City Council Committee - Regular Meeting

The Public Safely and Homeland Security Committee to order. Could we please have a roll call?

Councilman Smalley. Councilwoman Green. Councilman Spinoza. Councilman Ford. Councilwoman Walker.

Present.

Chair Suarez and Washington. Present. And Councilman Dr. Warren.

Present. Colleagues, we have one item on the agenda today. We're going to pull discussion of public safety about Monroe Avenue today and have a more general discussion sometime in October about things that the department is doing to ensure sort of situational issues. Item number one is the MPD monthly update. All council districts requested by Chair Canale. Gentlemen, you have the floor. Name and address for records. Thank you.

Good morning, Assistant Chief Kula of Memphis Police Department.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Deputy Chief Webb Kirkdorfer, 170 North Main.

Good morning, everyone. Deputy Chief Andrew Brown, 170 North Main.

All right, we're ready.

You're right here, sir.

All right. We'll start off. Good morning. We'll start off with part crime overview. Just kind of give this bar graph that you see up there. If you total it out for 2024, there was 38,000 plus crimes reported during this period of time. 2025, there's 29,664, as you see a decrease. And in 2026 so far, we're at 18,900 plus crimes. So that's a decrease from 2025 to 2026 of 10,000 less crimes. So on average this year, we're about 1,200 less crimes per month on average. And these crimes that we're talking about are the part ones is the murder, aggravated assault, sexual assaults, robberies, burglaries, larceny, and motor vehicle thefts. Here's a two-year comparison of these part one crimes. Every major crime category is trending downward. We'll start off with murders. We have 52 less murders from last year. That's a 36% decrease. A good note on that is our homicide clearance rate is at 87% for those homicides, murders. Aggravated assaults, we have 1,192 less from last year. That's a 26-plus percent decrease in aggravated assaults. For sexual assaults, we have a decrease of 29.03 percent. That's negative 137. Robberies, we have 507 less Robberies, that's a 42.5% decrease in robberies. Burglaries, we have 837 decrease. That's a 27.12% decrease in burglaries. Larcenies, we are closing in on 5,000 less larcenies from last year. That's a 37, or correction, 33% decrease. Motor vehicle thefts, we have just over 2,600 less motor vehicle thefts. That's approximately a 57% decrease in motor vehicle thefts. Calls for service. The calls for service, the year-to-date data from 2025 to 2026 shows calls for service continually declining. So as this shows, we have approximately a 25% decrease from last year. That's 91,000 plus less calls for service this year. That definitely gives us an opportunity to do more proactive policing and assisting people. We'll go over each precinct, just give you a couple notes on this. Ridgeway Station, they're down 37%. I think their most notable thing is their motor vehicle theft is down 59%. We have Austin Peay Station, they're down 29.52%. Big thing with Austin Peay, their murder rate is down 60%. Rain Station, down 33.03%. Their motor vehicle theft is down almost 44%. Mount Moriah Station, down 42.5%. They had approximately a 60% decrease in motor vehicle theft. Crump Station, they're down 27%. Their murder rate is down 65.5%. Tillman Station, down 39.85%. Big thing for Tillman Station, their robberies are down 46%. North Main Station is down 29%. Their murder rate is down 60%. Airway Station, they're down 37.80%. Their robberies are down 46%. Applin Farm Station, they're down 43.80%. They're a big thing. Motor vehicle thefts are down 68% for Applin Farms. The Memphis Safe Operation This is the operational period is between October 1st, 2025 through September 8th, 2026. As you can see, the arrests totaled 20,000 plus arrests for this period of time. It's broken down into felonies of 8,022 felony arrests and misdemeanors over 12,000. Also have the warrants of 5,157 total. It's broken down into felonies of 26 or 2,670 and then misdemeanors of 2,487. Firearms, we've recovered 4,793. That's over 16,000 long guns, rifle type of weapons, 4,000 plus pistols, and then you have about 100 plus other items like switches and conversion kits. Then you have currency, close to $2 million seized at this point. Traffic stops, we have 185,502. That includes in terms of issuing citations, parking, warning, and also moving citations. Vehicles recovered, we recovered 2,672. And together, these actions have created a sustained pressure on those who cause harm, contributing to a safer and more stable environment across the city. Continuing with the stat information for the Memphis Safe Operation, the drug seizures for marijuana, We've confiscated 3,362.88 pounds, street value approximately $4 million to $6.2 million. Fentanyl confiscated 61.30 pounds, a street value of 2.7 to 4.1 million. Methamphetamine confiscated 306.65 pounds. That's a 1.7 to 3.6 million. During this operational period, narcotic seizures have removed dangerous drugs and circulation within the city of Memphis. Seizure narcotics carrying an estimated street value varies depending on the drugs availability and the quantity that we have. That concludes this. If there's any questions.

Thank you, AC Kula. Colleagues, questions? No questions.

All right. Dr. Warren. I just wanted to make sure people knew that this is work from the police department. It has nothing to do with anything else that came in here from out of town. Is that correct?

Well, this information that I'm going on is our data and our information that we do. Now, there is cooperation with other agencies from local agencies, state agencies, and federal, but these are our numbers that we report.

Okay, and I guess the thing that's been helpful for us is that the manpower that we've gotten from the federal government, from the FBI, from the DEA, from other people that are law enforcement agencies has helped us with this. So having more manpower in the police department as we move forward is going to continue to help us keep and maintain this is what the goal should be. Is that how you guys feel about that?

Absolutely. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Madam Chair.

Good morning, I just wanted to commend you on your data. You're doing a fantastic job. I have a suggestion that I think that the data will go up even higher. As a principal, I'd walk around, and you know you have to inspect what you expect. And some of the children told me one day, said, Miss Washington, We know when you're coming. I said, how is it that you know when I'm coming? He said, because I can hear your keys. So when we hear your keys, a lot of times we will kind of, you know, go where we need to go. So my suggestion is it's wonderful that you show the visibility of the blue lights. But when people see the blue lights, they often will stop doing whatever behavior they're doing. And once the blue light on the vehicle is gone, then they continue to do the same old way. I would like to suggest that you not have those blue lights on all the time at night and have some sneak attack. However, but you don't want to let everybody know, you know, we're coming, the police is coming, the police is coming. And then after you're gone, they're gone, they're gone. So we wanted to make that suggestion. All right. Think about it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Colleagues, a reminder to you to get your camera locations to D.C. Brown. Our goal is by next Monday. So those of you that have not or that want to discuss the locations with him, please do so. Thank you to MPD. Anything else? We're adjourned.

Thank you.