"When President Donald Trump describes his plans to deploy the National Guard to Memphis as a "replica" of what he's done with federal troops in Washington, D.C., he's attempting to make two points: first, that it's appropriate for him to deploy the military in American cities at all, and second, that doing so effectively reduces crime in cities that just happen to be run and disproportionately populated by his perceived political foes."
"The president signed an executive memorandum on September 15 directing federal agents to combat street crime in Memphis through "hypervigilant policing," "aggressive prosecutions," and "strict enforcement of applicable quality-of-life, nuisance, and public-safety laws." The memo called for "large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods" and highlighted issues such as graffiti, noise, public intoxication, and traffic violations as areas of focus for federal agents set to descend on the city."
""We have reasonable cause to believe that MPD and the City engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal law," DOJ investigators wrote in a December 2024 report on the Memphis Police Department's activities, sharply rebuking a policing style that managed to antagonize local residents while doing little to solve or prevent violent crime."
Federal directives to send National Guard and federal agents to Memphis call for hypervigilant policing, aggressive prosecutions, and strict enforcement of quality-of-life laws, with large-scale saturation of neighborhoods and focus on graffiti, noise, public intoxication, and traffic violations. Those measures mirror a previous Memphis strategy that produced poor results. A December 2024 Department of Justice investigation found reasonable cause to believe the Memphis Police Department and the city engaged in unconstitutional practices, citing excessive force, unlawful stops, searches, and arrests, and racial discrimination in enforcement, while violent crime had not been solved or prevented.
Read at The Atlantic
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