President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell on Fox News, revealing plans to send the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, as part of a bold anti-crime initiative—leaving the city’s mayor, Paul Young, scrambling for answers.
The New York Post reported that the announcement, made on Friday, caught local leadership off guard, as ongoing discussions about law enforcement support morphed into a sudden federal deployment amid Memphis’ complex battle with persistent gun violence despite recent crime drops.
Earlier in the week, Mayor Young had been tipped off by Governor Bill Lee’s office that deploying the National Guard was under consideration. But hard confirmation? That only came when Trump took to the airwaves, leaving Young to react in real time.
“No, that was the confirmation,” Young admitted, highlighting just how out of the loop he felt. If a mayor has to learn about boots on his streets from a TV broadcast, something’s off in the chain of command. This isn’t how trust or collaboration gets built between federal and local leaders.
Leading up to the announcement, conversations had been buzzing with state and federal officials about beefing up law enforcement in Memphis.
Agencies like the FBI, DEA, and ATF were already in the mix, discussing ways to tackle crime. Yet, the National Guard’s involvement seemed to come out of left field—or right field, depending on your political lens.
Memphis, to its credit, has seen crime stats improve lately, with police reporting drops in every major category over the first eight months of 2025. Overall, crime is at a 25-year low, and murders are at a six-year low. But don’t pop the champagne—gun violence still haunts the city, with a grim record of 390 homicides in 2023.
The city’s wounds run deep, still raw from the January 2023 death of Tyre Nichols, beaten by local police officers in a case that shook the nation.
Then, under President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice found civil rights violations in the Memphis Police Department, citing excessive force and disproportionate targeting in this majority-Black community. It’s a heavy history that hangs over any talk of militarized intervention.
Fast forward to May 2025, and under Trump’s administration, those DOJ findings were withdrawn—a move that raised eyebrows and fueled debate. Was this a correction of overreach, or a dismissal of real grievances? That’s for the public to chew on as more uniformed personnel roll in.
Details of the National Guard deployment remain murky as of Saturday, with no clear word on troop numbers, roles, or arrival dates. Governor Lee and President Trump spoke on September 12 and plan further talks soon, while Lee claims this will boost an ongoing FBI operation that’s already nabbed hundreds of violent offenders.
Mayor Young isn’t exactly waving pom-poms for this deployment, disputing Trump’s claim that he’s “happy” about it. He didn’t request it and doubts it’ll cut crime, though he’s brainstorming roles like event support, traffic control, or even neighborhood beautification. It’s a pragmatic pivot, but skepticism about effectiveness drips through.
Young also wants to steer how the Guard engages, aware that Memphis remains a punching bag on crime “bad lists.” He’s not wrong to worry about optics—history looms large with the Guard’s 1968 deployment after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. “We don’t want to invoke those same images here,” Young cautioned, and who can argue with that concern?
Elsewhere, the National Guard’s role in crime-fighting isn’t new—think border security or Trump-driven initiatives in Washington, where 2,000 troops still patrol despite a lapsed emergency order. Tennessee’s Guard has history, too, from disaster response to enforcing school integration in 1956. But using them for urban crime control feels like a different beast, doesn’t it?
In Louisiana, similar murmurs of Guard deployments to urban centers like New Orleans are floating, with a draft plan for 1,000 troops if Governor Jeff Landry seeks federal help.
Trump mused about troops “fixing up” crime there, and State Attorney General Liz Murrill backs the idea. But not everyone’s sold—Rep. Troy Carter argues New Orleans’ crime rates are at historic lows, questioning the need for militarization.
Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy offers a counterpoint, suggesting more resources “could make a real difference.” It’s a fair nod to under-resourced areas, but deploying troops isn’t a magic wand—it’s a hammer, and not every problem is a nail. The balance between safety and overreach is razor-thin.