Following the launch of a massive federal interagency task force in partnership with state law enforcement, Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee pledged that the “Memphis Safe Task Force” would be a permanent fixture.
Last month, the White House published a presidential memorandum titled “Restoring Law and Order in Memphis,” which orders 13 federal government agencies and offices to coordinate. It states the “objective shall be to end street and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest possible extent,” and lists actions including “hypervigilant policing, aggressive prosecution, complex investigations, financial enforcement, and large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods with law enforcement personnel.”
Memphis is among the most violent cities in the country.
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“The Memphis Safe Task Force began operations on September 29, with the National Guard joining efforts this past Friday,” Action5 News reported on Monday.
Lee told reporters on Tuesday, “We’ve just begun,” and said the program will last “for months,” before stating that in some form it will continue “forever.”
“We do know that this is gonna last for months, and we have just begun. In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever,” he said. “Because what we believe will happen is the numbers of law enforcement agents from different agencies will change, depending on the mission at the moment.”
He described a “collaboration that is happening right now between U.S. Marshal Service and the Memphis Police Department, and the FBI, and the DEA, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.”
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“That collaboration will be here from now on,” said Lee. “So this operation, in some ways, may never end.”
Critics blasted the governor.
“As I predicted,” noted authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the “aim is a ‘domestic forever war.'”
The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist, wrote: “Fascist. Pure fascist.”
Columnist and “recovering attorney” Wajahat Ali added, “Forever occupation, eh?”
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