Editor’s note: This story was changed to clarify the number of people who expressed fear during MLK50’s reporting.
About 30 minutes after midnight on Saturday, officers from the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency pulled over a young Black woman for a broken headlight. At the intersection of Winchester and Millbranch roads in Whitehaven, the officers searched her red sedan without her permission, she said.
“They just told me to step out,” she said.
The officers looked under her seats, under the hood and inside the trunk. They even removed the spare tire and searched it. They didn’t tell her what they were looking for, she said. Eventually, they allowed the woman to leave without a citation.
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State and federal officials say the Trump administration’s federal task force is targeting “violent criminals and known gang members” to make Memphis safer. This past weekend, MLK50 spent time in the Memphis neighborhoods that have seen higher levels of enforcement activity to learn more about how the task force is doing its work.
During 16 hours of reporting, MLK50 observed over a dozen traffic stops where drivers were pulled over for minor infractions like broken taillights and expired tags. None of these stops ended in arrests. The frequency of these patrols and stops contributed to a sense of surveillance and fear in the community. Immigrant families told MLK50 how they are now scared to leave their homes. One person described feeling scared during a traffic stop; others appeared so. For these residents, the Memphis Safe Task Force has decreased their sense of safety in the community.
Under the cover of night – Friday
Winchester Road near South Goodlett Street – 7:13 p.m.
There were at least five traffic stops taking place along Winchester Road near South Goodlett Street and South Perkins Road. Memphis Police Department vehicles made the stops alone and did not appear to be accompanied by other local, state or federal law enforcement agencies.
Love’s Travel Stop at American Way and Lamar Avenue –7:26 p.m.
Beneath the bright shine of LED lights, the Love’s Travel Stop bustled with activity: people bought food and coffee, drivers pumped gas, truck drivers rested — and law enforcement patrolled the area.
One Tennessee Highway Patrol cruiser parked at the end of a long line of gasoline pumps. Nearby, a man wearing a black vest stamped with the word “police” sat in a gray Nissan Altima. An agent wearing an FBI vest pumped gas for a black Ford Expedition while another agent stood nearby. Apart from the one Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle, the other two were unmarked and inconspicuous. The Tennessee Highway Patrol leads the task force’s traffic stop surge, according to Gadyaces Serralta, director of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Away from the gas pumps, two royal blue MPD cruisers parked in front of the convenience store. Several Memphis police officers spoke with a woman who was seated on the curb outside the store. After getting directions from the officers, she entered her truck and drove away.
Another officer stood at the store’s front door, sipping a canned energy drink and chatting with customers as they walked in and out. There were no clear markings on the man’s clothes to indicate which law enforcement agency he was with, but he wore a bulletproof vest, a tactical belt around his waist and a drop leg gun holster on his right thigh.
Love’s Travel Stop at American Way and Lamar Avenue – 7:58 p.m.
Memphis police officers handcuffed a young Black man inside the travel stop and brought him outside the store, making him sit inside a blue police cruiser while they asked him questions.
A store employee said that the man was arrested for stealing candy.
At about the same time, the trooper cruiser and the unmarked vehicles drove away from Love’s Travel Stop and merged onto Interstate 240 to an unknown destination.
Several major intersections between East Raines and Winchester roads – 8:20 p.m.
The MPD had a strong presence in the South Riverdale and Hickory Hill neighborhoods. Multiple cruisers parked along major street intersections, including Hickory Hill and Winchester roads.
American Way and Mount Moriah Road – 9:30 p.m.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle, followed by an unmarked silver Chevrolet Blazer, pulled out of the Mount Moriah Police Precinct. Almost immediately, they stopped a sedan. The trooper spoke to the driver, while two FBI agents exited the unmarked Chevy and stood nearby. The driver was allowed to leave a few minutes later.
Mount Moriah Road Extension and Harmon Crest Road – 10:10 p.m.
Under the shine of blinking police lights, a state trooper and an unmarked vehicle parked behind a silver sedan. An FBI agent and a highway patrolman searched under the car’s seats and inside the door organizers
The driver and passenger of the car, a Black man and woman, stood outside their vehicle. They leaned on the trooper’s truck while casually chatting with the other FBI agent.
“Do you smell gas? It stinks. It gives me a headache,” the trooper said to one of the FBI agents as he searched the car.
Later, the trooper returned IDs to the couple and let them leave.
The couple said they had been stopped for having a headlight out. They gave the officers permission to search their vehicle.
“I ain’t have nothing to hide, so I let them search,” the man said.
The woman said the incident made her “scared to death” and “real shaken up.”
Near Getwell Road and Lamar Avenue – 11:33 p.m.
While driving south on Getwell Road, reporters spotted a traffic stop in progress near the Lamar Avenue intersection. The car had broken taillights and was missing a license plate. It was flanked by one Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle and one Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency truck.
At one point, four officers surrounded the car and spoke to the driver through the front window.
The male driver and the female passenger in the backseat, who owned the car, were both given citations. Tears streamed down the woman’s face as they began to drive away.
“This is a lot,” she said. “I’m ready for (the task force) to leave.”
Exxon at Airways Boulevard and Winchester Road – 11:56 p.m.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol cruiser and a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency vehicle stopped a white car with driveout tags. Inside the car was a woman with her 3-year-old child in the back seat. The toddler peeked out the backseat window, eyes watching the blinking lights and line of vehicles behind them.
The woman was allowed to leave after officers gave her a citation and a court date because her temporary paper tags had expired.
“The task force is doing its job, and we have to accept it,” she said.
A bystander who observed the traffic stop from the gas station parking lot shared his own perspective.
“Do you think this is making a difference, them fucking with somebody?” he said. “Everybody is not a fucking criminal.”
Winchester and Millbranch roads intersection – 12:25 a.m.
A state trooper and a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency vehicle pulled over a red sedan. Both agents shined flashlights through the car’s windows, gesturing to the young female driver to roll the windows down.
Soon after, officers instructed the woman to exit the car. “They just told me to step out,” she said.
She stood to the side while they searched her car: looking under the hood, in the spare tire in the trunk and under the seats. They didn’t say what they were looking for, nor had they asked permission to conduct the search.
The woman spoke to her mother on the phone as she waited. Meanwhile, one of the officers — a tall man wearing a police vest — hovered closely behind her.
Officers allowed the woman to leave around 12:40 a.m. without a citation. They stopped her for having a broken headlight.
In broad daylight – Saturday
Bryant’s Breakfast — 8:45 a.m.
The crowd to order at Bryant’s Breakfast on Summer Avenue was already stretching out the door when three federal agents joined the line Saturday morning. They wore black athletic hoodies, neutral-colored work pants, and belts laden with supplies, including handguns, handcuffs, shiny gold badges with letters too small to read and small sealed packs that appear to be first aid kits. One kit had “A POS” written on it in faded letters — likely the agent’s blood type. They wore nothing else identifying them as law enforcement.
Gaisman Community Center — 10:20 a.m.
There were only about 50 people in the gymnasium of the Gaisman Community Center for Desayuno con Libros, a monthly event where Spanish-speaking children can enjoy a free breakfast and pick out books with their parents. The atmosphere was cautiously festive, but organizers said attendance has been dropping for months as immigrant families grow afraid to leave their homes. Outside the gymnasium, the playground in Gaisman Park was empty.
An organizer took the microphone and thanked the attendees for being there despite the fear felt by so many in their community. Beside her, a Dia de los Muertos altar was festooned with colorful paper flowers and a string of plastic skeletons.
She explained that the 22 small wooden crosses on the ground in front of the altar represented the people who died in immigration detention centers around the U.S. in fiscal year 2025. Three of them, she told the crowd, were suicides. Children were invited to leave battery-powered votive candles on the base of each small cross. Then, the upbeat music resumed. Around the gym, parents held toddlers on their laps, reading to them from colorful picture books. Volunteers handed out pan dulces, and little girls lined up for unicorn face paint. The gymnasium was not a refuge from fear — but was filled with joy in spite of it.
Summer Avenue — 10:50 a.m.
An empty car was all that remained of an immigration arrest in front of TJ Maxx on Summer Avenue. Witnesses said a man was pulled over and quickly detained by agents in a vehicle with the signature green stripe of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, leaving his car behind.
“That’s what people are afraid about — that they (see) you and follow you even if you don’t do something wrong,” said one witness, who said he was nervous that authorities would follow and target him for watching the detainment as it was happening. Another witness was issued a pink warning slip by police for attempting to film the detainment while driving by.
“I was over here filming at first, but they were looking at me very angrily,” a third witness said in Spanish. He said he relocated to an adjacent parking lot to continue filming the arrest. None of the witnesses knew the man’s name or why he was initially pulled over.
Poplar & Highland — 12:30 p.m.
Protesters in inflatable costumes dotted a crowd thousands strong at Saturday’s No Kings protest at Poplar and Highland. Among them were several dinosaurs and unicorns, a flamingo, a capybara and at least three frogs — an homage to activists creatively resisting ICE in Portland, Oregon.
The cheerful festivities are markedly different from the quiet, fearful ambiance that permeated other parts of the city. Different, also, was the notable lack of police presence. While MPD cruisers periodically rolled by, officers rarely left their cars, and MLK50 found no fixed surveillance points around the intersection.
Instead, lilac-vested legal observers roamed the crowd, offering attendees bottled water and scanning for signs of trouble. Orange-vested security volunteers spoke into walkie-talkies and directed traffic at the four crosswalks. Federal agents were nowhere to be found.
North of Shelby Farms — 3:15 p.m.
A home on a residential street just north of Shelby Farms Park was the subject of an hours-long, multi-agency immigration raid on Saturday afternoon. Agents detained a husband and wife, leaving four children behind with their aunt and cousins.
“My uncle, he was hiding because he didn’t want to be taken, and my aunt was lying so they wouldn’t take him,” a young teenage boy said, his voice wobbling as he spoke. “They told us to tell them to come out, that they weren’t ICE and stuff, that they weren’t going to take them. But then they still took them.”
Other neighbors described unmarked cars full of law enforcement filling the quiet street for hours. None of the agents appeared to be from MPD or the sheriff’s office, they said. The boy said he saw FBI agents and U.S. Marshals among them.
“This is literally the quietest, safest neighborhood in the entire city,” said one neighbor, who was still dressed as the Statue of Liberty following the No Kings protest. But she says the character of the neighborhood has recently undergone a dramatic change.
“It’s half tenants who have not been outside in the last week,” she said. “It’s gotten super, super quiet… (Normally) there’s always people coming and going. There’s always people playing in the yard. And if they aren’t playing in the yard, it stops being a safe neighborhood.”
Andrea Morales is the visuals director for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at andrea.morales@mlk50.com
Brittany Brown is the public safety reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at brittany.brown@mlk50.com
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
Kevin Wurm, a MLK50: Justice Through Journalism visual journalist, is a Report for America corps member and a CatchLight Local fellow. Email him at kevin.wurm@mlk50.com
Natalie Wallington is the housing reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at natalie.wallington@mlk50.com.
This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by these generous donors.