, to whom the city of Memphis also includes, hoped that the governor would say Trump would say that a better strategy would send more FBI and other law enforcement officers of the federal government, “people with actual training in civil prosecution in contrast to military troops.”
“Risk of these top -class, short -term military missions, to be performative and do not leave any permanent effects,” said Mulroy, Democrat, on Friday.
The legal details
On Friday, wondered whether city and state officials had requested the National Guard deployed – or officially signed – did not answer the White House. It also offered no possible schedule or said whether the federal prosecution arises in connection with a security guard, how it happened when the troops were deployed to Washington.
Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project of the ACLU, said in a press conference on Friday that she could not talk directly about the legality of sending National Guard troops to Memphis because she does not know whether the troops would be used under state or federal authority and how the legal justification would be.
“There is simply no factual emergency for legitimate calling troops to carry out any kind of police function,” she said.
With soldiers for civil law enforcement authorities, she said:
Illinoi’s governor celebrates while Trump focuses south
Trump said on Friday that he had preferred to go to Chicago, where local politicians have violently opposed his plans, but suggested that the city was too “hostile” with “professional agitators”.
The Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a potential candidate for the President of 2028, wasted no time on social media and added: “It is worrying that the president sends the troops to the American roads. The use of those who serve as political props in uniform is insulting. None of this is normal.”
The US general Prosecutor Pam Bondi accused the leaders of the state this week not to be cooperative. But even without a national guard troops, the residents in Chicago expect more enforcement of federal immigration.
Trump’s broader strategy of the National Guard
Trump hired the troops in Los Angeles at the beginning of June for the objections of the democratic governor Gavin Newsom, by presenting the California National Guard under the state of jurisdiction, known as title 10, the protection of the federal government from protests against immigration attacks. The guard later helped protect the officers during the arrest of immigration.
In addition to 4,000 wax members, 700 busy marines were also sent. California sued the intervention.
In Washington, DC, where the president orders the guard directly, Trump used troops for everything, from armed patrols to rubber cleaning without legal problems.
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Adrian Sainz and Travis Loller in Nashville, Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, wants to Weisert in Washington and Katie Foody in Chicago have contributed to this report.
