MPD consultant: ‘It’s not about throwing a net and grabbing everybody’
Mayor Paul Young, left, and Memphis’ public safety consultant Fausto Pichardo pose for a photo at City Hall. (Brad Vest/Special to The Daily Memphian)
Memphis’ public safety consultant walks throughout the city. He, like the mayor for whom he works, said he thinks Memphis is stretched thin by its sprawling geography.
Fausto Pichardo, the former chief of patrol for the New York Police Department and a former consultant for New Orleans, said the Memphis Police Department could soon tweak how it staffs certain precincts. He also said the city’s struggles with crime stem somewhat from the city’s 300-plus square miles.
In a lengthy interview, Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Pichardo used the adjectives “precise” and “targeted” multiple times. Pichardo’s answers about the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights investigation into MPD mirrored the administration’s public stance on the scathing report.
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public safety Fausto Pichardo Memphis Police Department Subscriber OnlyAre you enjoying your subscription?
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Samuel Hardiman
Samuel Hardiman is an enterprise and investigative reporter who focuses on local government and politics. He began his journalism career at the Tulsa World in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he covered business and, later, K-12 education. Hardiman came to Memphis in 2018 to join the Memphis Business Journal, covering government and economic development. He then served as the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s city hall reporter and later joined The Daily Memphian in 2023. His current work focuses on Elon Musk’s xAI, regional energy needs and how Memphis and Shelby County government spend taxpayer dollars.
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