by The Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis: Shirley Bondon; Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, executive director; Lisa Harris, MICAH Race & Class Equity, Justice System Task Force chair; Josh Spickler, executive director

In 2023, after watching the appalling behavior of the Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers and other first responders, which resulted in the preventable death of Tyre Nichols, many Memphians asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to conduct a full, thorough, and complete “pattern or practice” investigation of the MPD, including its policies and procedures, arrest stories, detainment protocols, civil complaints, and their resolutions, and the use of force.

What happened to Tyre Nichols was abhorrent and should never happen again. The DOJ heard Memphians’ requests and investigated MPD. On December 4, the DOJ released the report of their investigation, which confirmed the belief that what happened to Tyre Nichols was not an isolated event but part of a systemic “pattern or practice” behavior that consistently violates the civil rights of the people of Memphis.

The report details the cruel and shocking treatment of Black Memphians, people with disabilities, and children. These findings confirmed and validated what many Memphians have long known to be true: that MPD engages in unlawful conduct, racial discrimination, and abuse of even our most vulnerable populations.

The next step should include the DOJ collaborating with the community to remedy unlawful practices through a negotiated resolution with specific remedies overseen by an independent monitor. However, Mayor Young has indicated that because he believes the financial costs to be too great, the city will not enter into an agreement with the DOJ. He thinks the city and MPD can correct these abuses without DOJ involvement. We can think of no instance when a just society allowed the abuser of others to determine how they would fix their behavior. Just societies always intervene and prescribe what the abuser must do, monitors the abuser, and decides when the correction has occurred, which is precisely what a consent decree would aim to do.

Although the contents of the DOJ report sadden us, we believe this is Memphis’ opportunity to reform our police force and develop a peacekeeping force to protect us all. Our confidence in affecting positive, lasting, tailored change is grounded in the DOJ’s authority to secure the reforms of unconstitutional patterns and practices identified within MPD.

We support Mayor Young. However, given the demands of serving as mayor of Memphis, we cannot see a remedy that includes him supervising officers, monitoring conduct, and reviewing incident videos while performing his duties as mayor. We have no trust or confidence in leaving corrections to the people involved in the unlawful conduct, the persons who failed to supervise them, or those who stood by and said nothing while the unlawful conduct occurred. We need DOJ involvement.

In his weekly bulletin, Mayor Young states: “Consent decrees in cities like Chicago have exceeded $500 million, Seattle around $200 million, and New Orleans more than $100 million, often spanning over a decade. In many cases, even more troubling, crime rates have risen under such decrees. We cannot allow this to happen in the city I love, the city we love.” These costs are provided with no detail or broader context. We don’t know how the costs for each consent decree were calculated, the overall size of the cities’ budgets, the timeframe each decree covers, or how the costs compare to the costs of police misconduct. It’s unreasonable to assume that each city communicated and decided what to include in their calculations. Because we don’t know what’s included, we can’t use these numbers to compare or estimate the cost of a consent decree in Memphis. We already pay the cost of unconstitutional and abusive policing. We’re more than ready to break away from this deadly status quo.

With a consent decree in place:

 •   Memphis must pay a monitor and their team to track progress on the plan that the DOJ develops in collaboration with the community and to provide regular reports on MPD’s performance against the agreed-upon metrics.

 •   Memphis must pay fines and fees the federal court may impose if MPD persistently fails to comply with the consent decree.

Memphis can limit the financial cost of the decree simply by complying with its requirements. Regardless of the cost, we know that protecting the lives of Memphians, especially persons with disabilities and children, is priceless—too valuable not to sign the decree.

The mayor’s reference to rising crime rates in cities while they were under a consent decree implies a connection without data or proof. Many factors contribute to rising crime rates, and we should not assume that the consent decree contributed to them.

A well-meaning Memphian wrote the day after the DOJ released its report, “Let’s be careful as we weigh in and focus on the critical and very needed organization who work to keep us safe. Crime is out of control in our city, and the police department works hard with a short staff, underpaid, outgunned on the streets and continue to be beaten down (low morale) and as criminals are emboldened in their practices.” All these things may be accurate; however, we should not look away and justify the conduct described in the DOJ report. It is not the conduct of quality professionals. It is possible and necessary to address abusive conduct and establish lawful and effective public safety practices while acknowledging the challenging nature of the work and respecting officers who perform the job well.

Please join us in asking Mayor Young to enter into an agreement with the DOJ. Then, let’s get to work restoring the constitutional rights of Memphians by truly reforming our police force and developing the peacekeeping force Memphis deserves.