Soldiers deployed to Memphis as part of Donald Trump's federal crime patrol shot and killed a 20-year-old man at 4 in the morning on Sunday, making this at least the fourth officer-involved shooting tied to the task force and quite possibly the first time National Guard troops have fired their weapons in the city. The man they killed was named Tyrin Johnson. He was a father, a music enthusiast, and according to his family, had moved to Nashville specifically to get away from Memphis crime before coming back for the Fourth of July holiday.
What Happened at 4 A.M. Downtown
According to CBS News, Memphis police received reports of gunshots around 4 a.m. Sunday. National Guard soldiers, deployed as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, responded alongside local police and began pursuing an armed man fleeing on foot through downtown.
Authorities say Tyrin Johnson turned toward the guardsmen with a gun during the chase, at which point two soldiers opened fire. Johnson was struck twice in the chest, according to his cousin Terracle Nelson, who told CBS News that family members were informed of the wound locations by authorities. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene after two National Guard medical specialists attempted first aid.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation into the shooting's circumstances. No law enforcement officers were hurt. Authorities have not yet answered questions about how many total shots were fired, and both the TBI and the National Guard declined to say whether this is the first time Guard troops have discharged their weapons since the deployment began in October.
Who Tyrin Johnson Was
His grandfather, Evaniel Johnson, told CBS News that Tyrin had been taking classes at Tennessee State University, was raising a young child, and was being prepared to help lead the family's construction business. He was also passionate about music.
"I believed in him, and I know he still had so much life ahead of him," his grandfather said. "The heartbreaking reality is that he will never have the chance to enjoy what we were building together. That is a pain no grandparent should ever have to endure."
A relative told CBS affiliate WREG-TV that Johnson had actually relocated to Nashville to escape the violence in Memphis. His family urged him not to come back for the Fourth of July weekend. He came anyway. A search of court records by CBS News found no federal or state cases connected to Johnson, only a handful of minor traffic violations in Memphis and Nashville.
Trump's Troop Deployment and What It Has Actually Done
The Memphis Safe Task Force has been operating since October, assembled under Trump's directive to send federal troops and agents into cities he has repeatedly described as Democrat-run and crime-ridden. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, deployed state National Guard members to support the effort. Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, has objected to the deployment from the start.
The U.S. Marshals Service reported in June that the task force has led to more than 10,000 arrests since its formation. CBS News reports there have been at least four officer-involved shootings tied to the task force, according to TBI data. Two happened in May and did not involve Guard members firing. A third was tied to the task force in October, though the TBI did not specify which agencies were involved. Sunday's shooting appears to be the fourth.
In April, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that state and local Democratic officials lacked the legal standing to block the federal troop deployment, which means the soldiers are staying regardless of what Memphis's elected mayor wants. Mayor Young called Sunday's shooting an "unfortunate incident" and said he was waiting on the TBI investigation before commenting further.
The Part Trump Doesn't Put in the Press Release
Here's the thing about the crime statistics that always gets buried. CBS News reports that Memphis had already been seeing decreases in some crime categories before the deployment even began in October, trends that were running parallel to broader decreases across American cities. Both Democratic and Republican officials acknowledged those pre-existing improvements.
So when the administration points to crime numbers in Memphis as evidence the troop surge is working, there's a pretty inconvenient baseline problem they tend to skip past. Crime was already going down. That doesn't mean the task force has done nothing, but it does mean the causation the White House implies is considerably murkier than they suggest.
Memphis is a city of more than 600,000 people. It has real, serious, long-standing problems with violent crime. Nobody disputes that. The question is whether deploying National Guard soldiers to patrol American city streets at 4 a.m. is the right tool for that problem, and what happens when those soldiers kill someone.
The Dingo Take
Let's be honest about what we're looking at here. A 20-year-old man is dead. He had a kid. He was going to school. He had moved away from Memphis to be safer and came back for a holiday weekend. Was he armed? Authorities say yes, and if he did turn toward soldiers with a weapon, that matters enormously. We should wait for the investigation. His own grandfather said as much.
But the broader situation demands scrutiny regardless of how this specific shooting resolves. Trump deployed soldiers, not police, to patrol an American city over the explicit objections of that city's elected mayor. Those soldiers are now shooting people. The task force has racked up 10,000 arrests, which sounds impressive right up until you ask what happened to all those people, what the conviction rates look like, and how many of those arrests were for anything serious. Nobody's published that breakdown.
The administration will use this shooting as proof the deployment is necessary, because a man had a gun, because Memphis has crime, because look, the Guard is engaged out there. That framing leaves out the part where a grandfather is telling reporters his grandson had so much life ahead of him, and the part where soldiers doing law enforcement patrols in an American city is a genuinely radical thing that we have apparently decided is fine now. It is not fine. Pay attention.
