Sen. Brent Taylor asks TN Gov. Bill Lee for support after St. Jude researcher's killing

Days after a researcher at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis was fatally shot, state Sen. Brent Taylor has requested Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee augment — and monitor — crime-fighting efforts in Memphis.

The letter from Taylor, R-Memphis, came three days after the researcher, Alexander Bulakhov, was killed in what court documents have described as a robbery turned to a killing when Bulakhov tried to defend his wife and 2-year-old child in Downtown Memphis on Sunday.

Taylor also included three days of crime data from the Memphis Police Department, and highlighted other crimes that took place over the weekend that went viral — including multiple shootings, smash-and-grab burglaries at gas stations and stolen packages from a FedEx truck that was allegedly stopped by the people carrying out the theft.

"Many of my constituents are calling for deployment of the National Guard," Taylor wrote in the letter to Lee. "The guard is not a law enforcement agency, however. Many people associate the Guard with lawlessness because of their deployment during natural disasters and civil unrest."

"As you know, the National Guard serves more as a deterrent to criminal activity in small, localized areas of a city like a downtown area," Taylor wrote. "Moreover, criminal arrests, ensuring defendants are aware of their Miranda Rights, processing of evidence, etc. should be left to full-time professional law enforcement agencies."

Taylor, instead, requested Lee approve "unannounced, periodic" Tennessee Highway Patrol "surges" along Memphis interstates, specifically mentioning the I-240 loop — in addition to the current patrols from THP already occurring in Memphis.

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.

Monitoring team requested

In addition to adding law enforcement to Memphis and Shelby County, Taylor also requested a "monitoring team" be created to track and publicize the number of arrests and the status of prosecutions.

"Memphians have a right to know this information so data from the local prosecutors and judicial system may be challenged or validated," Taylor wrote.

He also requested "support of Republican efforts in the General Assembly to hold our local prosecutors, judicial system and criminals accountable," though he did not specify any pending legislation.

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.

More: Memphis is on pace to set a new crime record, but Memphis police are solving fewer crimes

That reporting came as some Memphis leaders placed blame on the courts, bail system and Shelby County District Attorney's Office for the rising crime rate.

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.

The number of homicides in Memphis city limits has far outpaced previous years through the end of September, with 269 reported by the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission in its latest data release. That outpaces the previous record-setting year, 2021, by 63 homicides — and is a 32% increase when accounting for population changes.

That data, according to one expert on crime statistics, tends to vary between departments and different agencies because there is no independent monitoring of that data across the country, so definitions for crimes and clearances vary. That same expert also said the data is not independently audited on a regular basis.

Shelby County's bail hearing room, and the process for assessing affordable and unaffordable bail, has also drawn political ire from state legislators — including Taylor — and local officials.

The new bail system was updated under former Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich's administration — brought by threat of a lawsuit after the ACLU, Tennessee ACLU, Just City, local attorney Alex Wharton and Black Lives Matter said the old system violated the state and U.S. constitutions. The bail hearing room heard its first cases in February.

However, data from the Shelby County District Attorney's Office from March showed that since Jan. 1, 2021, about 12.5% of all offenses were alleged to have been committed by people out on bail. Less than 1% of offenses were violent crimes while out on bail.

Other concerns in the court system, which have routinely been pointed to by Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Lee V. Coffee, include the time it takes to get a case from indictment to trial. Coffee has said that timeline used to be within a year in his courtroom, but the pandemic increased it to multiple years for some defendants.

Coffee also has pointed to attorneys not being ready for trial, and requesting reset dates in many high-profile cases, as reasons for pushing trials or guilty pleas down the road.

Closed-door meetings held in hopes of crime solutions on the way

In early September, state and local officials met for a closed-door crime summit hosted by the Shelby County District Attorney's Office. Though all the details of the summit were not publicly discussed, the general consensus from the officials that spoke to media after was that it was productive and had the "right level of tension."

Taylor was present at that summit, and said he plans to reintroduce a blended sentencing bill when the legislature reconvenes in January. The bill would allow juveniles convicted of a crime and later turn 19 would be able to serve the rest of their sentence in juvenile court until they turn 25, in hopes of reforming and creating a solid foundation for kids convicted of a crime.

A reporter with The CA asked officials after the summit if more judges were needed to handle the influx of crimes in Shelby County. Taylor voiced general support for the idea, but said a study would need to be commissioned to assess the workload each judge is taking on, which concerned him. That study, he said, could result in Shelby County having fewer judges instead of more if the workload each judge takes on is found to be too little.

New leadership will come into the city after the new year, including a new Memphis mayor. In the wake of Bulakhov's shooting death, Downtown Memphis Commission President and Mayor-Elect Paul Young called the killing "senseless" and said he was in regular communication with MPD and his transition team is working to develop a "hard-hitting crime plan" to launch within the first 100 days of his administration.

"I am appalled and saddened by the events of this weekend and the senseless murder of Alexander Bulakhov," Young said in a statement. "Today, I am a Memphian, a father, a husband and a parent first. Today, I am just like you. I feel the anger, frustration and grief that has enveloped our community. And even though the suspects have been arrested and charged, this will not change the outcome of this tragedy. My heart goes out to his family and the families of all of those impacted by violence in our community. My prayers are with them."

Though the details for that plan are not yet public it, according to Young, will bring together law enforcement leaders and community leaders to discuss the best way to bring Memphis forward.

"Crime is, unfortunately, an American problem, not specific to Memphis, and it's going to take a multi-pronged, hard-hitting and focused effort to turn it around. We are ready," he said.

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: TN senator asks Gov. Bill Lee for law enforcement support for Memphis