Gov. Bill Lee assigning 40 additional Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers to Memphis

Lucas Finton, Memphis Commercial Appeal
·2 min read
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TN Governor Bill Lee, the Department of Children Service’s Housing, and The Church of God in Christ partner to open new apartments to house foster children who are transitioning to permanent homes. A tour was given to the press on May 3, 2023 in Memphis. The apartments are located in Shelby County. TN Governor Bill Lee speaks to the media following the tour.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is assigning an additional 40 Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers to Memphis and Shelby County, the governor said in a press release Monday morning.

Lee's announcement came days after State Sen. Brent Taylor, a Republican from Memphis, sent the governor a letter requesting additional troopers following a weekend of high-profile and viral crimes that included the shooting death of a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital researcher.

"As rising crime continues to be a reality in America, Tennessee is implementing proven crime prevention methods to keep our communities safe," Lee said in the release. "I commend our THP troopers for stepping up to enhance the law enforcement presence in Shelby County and help deter criminal activity in the area."

The Memphis Police Department has previously said THP supplementing traffic enforcement on interstates allows officers to respond to calls about break-ins and shootings quicker and was welcomed by the department.

The additional troopers will focus on traffic enforcement and be in Memphis on Monday. Lee said an additional 15 to 20 troopers from other districts will join that "surge" starting Nov. 27, and remain in Shelby County "for the foreseeable future."

More: Memphis police: Man suspected of killing 4 people, injuring 5th found dead

In an August presentation to the Memphis City Council, THP troopers said they had, since January, conducted 17,260 traffic stops and issued 7,499 citations. There were 10,830 warnings issued, 12 felony arrests and 228 misdemeanor arrests made by THP troopers in that same time span.

Taylor's letter also requested a "monitoring team" that would publicize arrests and track prosecutions. Lee's release Monday did not mention the status of that team, but said local officials should "hold criminals accountable."

"...Local officials must carry out their responsibility to uphold the law and hold criminals accountable without resorting to soft-on-crime plea deals that have serious consequences and too often result in more crime and more victims," Lee said.

Tennessee Highway Patrol car at the THP Knoxville Headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee on Thursday, June 13, 2019.
Tennessee Highway Patrol car at the THP Knoxville Headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee on Thursday, June 13, 2019.

In late September, The Commercial Appeal reported that quarterly data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission, which tracks and publicizes crime data submitted from MPD to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, indicated that Memphis could reach its highest crime rate since that data was first collected and published by the FBI in 1995.

Analysis of those reports, both from the FBI and the TBI, indicated Memphis police were clearing fewer cases, even as cases qualified as cleared when a single person was arrested and charged with that crime. A person, according to the FBI and TBI definitions of a clearance, does not have to be convicted and all persons tied to a crime do not have to be arrested.

The City of Memphis and MPD pushed back on the numbers of clearances provided by TBI and the FBI, though both reports came from data submitted by MPD to each bureau.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Governor assigns additional TN highway patrol troopers to Memphis roads