Donald Trump said Memphis was “suffering from tremendous levels of violent crime” in taskforce plan

President Donald Trump’s statement about violence in Memphis came last September when he established a federal taskforce there, sending hundreds of agents from 13 agencies into the city. Days before, local police had announced that overall crime had fallen to its lowest level in 25 years. Since then, federal agents have killed four Black men in the city in under a year. Justin Pearson, a state lawmaker expelled after a school-shooting gun-control protest, has since won Tennessee’s Democratic primary for the Ninth Congressional District; his campaign drew more than 1,000 people to a July rally with progressive congresswomen after those killings. His victory, backed by Bernie Sanders and Justice Democrats, is part of a broader progressive primary wave before the November midterms.