Past this week’s veto and override at City Hall, keeping a police and fire residency referendum off the November ballot, is a broader debate for the Memphis City Council.

But it’s still hard to shake that part of the discussion that is numbers — how many police officers is enough in a city where homicides are on a record pace and the police force is at 2,100 officers?

City Council member Chase Carlisle says the needed number is 2,800, as noted by criminal justice consultants Richard Janikowski and Phyllis Betts.

“If somebody else has expert data and research that is opposite that, I’m happy to look at the information. But it’s the number that we have,” Carlisle said on the WKNO Channel 10 program “Behind The Headlines.”

“For what it’s worth, though, I’m not sure it even matters at this point because we continue to put roadblocks in the way of recruiting officers to Memphis to even get to our minimum complement,” he said.

“That number wasn’t 2,800 a few weeks ago,” council member Michalyn Easter-Thomas countered on the same program.

City Council Scorecard: The veto and the override

“We already see that we are about to be privy to a very slippery slope and an ever-increasing complement number that we will never be able to attain,” she said. “Let’s be real with ourselves. Nobody is really putting 'police officer’ at the top of their career list in 2020. … Relaxing residency does not help when we think about police reform, when we think about re-implementing community policing.”

Carlisle says more police means less crime, echoing the point Mayor Jim Strickland has been making since the ideal number of officers was 2,300 by the end of 2020 and perhaps 2,400 to 2,500 beyond that. The 2,800 number was recommended in a study council members got from Memphis Police brass at a July 21 committee session.

Easter-Thomas says more police does not mean less crime.

She and Carlisle say they hear very different priorities from their constituents.

“My constituents tell me that they are struggling with unemployment. They are struggling with poverty. They are struggling with feeding their children and the people around them. They are struggling with un-weatherized homes and high utility bills,” Easter-Thomas said. “And in none of those conversations, when my constituents call or email me, do they mention that the amount of police will help them with any of the issues they are calling me about.”

Police force of 2,800 key to community policing, city experts say

Carlisle’s council super district covers half of the city, and he said he hears calls for more police all the time as he sees other cities getting federal and state funding in larger shares than Memphis does for underlying issues.

“The reality is when you look at other cities, a lot of that fire power comes from other sources,” he said. “We have to be mindful of that as we are making decisions on what the city of Memphis is and isn’t able to do. “

“In the very near term, what I hear from my constituents is they are sick and tired of being scared of violent criminals and they want somebody to stand between them and chaos.”

“We may not have that access,” Easter-Thomas replied. “But it seems like we always have the money to fund things in law enforcement, even if it comes federally.”

Mayor vetoes, council overrides on residency question

Easter-Thomas, who introduced the resolution to rescind the residency referendum, says she is not opposed to more police in general as long as they live where they work.

The proposed charter amendment that was on the November ballot would have allowed police and firefighters to live outside Shelby County.

“The number, I think, is irrelevant as we are talking about the quality of work that police officers are able to do,” she said. “What are we asking our police officers to do? And then maybe that can free up more time and more ability to do what we need to do to address crime and safety, However, where a police officer lives does affect — it may not affect how good a police officer they are — but it does impact how good of a city we have.”

She says the city can’t find money in its budget to fund a summer camp program for 2,800 children or to expand programs for the homeless.

“People call the police on that same homeless individual that maybe we would have more funding for if we were not paying a police officer that stays outside of our county,” she said. “So when we think about long term, that’s where the impact comes in.”

Carlisle says more police officers means a return of community policing scrapped as the police ranks fell in numbers.

“We have nine precincts with six wards, and our minimum staffing complement is 12 police officers a shift. And we can barely staff our minimum complement in these wards,” he said. “Chik-fil-A has more people working the breakfast shift than we have patrolling the streets of Memphis in a particular ward. That is a significant problem. How can you possibly have good interactions with the community when you are stretched so thin?”

New and returning police reform discussions dominate council discussions, agenda

Carlisle points to 173 homicides and the impact on the families of those who have died violently.

“I have to think about those families,” he said. “And when we talk about addressing those issues and residency is off the ballot, it’s now going to be more costly and take longer to hire recruits and train quality police officers.”

Easter-Thomas is one of those affected by the record homicide pace this year. Her cousin was murdered earlier this year in a domestic violence murder-suicide — a crime she says points to the need for more social services that assist police in a problem even police brass admit is bigger than their role.

“We need to recognize that we have a stark divide socioeconomically, which also falls along racial lines and can be tied to almost every issue that we are seeing in this city,” she said.

“Behind The Headlines,” hosted by Eric Barnes of The Daily Memphian, airs on WKNO Friday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 8:30 a.m. It can also be seen on The Behind The Headlines Podcast.

Listen to the podcast or watch this week’s episode at the top of the page.

Produced by Natalie Van Gundy

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