November 24, 2025 • 23 mins
This episode we're talking about the history of abuse in the Shelby county jail, the inaction of the Sheriff and County Mayor, the impact of the task force currently in Memphis, and updates on the National Guard lawsuit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey guys, and welcome to the Law according to Amber.
Every other Monday, we'll discuss controversial topics with the mixture
of opinion and legal facts. Thus the Law according to Amber.
Be sure to give me a follow on Facebook at
the Law according to Amber as well as Instagram. Same name,
The Law according to Amber. What's up, y'all? Welcome to
(00:33):
another episode of the Law according to Amber. And this
week I'm going all into the details of what's really
been happening in Memphis with this methhis Safe task Forts.
For folks who following on social media, y'all probably see
me posting updates about different things that are happening, providing
the community with information that I'm receiving or that I'm seeing.
(00:54):
Also explaining know your rights information to people so that
they're prepared they do run into one of these task
Force officers or they running into the police or the
sheriff's apartment, because they're all working with the task Force.
So here's the update that I have so far. Right now,
we are sitting at about close to two thousand members
of this task force being in Memphis just harassing black
(01:16):
and brown communities in cooperation with the Shelby County Sheriff's Apartment,
the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and the Memphis Police Department. They're
all working together with this task force that's harassing, traumatizing,
and brutalizing our communities and separating families at the same time.
So I want to talk a little bit about the
(01:37):
immigration because I think that it's not being talked about enough.
Because Memphis is majority black, I think that people are
really heavily focused on that aspect people getting arrested. But
also there are families being separated every day. There are children,
three year olds, four year olds being taken from their
parents and not knowing when they're going to see them again.
All because the current president that we have to flex
(02:00):
his muscle as president and send all these officers down
here and just show that you know, he's in charge
in some way, and because our governor, Governor Lee has
agreed to it, and our mayor is not pushing back
because he wants to appeal to the tough on crime crowd.
Then we have this situation that we have right now
(02:20):
where people are dying at very high rates in our
jail system. We are at so far, there's been four
deaths in the men's jail at twelve one popular in
the last two weeks, and then last week a black
woman died in the women's jail, and the week before that,
a black woman reported that she had been assaulted and
(02:42):
beaten because she was having a seizure and the deputies
inside the jail didn't get her medical attention. They hit
her and tased her, and so she woke up with
all these bruises. I talked about before on some other episodes,
and I also posted about it on Instagram too, because
I do think it's important to highlight these stories of
the real lived circumstances of these people who are in
(03:04):
this jail, a jail that is supposed to hold them
until they pay bond or they go to trial, because
everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and the majority of
these folks in this jail have not been sentenced with anything.
There's a few folks into A one popular who actually
have convictions that have not been taken to the Penal Farm,
(03:25):
which is the prison here in Memphis. But for the
most part, these are people who have not had a trial,
have not signed a plea deal, have guilty to anything.
They are just poor and unable to pay bail. So
I want to give a little bit of background around
Bell in Memphis so you can see how we got
to where we are right now. Because this is not
a new issue. This has actually been happening for ten
(03:48):
plus years in our jail, but Bell especially has been
a problem for a while. So a few years ago,
several community organizations threatened to sue the county governments, the
kunt of government. It was our official bill, a Memphis
Chapter here in Memphis staying for Tennessee, just City and
a few of the acou of Tennessee, and a few
(04:10):
other oris that I don't remember, but basically they threatened
to sue because of the bill conditions, specifically these very
high bills that people were being given that weren't reviewed
unless that person had a lawyer, and that lawyer had
to then foul a motion to have the bill reviewed.
Or people who were just staying in jail because they
could not pay bills, so they stayed there for years
(04:32):
sometimes I mean two to three years at times to
wait on the trial to then improve their innocence. Or
folks who were being arrested and within the first few
hours of them being in jail before they saw a
pre trial. Before they were even given a bail amount,
they were being approached by prosecutors and offered plea deals
to plead guilty. And a lot of times people were
(04:53):
taking these plea deals because they cannot afford to be
in jail. And honestly, if I was someone who was
false to cues of something, but I did not have
the money to get out of jail, and if I
stayed in jail, I was gonna lose my housing. If
I had children, my children were gonna get taken from
me because they didn't have anywhere to go. I might
not be able to pay my bills for the next month.
It's might put me behind several months because I'm missing
(05:15):
days and weeks at work. I understand why they will
play guilty, and for the county system, it looks good
for them in the DA's office that all these people
are taking these plea deals and then accepting diversion, which
is a program where someone says they're guilty of something
and they take a diversion deal and for a year
they cannot get in trouble again, they can't get arrested
(05:37):
for anything, and after that year's up, they dismissed the
charges and expunded off their record. But that's also very
difficult because the only people who can control someone being
arrested are the police. And there are people who literally
have not done something wrong but been targeted racially and
gotten pulled over, and someone just tried to get a
(05:58):
conviction on them because they need to get the arrest quota,
and now they're in jail again. I heard that story
so many times about how they actually weren't doing anything
wrong and they were just victimized. And so the diversion
process itself of not getting in trouble for a year
can be very very hard when you're a black person
living in a majority black city that is targeting over police, Like,
(06:21):
let's just be real. So I didn't agree with that process.
Of course. I don't think it's okay to be offered
folks plea deals before they even get a beil amount
or before they even see pre trial. And these Organs
didn't either, which is why they threatened to sue. And
so after threatening to sue, the county came to the
decision making table and the judges in Shelby County and said, Okay,
(06:42):
this this makes sense. I can definitely understand how there
is an issue here, Let's create a solution. And the
solution they created was a standing bell order. In that
standing bill order, it stated that a bill hearing room
had to be created so that if someone was arrested
and given a bill amount they could not pay within
(07:04):
seventy two hours, they could ask to have that bill reviewed.
Because the previous process required to someone have a lawyer,
that lawyer foul of motion. And so if I don't
have a lawyer or a public defender for days at
a time, I'm in jail for a week or so
at this point for some folks, or for some people months.
So this process with the bail hearing room was supposed
to add in some layers of protection and due process
(07:27):
to make sure folks' rights were not being violated. And
through that bail hearing room, folks could have their bill reviewed.
And the bill order also said that these judges had
to be using the vera Institute pre trial calculator that
calculates the realistic amount someone can pay based off their
lived experience, their financial circumstances, all the realistic factors that
(07:52):
could really tell you if someone's able to afford this bill,
what their support looks like things like that. So now
fast forward to where we are are with this task
force that is stacking our jail with all these people,
and I want to read you the stats from the
dashboard that the city actually put up of the numbers
that this task force is doing for arrest, the type
(08:14):
of charges, things like that, so y'all can get a
realistic picture of what's actually happening here. So this dashboard
is actually up on the Memphis Safe and Clean website
that they put up when the task force was coming here.
And this dashboard is a part of the website. So
if you go to that page and you should roll down,
you should see a data dashboard. You can click there
and see it. So I want to start with traffic
(08:35):
stops because that's what we're seeing the most of these
task force members MPD, VY, County Share State troopers are
all in black, in brown neighborhoods like Hickory Hill, Burke Claire, Nutbush,
Off coventson Pike, Summer Avenue, all the places where black
and brown folks live, basically, and as of today, they've
done thirty five, three hundred and thirty five traffic stops
(09:00):
nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety five of those were
for traffic, five thousand, two hundred and ninety one of
those were for warnings, and parking citations were four thousand,
nine hundred and ninety eight, so of the thirty five thousand,
three hundred and thirty five traffic stops, citations were given
for thirty thousand, two hundred and eighty four of them.
(09:23):
And for arrest right now, they are at three thousand
and fifty six arrests. For arrest type, there have been
one thousand, two hundred and eighty seven fellony arrests and
one thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine misdemeanor arrests. For
physical citations, there have been three hundred and seventy four
misdemeanor citations given, and it's really important because the citation
(09:46):
issue is one thing that we've been talking about a lot.
And for physical arrests there have been two thousand, six
hundred and eighty two. For violent arrests, there have been
one thousand and ninety eight. For non violent arrests there
have been one thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight, So
once again the majority of these have been nonviolent and
(10:07):
misdemeanors and they still all resulted mostly in physical arrests,
which is important because one thing we've been bringing up,
and one thing the sheriff and the mayor have even said,
is that people should be doing cite and release. The
jails over populated. Of course, yes, and that's because there's
so many people being arrested. But we are asking them
(10:28):
to do sight and release. They're asking them to do
sight and release yet and still they are not doing that.
Who is they the police? They are not citing and
releasing people. They are arresting them because they want to
count these numbers. I also want to talk about warrants
because one thing that this task force has been doing
is executing warrants, because there's this extremely long backlog of
(10:51):
warrants here in Shelby County. So far, they've been here
for over two months at this point, and they have
made nine hundred and fifty six warrant arrest So, just
to back up, they have made three thousand and fifty
six arrests total. Only nine hundred and fifty six arrests
have been for warrants. Meanwhile, they've done thirty five thousand,
(11:15):
three hundred and thirty five traffic stops and given out
thirty thousand, two hundred and eighty four citations. So, like
I said, for warrants, they have done nine hundred and
fifty six warrant pickups and the arrest types have been
Felony was five hundred and twenty eight and misdemeanor was
four hundred and twenty eight. Nonviolent was five hundred and
(11:38):
twenty and violent was four hundred and thirty six. So
once again the majority are nonviolent. But what's interesting to
me is that under charges it says other seven hundred
and eight, domestic violence one ninety two, aggravated assault one
seventy three, narcotics eighty eight, weapons seventy six, robbery thirty four,
(12:00):
homicide twenty six, sexual assault twenty three. And my inkling
is that the majority of the other charges that says
others for mis court because a lot of folks get
bench warrants from missing court, and instead of be accurate
and just say that that's what it's for, they put
other That's my assumption. I don't know that for sure,
(12:20):
so I do want to clarify that, but I do
know that a lot of folks have warrants for missing court.
And when I look at this spreadsheet under charges other
has seven hundred and eight warrants, and I know that
the majority of warrans are for miscourt, and so my
assumption is going to be that that's what this large
number is for. I do think that our government should
(12:41):
provide better information for stuff like this, but until we
have that, this is all I can say is that
this is my assumption. So, like I said before, because
they're making all these arrests, Our Jill is packed with people,
and I want to talk about who is actually accountable
in this scenario because I am seeing so many people
(13:02):
be upset with the city mayor for not coming out
against the task fors like they want him to, which
I agree. I mean, I think we all wanted him
to do that, right, But the people who have the
power to stop folks from dying in the jail are
the Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner and the Shelby County
Mayor Lee Harris, And I think it's important that folks
don't get blinded by Lee Harris taking action against the
(13:24):
National Guard being in Memphis, and instead hold him accountable
for the power that he has as mayor to keep
folks safe and that includes people who are in the
jail that are innocent until proven guilty. The Mayor has
said nothing about the amount of people who have died
in the jail in two one popular in the last
two weeks. Like I said before, four people have died.
(13:45):
Mayor Harris has yet to mention them. He has yet
to offer condolencests to anyone's family. He has yet to
acknowledge there's an emergency happening in our jail where people
are losing their lives right now. There's a young man
named Brendan who contract can a flesh eating bacteria into
a one poplar and it's currently at the hospital, a
regional one, on life support because of it. Mayor Harrison
(14:08):
said nothing. And I think if you're gonna go so
hard about the National Guard being here and how this
is wrong, you should also be going so hard about
the impacts of what this task force is doing to
Memphians and the ones that are losing their lives especially
and the sheriff, of course, who has all the power here,
because the sheriff can force people to actually cite and release.
(14:31):
Is he doing that? No? Is he putting out press
releases throwing you know, blame on other folks and pointing
a finger. Yes, has he put out any condolecence for
these folks who have died in a jail? No? Has
he talked about how what's happening is an emergency and
what plan they're gonna take. No? Has he actually listened
to people who are telling him that not only should
(14:54):
he be pointing out the need to cite and release
and telling folks to site and release, but when they
don't cit and release, he needs to hold them accountable,
including but not limited to him actually instructing folks in
the jail to cite and release when someone is brought
there who should be released. But is he doing that
as well? No, And that is what is really annoying,
(15:16):
is that so many people are focused on the wrong
targets where folks are losing their lives. Like this is
very serious. This isn't like, oh, you know, I just
got really sick, I got COVID, I didn't die. This
is people are getting flesh any bacteria, dying or having
extreme mental health crisises and being attacked in jail and
no one's doing anything that's insane. And I know that
(15:42):
a lot of folks have talked about how much this
task force has really stressed and stretched the capacity of
the jail. There's a person who was a counselor in
the jail who actually quit, and she posted about how
they're so overcrowded. They're putting people in the different gym
rooms they have there, they don't have best they don't
have chaits to sit in. They're all cooped up on
(16:04):
top of each other and that is such an incubator
for communicable diseases. Being in such an unsafe and unsanitary
space like that is very dangerous. She even talked about
how they're taking so much longer for folks to get
out of jail because the processing time takes so long
because they're so overwhelmed. And one of the reasons they're
so overwhelmed is because the judges in the jail refuse
(16:26):
to stay longer or hold night court or hold Saturday
court so they can hear more cases and do more
arraignments so people can get out quicker. And because of that,
people have to wait till they get a court date
to get released, even when they pay bail. We've had
folks who we've paid bail for from the official bill
and Memphis Bill Fund, and it's taking several days for
the person to get out because it's taking so long
(16:48):
for the paperwork to process, because not only is the
jail over capacity, but they're also still using paper. So
like other places that are using computer systems, and although
ageils use the comuter set, they're also still using paper,
so they're using a mix of vote and so they're
not advanced technologically, and that also is causing issues because
there's some people who they you know, completely have lost
(17:11):
their paperwork, so that's a start everything all over again,
and that's just unacceptable. And so I wanted to make
sure I broke down what was happening in our jail,
especially because of so many deaths. But I also want
to break down like what the actual status and numbers
look like here, because people are seeing, you know, us
complaining about what's happening here. There's folks posting videos, we're
(17:32):
doing record response. But unless you're really hearing mythhis, you
don't feel what the like the impact of the task
force is. And people who live here, we feel it
like people don't feel safer, they're more afraid. And not
only are they more afraid, but they're also making life
offtering decisions like leaving the country or moving to different states,
(17:54):
or not leaving their houses, or pulling their kids out
of school because they're afraid to go to drop them
off and then be abducted. Like these are very real
life archering decisions that are being made that did not
have to be happening. But you know we're here now,
so yeah. I also wanted to give an update on
the National Guard lawsuit because I did mention that about
(18:16):
Mayor Harris helping and leading on this lawsuit with other
elected officials, and the judge in the case in Davidson
County did give out a ruling and agree with the
elected officials that the National Guard was unconstitutional and that
they should not be there. But they also gave the
state five days to respond and appeal, and the state
(18:38):
is going to appeal. I haven't seen anything about the
uppial being actually filed yet, so I don't know if
they'll make the five day mark, but they have to
appeal within that five day period. If not, they have
to remove the National Guard from mempics, so we'll see
what happens. I think that knowing the state and how
they want to fight it, they're going to appeal it,
and it's going to go to the Tennessee Court of Appeals,
(18:59):
which is going to be a panel of judges, and
I'm unsure how that will go because I mean, Tennessee
is very conservative, very red, so those judges tend to
be also very conservative. But they also tend to be
strict constitutionalists, so folks who have a very strict view
of the constitution, and so they might not agree with
(19:21):
the way that the Governor is trying to apply the
Constitution in the National Guard in this way. I will
also add that some of the argument that was presented
to the judge was that this breakdown of law and
order language that the President put in his memo was
what the governor cited in a response to the memo
(19:41):
back to the President, But that is not a listed
reason in the Military Code to deploy the National Guard,
which was the key argument and one of the key
reasons why she ordered the National Guards. We removed because
the reasons they were citing did not exist. So the
Governor did not put out any actual statement or orders
for the National Guard. There was nothing official written down anywhere.
(20:05):
None of the actual requirements were met for the National
Guard to be deployed, which is why she made her
ruling the way that she did. So it's going to
be very interesting to see what the appeal is going
to look like and where that's going to go, especially considering,
you know, the military code is still the same, so
I'm not really sure how they would appeal, like what
(20:25):
the appeal would be based in. But I do want
to mention that all of this is happening within the
last week or so, and within this last week, the
National Guard presence has also increased exponentially. So we had
about one hundred and twenty five National Guard members here
who are mostly just downtown walking on the Main Street
mall and walking around Bill Street and Bass Pro stuff
(20:49):
like that, really in the touristy areas. But now there
are fifty National Guard troops per police precinct for two shifts,
so they're not police precincts in Memphis. There are one
hundred National Guard troops station to each one, to make
about nine hundred National Guard troops, and they are patrolling
within those neighborhoods. So folks have already said they seen
(21:12):
them at the East Gate shopp They say that they
seem them at Krogers. They've seen them at Target, They've
seen them at the shopping center where the Petcoe is
on Poplar, They've seen them just in random neighborhoods walking around.
They've also seen them in like highly populated areas like
the Wolf Chase mall, the Zoo. Even folks even reported
seeing them not just at the zoom in the front
(21:34):
of the zoo, but like walking around throughout the zoo
where folks are there with their families, you know, really
trying to create this very forced military presence that I
and other folks have even said it's just to make
people desensitized to the idea of like National Guard military
members walking around their streets. Because this is not normal.
(21:56):
This is exactly what fascism actually looks like. And I
hope that that folks don't become desensitized to it. You
should always be calling out that this is not normal,
this is weird. It's weird as fuck, and it's not necessary.
It does not keep us safe, and it's actually causing
people to lose their lives. So I hope that this
has given y'all a little glimpse into what's happening in Memphis.
(22:19):
How harmful this task Force has been how they've caused
folks to lose their lives, their livelihood, to be deported
back to countries where they cannot make a living and
are not safe, and at the same time, their children
are still here in the United States, and now there
are minor children without parents and the type of trauma,
long lasting trauma, that this experience is causing them. So
(22:43):
as always, feel free to follow me on Facebook and
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I look forward to another episode. Oh and if you
want to see the different informational content I've been doing,
especially my residency with MLKA fifty as a great and residence,
I post that content on Instagram and TikTok at as
(23:04):
for Afro, which is my main account, so be sure
to follow me there. All right, y'all, please
Hey guys, and welcome to the Law according to Amber.
Every other Monday, we'll discuss controversial topics with the mixture
of opinion and legal facts. Thus the Law according to Amber.
Be sure to give me a follow on Facebook at
the Law according to Amber as well as Instagram. Same name,
The Law according to Amber. What's up, y'all? Welcome to
(00:33):
another episode of the Law according to Amber. And this
week I'm going all into the details of what's really
been happening in Memphis with this methhis Safe task Forts.
For folks who following on social media, y'all probably see
me posting updates about different things that are happening, providing
the community with information that I'm receiving or that I'm seeing.
(00:54):
Also explaining know your rights information to people so that
they're prepared they do run into one of these task
Force officers or they running into the police or the
sheriff's apartment, because they're all working with the task Force.
So here's the update that I have so far. Right now,
we are sitting at about close to two thousand members
of this task force being in Memphis just harassing black
(01:16):
and brown communities in cooperation with the Shelby County Sheriff's Apartment,
the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and the Memphis Police Department. They're
all working together with this task force that's harassing, traumatizing,
and brutalizing our communities and separating families at the same time.
So I want to talk a little bit about the
(01:37):
immigration because I think that it's not being talked about enough.
Because Memphis is majority black, I think that people are
really heavily focused on that aspect people getting arrested. But
also there are families being separated every day. There are children,
three year olds, four year olds being taken from their
parents and not knowing when they're going to see them again.
All because the current president that we have to flex
(02:00):
his muscle as president and send all these officers down
here and just show that you know, he's in charge
in some way, and because our governor, Governor Lee has
agreed to it, and our mayor is not pushing back
because he wants to appeal to the tough on crime crowd.
Then we have this situation that we have right now
(02:20):
where people are dying at very high rates in our
jail system. We are at so far, there's been four
deaths in the men's jail at twelve one popular in
the last two weeks, and then last week a black
woman died in the women's jail, and the week before that,
a black woman reported that she had been assaulted and
(02:42):
beaten because she was having a seizure and the deputies
inside the jail didn't get her medical attention. They hit
her and tased her, and so she woke up with
all these bruises. I talked about before on some other episodes,
and I also posted about it on Instagram too, because
I do think it's important to highlight these stories of
the real lived circumstances of these people who are in
(03:04):
this jail, a jail that is supposed to hold them
until they pay bond or they go to trial, because
everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and the majority of
these folks in this jail have not been sentenced with anything.
There's a few folks into A one popular who actually
have convictions that have not been taken to the Penal Farm,
(03:25):
which is the prison here in Memphis. But for the
most part, these are people who have not had a trial,
have not signed a plea deal, have guilty to anything.
They are just poor and unable to pay bail. So
I want to give a little bit of background around
Bell in Memphis so you can see how we got
to where we are right now. Because this is not
a new issue. This has actually been happening for ten
(03:48):
plus years in our jail, but Bell especially has been
a problem for a while. So a few years ago,
several community organizations threatened to sue the county governments, the
kunt of government. It was our official bill, a Memphis
Chapter here in Memphis staying for Tennessee, just City and
a few of the acou of Tennessee, and a few
(04:10):
other oris that I don't remember, but basically they threatened
to sue because of the bill conditions, specifically these very
high bills that people were being given that weren't reviewed
unless that person had a lawyer, and that lawyer had
to then foul a motion to have the bill reviewed.
Or people who were just staying in jail because they
could not pay bills, so they stayed there for years
(04:32):
sometimes I mean two to three years at times to
wait on the trial to then improve their innocence. Or
folks who were being arrested and within the first few
hours of them being in jail before they saw a
pre trial. Before they were even given a bail amount,
they were being approached by prosecutors and offered plea deals
to plead guilty. And a lot of times people were
(04:53):
taking these plea deals because they cannot afford to be
in jail. And honestly, if I was someone who was
false to cues of something, but I did not have
the money to get out of jail, and if I
stayed in jail, I was gonna lose my housing. If
I had children, my children were gonna get taken from
me because they didn't have anywhere to go. I might
not be able to pay my bills for the next month.
It's might put me behind several months because I'm missing
(05:15):
days and weeks at work. I understand why they will
play guilty, and for the county system, it looks good
for them in the DA's office that all these people
are taking these plea deals and then accepting diversion, which
is a program where someone says they're guilty of something
and they take a diversion deal and for a year
they cannot get in trouble again, they can't get arrested
(05:37):
for anything, and after that year's up, they dismissed the
charges and expunded off their record. But that's also very
difficult because the only people who can control someone being
arrested are the police. And there are people who literally
have not done something wrong but been targeted racially and
gotten pulled over, and someone just tried to get a
(05:58):
conviction on them because they need to get the arrest quota,
and now they're in jail again. I heard that story
so many times about how they actually weren't doing anything
wrong and they were just victimized. And so the diversion
process itself of not getting in trouble for a year
can be very very hard when you're a black person
living in a majority black city that is targeting over police, Like,
(06:21):
let's just be real. So I didn't agree with that process.
Of course. I don't think it's okay to be offered
folks plea deals before they even get a beil amount
or before they even see pre trial. And these Organs
didn't either, which is why they threatened to sue. And
so after threatening to sue, the county came to the
decision making table and the judges in Shelby County and said, Okay,
(06:42):
this this makes sense. I can definitely understand how there
is an issue here, Let's create a solution. And the
solution they created was a standing bell order. In that
standing bill order, it stated that a bill hearing room
had to be created so that if someone was arrested
and given a bill amount they could not pay within
(07:04):
seventy two hours, they could ask to have that bill reviewed.
Because the previous process required to someone have a lawyer,
that lawyer foul of motion. And so if I don't
have a lawyer or a public defender for days at
a time, I'm in jail for a week or so
at this point for some folks, or for some people months.
So this process with the bail hearing room was supposed
to add in some layers of protection and due process
(07:27):
to make sure folks' rights were not being violated. And
through that bail hearing room, folks could have their bill reviewed.
And the bill order also said that these judges had
to be using the vera Institute pre trial calculator that
calculates the realistic amount someone can pay based off their
lived experience, their financial circumstances, all the realistic factors that
(07:52):
could really tell you if someone's able to afford this bill,
what their support looks like things like that. So now
fast forward to where we are are with this task
force that is stacking our jail with all these people,
and I want to read you the stats from the
dashboard that the city actually put up of the numbers
that this task force is doing for arrest, the type
(08:14):
of charges, things like that, so y'all can get a
realistic picture of what's actually happening here. So this dashboard
is actually up on the Memphis Safe and Clean website
that they put up when the task force was coming here.
And this dashboard is a part of the website. So
if you go to that page and you should roll down,
you should see a data dashboard. You can click there
and see it. So I want to start with traffic
(08:35):
stops because that's what we're seeing the most of these
task force members MPD, VY, County Share State troopers are
all in black, in brown neighborhoods like Hickory Hill, Burke Claire, Nutbush,
Off coventson Pike, Summer Avenue, all the places where black
and brown folks live, basically, and as of today, they've
done thirty five, three hundred and thirty five traffic stops
(09:00):
nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety five of those were
for traffic, five thousand, two hundred and ninety one of
those were for warnings, and parking citations were four thousand,
nine hundred and ninety eight, so of the thirty five thousand,
three hundred and thirty five traffic stops, citations were given
for thirty thousand, two hundred and eighty four of them.
(09:23):
And for arrest right now, they are at three thousand
and fifty six arrests. For arrest type, there have been
one thousand, two hundred and eighty seven fellony arrests and
one thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine misdemeanor arrests. For
physical citations, there have been three hundred and seventy four
misdemeanor citations given, and it's really important because the citation
(09:46):
issue is one thing that we've been talking about a lot.
And for physical arrests there have been two thousand, six
hundred and eighty two. For violent arrests, there have been
one thousand and ninety eight. For non violent arrests there
have been one thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight, So
once again the majority of these have been nonviolent and
(10:07):
misdemeanors and they still all resulted mostly in physical arrests,
which is important because one thing we've been bringing up,
and one thing the sheriff and the mayor have even said,
is that people should be doing cite and release. The
jails over populated. Of course, yes, and that's because there's
so many people being arrested. But we are asking them
(10:28):
to do sight and release. They're asking them to do
sight and release yet and still they are not doing that.
Who is they the police? They are not citing and
releasing people. They are arresting them because they want to
count these numbers. I also want to talk about warrants
because one thing that this task force has been doing
is executing warrants, because there's this extremely long backlog of
(10:51):
warrants here in Shelby County. So far, they've been here
for over two months at this point, and they have
made nine hundred and fifty six warrant arrest So, just
to back up, they have made three thousand and fifty
six arrests total. Only nine hundred and fifty six arrests
have been for warrants. Meanwhile, they've done thirty five thousand,
(11:15):
three hundred and thirty five traffic stops and given out
thirty thousand, two hundred and eighty four citations. So, like
I said, for warrants, they have done nine hundred and
fifty six warrant pickups and the arrest types have been
Felony was five hundred and twenty eight and misdemeanor was
four hundred and twenty eight. Nonviolent was five hundred and
(11:38):
twenty and violent was four hundred and thirty six. So
once again the majority are nonviolent. But what's interesting to
me is that under charges it says other seven hundred
and eight, domestic violence one ninety two, aggravated assault one
seventy three, narcotics eighty eight, weapons seventy six, robbery thirty four,
(12:00):
homicide twenty six, sexual assault twenty three. And my inkling
is that the majority of the other charges that says
others for mis court because a lot of folks get
bench warrants from missing court, and instead of be accurate
and just say that that's what it's for, they put
other That's my assumption. I don't know that for sure,
(12:20):
so I do want to clarify that, but I do
know that a lot of folks have warrants for missing court.
And when I look at this spreadsheet under charges other
has seven hundred and eight warrants, and I know that
the majority of warrans are for miscourt, and so my
assumption is going to be that that's what this large
number is for. I do think that our government should
(12:41):
provide better information for stuff like this, but until we
have that, this is all I can say is that
this is my assumption. So, like I said before, because
they're making all these arrests, Our Jill is packed with people,
and I want to talk about who is actually accountable
in this scenario because I am seeing so many people
(13:02):
be upset with the city mayor for not coming out
against the task fors like they want him to, which
I agree. I mean, I think we all wanted him
to do that, right, But the people who have the
power to stop folks from dying in the jail are
the Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner and the Shelby County
Mayor Lee Harris, And I think it's important that folks
don't get blinded by Lee Harris taking action against the
(13:24):
National Guard being in Memphis, and instead hold him accountable
for the power that he has as mayor to keep
folks safe and that includes people who are in the
jail that are innocent until proven guilty. The Mayor has
said nothing about the amount of people who have died
in the jail in two one popular in the last
two weeks. Like I said before, four people have died.
(13:45):
Mayor Harris has yet to mention them. He has yet
to offer condolencests to anyone's family. He has yet to
acknowledge there's an emergency happening in our jail where people
are losing their lives right now. There's a young man
named Brendan who contract can a flesh eating bacteria into
a one poplar and it's currently at the hospital, a
regional one, on life support because of it. Mayor Harrison
(14:08):
said nothing. And I think if you're gonna go so
hard about the National Guard being here and how this
is wrong, you should also be going so hard about
the impacts of what this task force is doing to
Memphians and the ones that are losing their lives especially
and the sheriff, of course, who has all the power here,
because the sheriff can force people to actually cite and release.
(14:31):
Is he doing that? No? Is he putting out press
releases throwing you know, blame on other folks and pointing
a finger. Yes, has he put out any condolecence for
these folks who have died in a jail? No? Has
he talked about how what's happening is an emergency and
what plan they're gonna take. No? Has he actually listened
to people who are telling him that not only should
(14:54):
he be pointing out the need to cite and release
and telling folks to site and release, but when they
don't cit and release, he needs to hold them accountable,
including but not limited to him actually instructing folks in
the jail to cite and release when someone is brought
there who should be released. But is he doing that
as well? No, And that is what is really annoying,
(15:16):
is that so many people are focused on the wrong
targets where folks are losing their lives. Like this is
very serious. This isn't like, oh, you know, I just
got really sick, I got COVID, I didn't die. This
is people are getting flesh any bacteria, dying or having
extreme mental health crisises and being attacked in jail and
no one's doing anything that's insane. And I know that
(15:42):
a lot of folks have talked about how much this
task force has really stressed and stretched the capacity of
the jail. There's a person who was a counselor in
the jail who actually quit, and she posted about how
they're so overcrowded. They're putting people in the different gym
rooms they have there, they don't have best they don't
have chaits to sit in. They're all cooped up on
(16:04):
top of each other and that is such an incubator
for communicable diseases. Being in such an unsafe and unsanitary
space like that is very dangerous. She even talked about
how they're taking so much longer for folks to get
out of jail because the processing time takes so long
because they're so overwhelmed. And one of the reasons they're
so overwhelmed is because the judges in the jail refuse
(16:26):
to stay longer or hold night court or hold Saturday
court so they can hear more cases and do more
arraignments so people can get out quicker. And because of that,
people have to wait till they get a court date
to get released, even when they pay bail. We've had
folks who we've paid bail for from the official bill
and Memphis Bill Fund, and it's taking several days for
the person to get out because it's taking so long
(16:48):
for the paperwork to process, because not only is the
jail over capacity, but they're also still using paper. So
like other places that are using computer systems, and although
ageils use the comuter set, they're also still using paper,
so they're using a mix of vote and so they're
not advanced technologically, and that also is causing issues because
there's some people who they you know, completely have lost
(17:11):
their paperwork, so that's a start everything all over again,
and that's just unacceptable. And so I wanted to make
sure I broke down what was happening in our jail,
especially because of so many deaths. But I also want
to break down like what the actual status and numbers
look like here, because people are seeing, you know, us
complaining about what's happening here. There's folks posting videos, we're
(17:32):
doing record response. But unless you're really hearing mythhis, you
don't feel what the like the impact of the task
force is. And people who live here, we feel it
like people don't feel safer, they're more afraid. And not
only are they more afraid, but they're also making life
offtering decisions like leaving the country or moving to different states,
(17:54):
or not leaving their houses, or pulling their kids out
of school because they're afraid to go to drop them
off and then be abducted. Like these are very real
life archering decisions that are being made that did not
have to be happening. But you know we're here now,
so yeah. I also wanted to give an update on
the National Guard lawsuit because I did mention that about
(18:16):
Mayor Harris helping and leading on this lawsuit with other
elected officials, and the judge in the case in Davidson
County did give out a ruling and agree with the
elected officials that the National Guard was unconstitutional and that
they should not be there. But they also gave the
state five days to respond and appeal, and the state
(18:38):
is going to appeal. I haven't seen anything about the
uppial being actually filed yet, so I don't know if
they'll make the five day mark, but they have to
appeal within that five day period. If not, they have
to remove the National Guard from mempics, so we'll see
what happens. I think that knowing the state and how
they want to fight it, they're going to appeal it,
and it's going to go to the Tennessee Court of Appeals,
(18:59):
which is going to be a panel of judges, and
I'm unsure how that will go because I mean, Tennessee
is very conservative, very red, so those judges tend to
be also very conservative. But they also tend to be
strict constitutionalists, so folks who have a very strict view
of the constitution, and so they might not agree with
(19:21):
the way that the Governor is trying to apply the
Constitution in the National Guard in this way. I will
also add that some of the argument that was presented
to the judge was that this breakdown of law and
order language that the President put in his memo was
what the governor cited in a response to the memo
(19:41):
back to the President, But that is not a listed
reason in the Military Code to deploy the National Guard,
which was the key argument and one of the key
reasons why she ordered the National Guards. We removed because
the reasons they were citing did not exist. So the
Governor did not put out any actual statement or orders
for the National Guard. There was nothing official written down anywhere.
(20:05):
None of the actual requirements were met for the National
Guard to be deployed, which is why she made her
ruling the way that she did. So it's going to
be very interesting to see what the appeal is going
to look like and where that's going to go, especially considering,
you know, the military code is still the same, so
I'm not really sure how they would appeal, like what
(20:25):
the appeal would be based in. But I do want
to mention that all of this is happening within the
last week or so, and within this last week, the
National Guard presence has also increased exponentially. So we had
about one hundred and twenty five National Guard members here
who are mostly just downtown walking on the Main Street
mall and walking around Bill Street and Bass Pro stuff
(20:49):
like that, really in the touristy areas. But now there
are fifty National Guard troops per police precinct for two shifts,
so they're not police precincts in Memphis. There are one
hundred National Guard troops station to each one, to make
about nine hundred National Guard troops, and they are patrolling
within those neighborhoods. So folks have already said they seen
(21:12):
them at the East Gate shopp They say that they
seem them at Krogers. They've seen them at Target, They've
seen them at the shopping center where the Petcoe is
on Poplar, They've seen them just in random neighborhoods walking around.
They've also seen them in like highly populated areas like
the Wolf Chase mall, the Zoo. Even folks even reported
seeing them not just at the zoom in the front
(21:34):
of the zoo, but like walking around throughout the zoo
where folks are there with their families, you know, really
trying to create this very forced military presence that I
and other folks have even said it's just to make
people desensitized to the idea of like National Guard military
members walking around their streets. Because this is not normal.
(21:56):
This is exactly what fascism actually looks like. And I
hope that that folks don't become desensitized to it. You
should always be calling out that this is not normal,
this is weird. It's weird as fuck, and it's not necessary.
It does not keep us safe, and it's actually causing
people to lose their lives. So I hope that this
has given y'all a little glimpse into what's happening in Memphis.
(22:19):
How harmful this task Force has been how they've caused
folks to lose their lives, their livelihood, to be deported
back to countries where they cannot make a living and
are not safe, and at the same time, their children
are still here in the United States, and now there
are minor children without parents and the type of trauma,
long lasting trauma, that this experience is causing them. So
(22:43):
as always, feel free to follow me on Facebook and
Instagram the same name, the log cordin the Amber and
I look forward to another episode. Oh and if you
want to see the different informational content I've been doing,
especially my residency with MLKA fifty as a great and residence,
I post that content on Instagram and TikTok at as
(23:04):
for Afro, which is my main account, so be sure
to follow me there. All right, y'all, please
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