Memphis police and policymakers are not connected and that's bad for citizens | Opinion

Memphis police have evidence of two of the reasons why car break-ins and gun violence have been rising in the city, but politics are blocking their ability to arrest the trends.

The suspects are two gun laws that Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers and governors embraced. One law, since 2014, allows loaded guns to be carried in cars without a permit. The other, since 2021, allows most people 21 and older to carry loaded handguns, concealed or not, without a permit.

The disconnect between police and policymakers was clear last week at a Memphis Shelby Crime Commission forum.

Memphis police Asst. Chief of Police Services Shawn Jones clearly pointed to the two laws as triggers for rising crime, especially among juveniles committing car break-ins and gun violence as the supply of stolen guns rises.

“When they changed the law in 2014, the number of guns that were stolen from cars began to grow each year,” Jones said. “Commensurate to that, the number of shooting incidents began to grow equally with the number of guns that were being stolen from cars.”

“Every single year, it was a new record.” he said. “This year, we’re on pace to eclipse last year, the 2021 year. Because of more and more people leaving guns in their cars, more and more guns are being stolen. Consequently, more and more guns are used in crimes.”

A federal prosecutor in Memphis, Joe Murphy, who for a time was acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, spoke at the forum about Project Safe Neighborhoods, a collaboration between state and federal prosecutors to seek maximum prison time for gun crime. The federal project has been around since 2001.

But isn’t the elephant in the room loosened state gun laws, not only in Tennessee, but in other states?

“I’m a federal prosecutor, so we don’t get involved in the state politics and things,” Murphy said.

Gun deregulation supported by the National Rifle Association is a popular goal in Republican politics.

Vanderbilt University psychiatry professor Jonathan Metzl makes a case for other tragic, unintended consequences of gun deregulation in his 2019 book, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland.”

“When I began to sift through the statistics for gun injury and death in Missouri, I quickly realized that the primary victims of gun mortality were not criminals or inner-city gang members, as the NRA and some politicians implied,” Metzl wrote. “Rather, as gun laws liberalized, gun deaths spiked…among white people.”

“This was because white Missourians dominated injuries and deaths via gun-related suicides, partner violence, and accidental shootings – and in ways that outpaced African American deaths from homicides.”

Memphis police are not alone in connecting the dots between the changes in state gun laws, car break-ins and gun crime.

“Last week, the shooting death of 24-year-old Nashville musician Kyle Yorlets brought the city's alarming trend into sharp focus,” an article in The Tennessean reported in February 2019.

“Five juveniles between the ages of 12 and 16 are charged with criminal homicide in the case. Police said the youths are linked to at least five vehicle thefts. Two guns police said they recovered from the suspects came from stolen cars,” The Tennessean reported.

While Michael Rallings was Memphis police director in 2020, Rallings practically begged Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to shoot down permitless gun-carry legislation. With Lee’s signature, it became law the following year.

“So this proliferation of guns puts guns in the hands of children, who are attempting to commit carjackings, who are committing carjackings, armed robberies, aggravated assaults, murders,” Rallings said in a February 2020 media conference available on YouTube. “And we as a community, as a state, as a nation, should want to do something about it.”

Rallings, who retired in 2021, correctly predicted that the cycle of break-ins and gun crime would continue to grow. He tried to make clear that he was following the evidence, and tried to disarm the politics.

“I am not against guns,” he said. “I am against illegal guns. I’m against our children being killed. I’m against our citizens being placed in jeopardy because of laws, legislation and positions that we take on guns.”

Police, politicians and policymakers have proposed various remedies, ranging from mor criminal penalties to “common sense” steps such as keeping guns in vehicles out of sight, and not displaying gun-related NRA or hunting decals on cars to avoid becoming a target.

None reaches to the root causes, the state gun laws that triggered the trends.

At the crime commission forum, Mary Powers, a Memphis speaker for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, urged focusing on the laws.

“One thing that everybody in this room can do, and really if you’re serious about reducing violent crime and gun crime, those laws are made at the state level,” Powers said.

“We’ve got an election coming up Nov. 8. The state changed the law about guns in cars in 2014. The state can change the law back in 2023,” she said.

Rallinigs said something similar two years ago.

“No penalty, no jail time, no reform will bring these children back,” he said. “And it is our responsibility as citizens of this city and this state to do something about it, to let our voice be heard.

“And we vote, and we send people to represent us so that they can make sure they are looking out for our safety and our future. That should be government’s No. 1 obligation, No. 1 priority, should be to keep citizens safe.”

Asst. Chief Jones delivered the evidence again last week. The suspects are still at large.

Kevin McKenzie is a former Commercial Appeal reporter who now is a freelance journalist.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Reconnecting Memphis police and policymakers is vital for citizens