All four taskforce deaths occurred in past two months
Federal agents shot and killed a man Wednesday morning at an Extended Stay America motel on Poplar Avenue, about 11 miles east of downtown Memphis, in what authorities described as a Drug Enforcement Administration operation supported by the Memphis Safe Task Force.
The U.S. Marshals Service, the lead agency for the taskforce, said officers were attempting to serve a warrant on a wanted fugitive facing felony drug charges out of Shelby County. After issuing verbal commands for the individual to surrender, agents made a forced entry into the building. The Marshals Service said additional commands were given, and the individual pointed a handgun at taskforce members, who responded by discharging their firearms.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting. Authorities have not yet identified the deceased person.
The Memphis Safe Task Force was created by executive order signed by President Donald Trump last September, when Memphis had among the highest rates of violent crime of any large U.S. city. However, violence had fallen sharply in the year preceding the order, as it had in many cities as the pandemic crime spike subsided.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, acting in concert with the president, activated the Tennessee National Guard, which has been patrolling Memphis streets for 10 months. Local activists have challenged the deployment in state and federal court without success.
The July 8 shooting is the fourth officer-involved death linked to the taskforce since the initiative began, and all four have occurred in the past two months.
On July 5, National Guard soldiers fatally shot Tyrin Johnson, 20, as he was being pursued by Memphis police following reports of shots fired near downtown. On May 21, taskforce officers responding to a report of an armed man threatening to harm himself shot and killed Jonah Neal, 25, after finding him with several weapons inside a home; a Homeland Security special agent fired the fatal shot, police said. On May 13, agents shot and killed Darrin Pigram, 41, while serving an arrest warrant at a Burger King in Memphis’s Frayser neighborhood.