U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Oct. 29 that federal efforts in Memphis, Tennessee, over the past month have led to the rescue of about 80 missing children and the arrests of 1,700 people, including 126 gang members.
Last month, the federal government said it would send National Guard troops and federal agents to Memphis, which has long been ranked among U.S. cities as having the highest rates of violent crime and homicides.
“With 1700 arrests—including 126 gang members—in just one month, our Memphis surge is proving that it’s possible to make American cities safe again,” Bondi said.
The attorney general shared a Fox News article in the X post that contained a statement about the results.
The Trump administration’s law enforcement “surge into Memphis has put gang members behind bars, rescued dozens of children, and proven that collaboration between federal and local law enforcement can quickly make American cities safe again,” she said.
The troop deployment came after President Donald Trump signed an order in mid-September to send the National Guard into Memphis.
While signing it, Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that the deployed troops would join a special task force in the city comprising officials from various federal agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
He said the goal would be to stamp out crime, as was the goal in Washington when the National Guard was sent there and the city’s local police force was federalized. Other cities have also seen National Guard deployments this year, including Los Angeles and Chicago.
“This task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here,” Trump said of the District of Columbia in the remarks last month. “And you'll see it’s a lot of the same thing, although the numbers here are really something, they’re really bad.”
Trump also said the FBI had already stepped up its activities in Memphis, which is Tennessee’s second-largest city, and had helped reduce crime.
West Memphis, Arkansas, a suburb west of Memphis, ranked as a small-sized city by SafeHome, had the second-highest murder rate in the United States, at 72 per 100,000 residents. That was surpassed by only East Point, Georgia, a suburb located southwest of Atlanta, which had 78.5 homicides per 100,000 people, according to the analysis.
Birmingham, Alabama, ranked as a small-sized city, had a homicide rate of 58.8 per 100,000 residents, according to SafeHome. Among medium-sized cities, St. Louis had 54 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2024, the analysis found.
Memphis was ranked No. 1 in terms of aggravated assaults among the largest U.S. cities, the website said. The city also ranked in the top three for motor vehicle thefts, larceny-theft incidents, and burglary, the figures show.
The city’s murder rate is at a six-year low, and aggravated assault is at a five-year low, it said.
