Shelby County Mayor declares state of emergency in response to Memphis Safe Task Force arrests

Two men wearing a U.S. Marshal and FBI vest as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Mayor Lee Harris has declared a state of emergency in Shelby County, citing a strain on local resources caused by the surge in federal and state law enforcement deployed to Memphis by Gov. Bill Lee and President Donald Trump. 

The declaration, issued last week and announced publicly Tuesday, cites pressures on the county’s already-overcrowded detention center as a result of an estimated 200% increase in daily arrests made by members of the Memphis Safe Task Force. This state-federal partnership has brought hundreds of outside law enforcement personnel, including the Tennessee National Guard, to the city.

Shelby County includes all of Memphis, as well as a few smaller cities. 

The local state of emergency will continue “until the end of Memphis Safe Task Force operations or until detention facility populations are reduced to capacity level or below,” the declaration read. Lee this week said the operation could “last forever.”

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The emergency declaration, Harris said this week, frees up spending rules to respond to an increase in arrests, detentions and other costs incurred by law enforcement activity.

County leaders are also contemplating separate legal action to protect residents against “some of the unconstitutional actions we have seen and heard about” during traffic stops and arrests by task force members, including reports of racial profiling, Harris said.

Shelby County is at least the second American county to invoke an emergency declaration in response to Trump’s deployment of law enforcement to blue cities in a stated effort to combat crime and crack down on immigrants without legal status.  The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors earlier this week enacted a state of emergency to aid families impacted by immigration enforcement.

In issuing the emergency declaration, Harris cited state law typically only invoked for severe weather, natural disasters and pandemics to spend money and enter contracts without going through the regular  appropriations process, reassign staff and request state emergency funding.

The emergency order also broadly directs all county departments to “take whatever steps necessary to protect life, property, public infrastructure, and to provide such emergency assistance deemed necessary.”

Memphis task force using TN ‘buffer law,’ preventing up-close recording of police activity

Hundreds of state and federal law enforcement officers – among them officers with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and Tennessee Highway Patrol – were dispatched to Memphis in recent weeks after Trump issued a Sept. 15 order establishing the task force to “restore law and order” to one of the nation’s biggest majority Black cities. 

As of Wednesday, the task force had made 917 arrests, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Where all of the arrested individuals are taken remains unclear; 173 were detained on “ICE Administrative warrants” and local attorneys speaking alongside the mayor this week described clients sent to ICE detention facilities out of state. 

But other task force arrestees are being taken to the Shelby County Detention Center, a department official confirmed. 

Shelby County jail officials have long faced criticism for persistent overcrowding and inhumane conditions inside the city’s central detention center, conditions that preceded the recent surge in the task force arrests.

Currently the Shelby County Detention Center holds 2,932 individuals, according to the sheriff’s department spokesperson. The center has a 2800-bed capacity.

Harris contemplates legal action against task force

Shelby County officials are “weighing some sort of legal action in order to put a stop to some of the unconstitutional actions we have seen and heard about,” Harris said, citing anecdotal reports that had come to his office of racial profiling in traffic stops. 

He also aimed sharp criticism at the president and the governor for the actions taking place in Memphis.

“There’s nothing more unconstitutional than the comments made by Donald Trump and others that they’re going to send military forces, the National Guard or whoever else they need to American communities,” Harris said. 

“We have seen our governor be in some of those rooms and instead of rejecting that kind of talk and reminding those in the room that some of their talk imagines actions that are unconstitutional, our governor sat silent and said nothing.”
County State of Emergency