White people were 6% of arrests by Memphis Safe Task Force in its first two months

More than 3,000 people were arrested during the first two months of the Memphis Safe Task Force’s deployment. Only 6% of them appeared to be white, according to an MLK50: Justice Through Journalism analysis. The findings support assertions by some Memphians that the task force mostly affects Black and brown residents. 

White people were less likely to be arrested as a result of “discretionary” policing, such as traffic stops, and more likely to be arrested due to outstanding warrants, the analysis found. Of the 169 people arrested in October and November who looked white:

• 110 were arrested on warrants
• 34 were arrested during traffic stops, including 12 who were arrested because they were found to have open warrants. 
• 37 other arrests, eight of which were for driving under the influence, but did not list a traffic stop as leading to the arrest.

“You don’t have discretion as an officer when you pick somebody up on a warrant. It doesn’t matter (if the person is) Black, white or purple, you’re going to (arrest them),” said Thaddeus Johnson, a criminologist from Memphis. “Discretionary would be non-warrant, non-felony (arrests).” 

Studies have shown Black drivers are more likely to be stopped than white drivers and are more likely to have their vehicles searched, even though they are less likely to be carrying illegal drugs or guns compared to their white peers. 

“Once officers make a stop, that’s where discretionary action comes into play,” Johnson said. “There’s an anti-Black belief that minorities are a threat. Nobody is immune from the messaging. All of this is shaped by the context of Memphis.”

MLK50 staff examined daily reports of the Memphis Safe Task Force’s activity from Oct. 1 through Nov. 28. Reports for Oct. 16, Nov. 12, Nov. 16 and Nov. 19 were not available. Each document includes arrest descriptions and photos of nearly every person who is detained. The reports are created by the U.S. Marshals Service Incident Management Team and sent to local government officials. MLK50 obtained the reports via records requests after writing about one document in October.

When accounting for the city’s population by race, MLK50’s analysis found that non-white people were arrested at nearly six times the rate of white people during the task force’s first two months in Memphis. 

The findings “take your breath away,” said Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. But, he said, they are not surprising for a criminal justice system that already has significant inequities.

Harris, who previously called out the racial disparity he saw in the reports, said the task force is “pushing us toward our worst impulses in terms of how we administer the criminal justice system.” He pointed to comments made by federal government officials, including Stephen Miller, the homeland security advisor, who told local law enforcement they were “unleashed.”

“It’s just been a whole caravan of these folks that are looking to make a sound bite instead of doing the real work that’s required to respect folks’ constitutional rights and due process and steer clear of potentially differential treatment on the basis of race,” Harris said. 

The task force must “take action to make sure they remedy this,” Harris said. 

The U.S. Marshals Service, which oversees the task force, did not respond to specific questions from MLK50, but did provide a one-page statement that said, “There is no greater success than the Memphis Safe Task Force in combatting crime in Memphis.”

“Your analysis ignores the fundamental truth that law enforcement activity is driven by calls for service, victim reports, criminal activity, crime analysis, and warrant databases, not by demographic percentages,” a spokesperson wrote. “Attempting to equate population ratios with arrest ratios is a misleading and irresponsible oversimplification that creates false narratives and fuels division. Reporting must be done with accuracy, context, integrity, and not selectively interpreted data, which can manufacture a false narrative that can tear apart communities.”

A disparity ratio is a “widely accepted metric,” used by researchers to calculate whether different groups are being treated unequally, Johnson said. “Without comprehensive data, this is the only metric we can shine a light on,” he said. 

Researchers can’t determine the underlying causes of disparities without more information about each person arrested by the task force, Johnson said. “(The 6-to-1 ratio) does not mean that police are exhibiting racist behavior, but this is an imbalance that should not be ignored.”

How MLK50 completed its analysis

A multiracial, intergenerational team of reporters and editors at MLK50 spent hours examining and logging data from the task force’s daily reports, focusing specifically on the mugshots of those arrested. 

Most photos appeared to have been taken by officers at the scene of the arrest. The daily reports did not list people’s races, but did include their names and, in some cases, countries of origin. 

MLK50 staff examined the photos to determine whether people should be classified as white or non-white, a process that is “very similar in how we identify race in the justice system [and] policing,” said Johnson, the criminologist. He worked as an officer, sergeant and captain for the Memphis Police Department from 2002 to 2010.

Every mugshot was examined by at least two staff members. When the arrested person’s photo was unclear, staff searched for other publicly available photos of the person, including from social media or prior arrests. 

Out of 3,091 adults arrested during the time period, 30 did not have photos included in the reports. These people were excluded from the analysis, bringing the number of people MLK50 examined to 3,061.

There were 13 people arrested and photographed who the staff was unable to categorize. Those people were excluded from the racial disparity analysis, making the final sample-size 3,048 people. 

MLK50 staff classified a person’s race based on visual observation and without taking into account other aspects of the person’s identity, such as name or country of origin. The way humans assess race “is not a straightforward process,” said James Thomas, professor of sociology at the University of Mississippi. 

“Racial classification – how people ascribe race to other people – is often by way of (looking) at a person’s skin tone (and) name. People use that information to then sort people into what they think are the appropriate racial categories,” Thomas said. He described racial identity as an internal process based on how people view themselves.

When told about the 6-to-1 racial disparity in arrests by the Memphis Safe Task Force, Thomas said he wasn’t surprised. “If I had to bet, that’s true of every major city in the United States, and it has a lot to do with policing practices and how police are trained in what constitutes a suspect or suspicious driver,” he said.

According to Johnson, the lack of data collected by local law enforcement agencies during operations and arrests is part of the problem.

“(The task force has) no data … from the police to be able to understand (what’s happening in Memphis),” Johnson said. Collecting and publishing data “is a very easy way to avoid problems,” he said. “You will be a champion of the people.” 

Data collection and publication bring transparency, which then allows for measurement and accountability, he said. Now, the task force is “focused only on enforcement,” which appears to be pushing Memphis police “back to their old ways,” Johnson said. The task force does not publicly report racial demographic data.

Johnson compared the task force’s tactics to how police encountered Tyré Nichols on that deadly night three years ago. “It’s starting to feel like we’re back to doing pretextual stops,” he said.

A pretextual traffic stop occurs when officers pull over a driver for a minor traffic infraction, such as a broken taillight, then use the stop as a pretext to search for a more serious crime.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol, which oversees the traffic stop arm of the task force, did not respond to a request for comment. MPD, whose officers made up 804 of about 2,300 task force personnel as of the Nov. 28 daily report, referred a request for comment to the Memphis Safe Task Force. 

“We’re able to say we, the city, aren’t doing this because it’s under the auspices of the task force,” Johnson said. “That goes along with my thinking about the discretionary and non-discretionary stops. Is there public safety value, or are people getting caught up in the net of pretextual stops?”

Stephanie Wilson and Charity Scott contributed to this report.

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

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