Memphis Police Department Chief C.J. Davis said Tuesday, Oct. 7, that there are likely more than 700 federal law enforcement personnel in the city as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force. 

The city’s chief law enforcement officer, in comments to the Memphis City Council, said the city has more than 700 “visitors” as part of the task force. An MPD spokesperson said later that there were 889 task force members in the city as of Monday, Oct. 6, and the number has fluctuated daily, averaging around 700. 

She said the first Tennessee National Guard deployments are expected by Friday, Oct. 10. Some commanders are already in town, planning the deployment, she said. 

“What we are working very hard to do — and we are communicating directly with the National Guard leadership — is to direct what activities we will have our servicemen and women involved in in our city, and much of that has nothing to do with direct law enforcement and public safety, more of visibility and hot spot areas, retail corridors, areas where there are sporting events, festivals and just that level of presence and deterrent,” Davis said. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the age requirement to possess a gun. 

One week into the Memphis Safe Task Force’s arrival in Memphis, federal, state and local law enforcement have flooded the city’s roadways. 

Hundreds of additional Tennessee Highway Patrol troops surged into the city as part of the task force, and reports by citizens on social media and elsewhere suggest a marked increase in traffic stops. 

The Memphis Safe Task Force officially launched last week, unleashing a swarm of federal, state and local law enforcement to crack down on crime.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is posting daily updates from the task force on X, updating the number of arrests officers have made since the task force began.

As of Sunday morning, Oct. 5, that number was 273. Bondi also said 73 illegal guns have been seized.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young is holding his position as the surge of state and federal law enforcement agencies into the city moved through its first week.

“I did not ask for this intervention. But I will remain at the table. I will stay in the room,” he wrote in his weekly email that went out Friday, Oct. 3. “Because that is what leadership requires: showing up, even when it is complicated, even when it is hard. Leadership means doing what is right for our entire community.”

The declaration comes at the end of the week as the surge began to take shape in neighborhoods across the city and on city streets.

It was also the week when federal officials continued to back Young’s approach but set different terms for the law enforcement presence in a Friday visit to rally those law enforcement officers at Shelby Farms Park.

NAACP Memphis Chapter President Kermit Moore voiced concerns Friday, Oct. 3, on the Tennessee National Guard Deployment and offered words of advice to the city.

In light of the Memphis Safe Task Force’s beginning operations this week, NAACP Chapter President Kermit Moore called on President Donald Trump and Gov. Bill Lee to invest in the city in other ways.

“We want you to treat Memphis with the respect and dignity it deserves,” Moore said at a news conference that included the Shelby County Democratic Party, the Memphis Urban League and Memphis and West Tennessee AFL-CIO. “We stand united, and we will not be silenced. We demand investment, and not occupation. We demand progress, not politics.” 

Memphis Urban League President and CEO Gale Jones Carson said they’re working to educate Memphians on what to do if they encounter federal agents. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller came to Memphis Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 1, to talk about an aggressive state and federal law enforcement presence in the city.

They talked with local, state and federal law enforcement leaders and officers in a pair of gatherings closed to the media, except for a pool video.

The gathering at Shelby Farms Park is the first presence by federal leaders in the city since the task force was formed in September. They were accompanied by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

The message from the three highly visible members of the Trump administration at the county’s Office of Preparedness Wednesday afternoon was that the task force presence will be visible and will have “zero tolerance” — in the words of Miller.

The law enforcement piece of the Memphis Safe Task Force that officially began this week has made 53 arrests and seized 20 illegal firearms, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an X post Wednesday morning, Oct. 1.

Many of those arrests appear to be on state charges with the defendants being held in state custody, according to online court records.

Bondi said on a “Fox News” appearance Tuesday that defendants arrested as part of the task force would be charged federally “whenever possible.” Federal charges are usually seen as harsher than state penalties. Also, there is no parole in the federal system, meaning that any sentences are served completely.

“We’re coming in with all of our federal agents, and we are going to charge them federally whenever possible. We’re going to keep them in federal custody,” Bondi said. “No offers and if you touch a federal officer, you will be prosecuted. You touch a federal officer and we’re going to hold you in jail, a federal jail, and we are going to prosecute you.”

In the early days of substantial federal law enforcement intervention in Memphis, Republicans ranging from President Donald Trump to a local state senator have focused their partisan ire on Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy. 

The Trump White House’s earliest press statement about the deployment, published Sept. 12, accused Mulroy of being a “Soros-funded” district attorney. In a cable television appearance Tuesday morning, Sept. 30, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Mulroy a “woke Soros DA.” In testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee also on Tuesday, state Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Eads, invoked Soros’ name to describe Mulroy several times. 

The financier George Soros has long been a bogeyman for the political right. He is a prominent and frequent donor to Democratic causes and his donations — along with his Jewish heritage — have made him frequent fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. 

Mulroy, in a statement to The Daily Memphian, called Taylor’s comments the “same old misleading stuff.” 

Memphis Police Department Chief C.J. Davis said Tuesday, Sept. 30, she expects the first National Guard deployments as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force within the next two weeks. 

“We’re thinking in the next two weeks or so, we may start seeing the first deployment of National Guard. And we’re hoping that our National Guard — and we’ve had conversations with the major general (Warner Ross II) — that they will work with us on some of the non-public safety issues in our city,” Davis said. 

The police chief said the department does not yet know how many members of the National Guard will be deployed with the city. She said the Memphis Safe Task Force is still evolving, and MPD is still learning information every day. She described the situation as building a plane on the runway. 

“This is coming so fast that we haven’t had an opportunity to really outline everything. But I felt better today. We had long conversations, long briefings and had an opportunity to get more structure about the visit, not from the National Guard,” Davis said. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could visit Memphis this week, Bondi said in a cable news interview Tuesday morning, Sept. 30.

Bondi, speaking to Fox News on Tuesday morning, said she and Hegseth would visit Memphis in the coming days but did not say when. The attorney general also said the Memphis Safe Task Force had established its joint operations center. 

She said the Memphis Safe Task Force had made nine arrests and taken two illegal guns off the street. 

It was not immediately clear who had been arrested; on what charges they had been arrested and where they were detained if still in custody. 

It’s been 10 days since President Donald Trump last turned a good part of his attention to Memphis with an Oval Office ceremony. Even then it wasn’t his full attention.

In signing the Sept. 15 executive order sending the National Guard and 13 federal agencies to the city to help fight crime, Trump talked a lot about what cities might be next.

He’s also relished what he has said — although others have disputed — was a triumph in the federal intervention in Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, the plan for Memphis has taken shape with an emphasis on the assistance from federal agencies along with an already more visible Tennessee Highway Patrol presence and accompanying federal and state funding.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee quickly praised President Donald Trump and his administration on Friday, Sept. 26, for the federal resources being deployed in Memphis. 

The state’s chief executive then used terms to describe the state’s second-largest city that are a marked contrast from how Trump has described Memphis ahead of the arrival of the Memphis Safe Task Force, an amalgamation of 13 federal agencies and the Tennessee National Guard under the command of the U.S. Marshals and in coordination with local and state law enforcement agencies.

In presenting more details of the task force Friday, Lee called Memphis a “great” city at least five times. He made lofty promises that the crime that has long plagued Memphis could soon be a thing of the past. 

“Once again, we want every Memphian to feel safe as they enjoy all that this great city has to offer, and we’re not going to let anything hold us back from allowing this city to be all that it can be,” Lee said. “The story of crime in Memphis is about to be a story of the past, and that’s what we need it to be.”

Crime reduction efforts under the Memphis Safe Task Force will begin next week and provide a “generational opportunity” to improve safety in the city, Gov. Bill Lee told reporters during a press conference in Memphis, Friday, Sept. 26. 

The effort includes the deployment of the National Guard and an infusion of state money.

“The story of crime in Memphis is about to be a story of the past, and that’s what we need it to be. … That’s what this effort is about,” Lee said, speaking from the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s local headquarters. The THP will play a major role in the task force, Lee said. 

The governor’s comments offer the first significant details of the rollout of the Memphis Safe Task Force since President Donald Trump announced the initiative during a Sept. 15 press conference in the Oval Office. 

Hundreds of federal law enforcement agents are expected to accompany the National Guard personnel deployed to Memphis “within the next two weeks,” Memphis Mayor Paul Young said late Thursday, Sept. 18.

Young said Memphis Safe Task Force specifics, including a finalized timeline of arrival, are still being worked out with the host of federal and state officials involved in the crime reduction initiative ordered by President Donald Trump. 

But the mayor has been given assurances that “they are deeply interested in making sure that what happens here is done in alignment with the existing programs and strategies that we have underway within the city,” he said. 

Young reiterated his disagreement with National Guard deployment as an effective crime-reduction strategy, but said that recent efforts at crime reduction aren’t enough. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee is weighing a legal challenge to the state’s use of the National Guard.

And Memphis City Council member Jerri Green has been talking with legal experts about the same possibility.

Claire Gardner of the ACLU chapter dismissed the federal effort behind the guard deployment sought by President Donald Trump as “failed tactics dressed up as intervention.”

“We will consider every legal option available,” she said of the possibility of a lawsuit of some kind. “We don’t bluff.”

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., questioned FBI Director Kash Patel about the upcoming deployment of the National Guard to Memphis during a Wednesday, Sept. 17, hearing.

Cohen asked Patel about the Memphis Safe Task Force, which President Donald Trump established Monday. The task force will include the FBI and 12 other federal agencies. It also requests Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee activate the Tennessee National Guard. 

Cohen, a longtime and ardent critic of Trump, praised Patel for “Operation Viper,” an FBI effort both Gov. Bill Lee and U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty praised last week. Patel told Cohen the operation resulted in 500 arrests and about 110 indictments. 

Cohen also asked Patel what role the National Guard would play in the Memphis Safe Task Force. 

Shelby County Commissioners are weighing two resolutions that would serve as the body’s official response to a federal crime-fighting strategy announced this week.

President Donald Trump officially established the Memphis Safe Task Force on Monday, Sept. 15. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is implementing the plan, which seeks to coordinate federal, state and local law enforcement agencies focused on crime in Memphis.

Commissioners debated both approaches — one to flatly oppose the National Guard deployment and another more nuanced approach — during Wednesday, Sept. 17, committee sessions. Both resolutions are expected to be on the agenda for the Commission’s Monday, Sept. 22 meeting. Neither would be binding on state and federal leaders.

They followed an announcement hours earlier by a group of Memphis City Council members who have drafted a resolution opposing the presence of National Guard troops in Memphis.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the accurate list of council members supporting Jerri Green’s resolution. Due to an error in the original announcement, an earlier version included two members who have since been removed.

A group of Memphis City Council members has drafted a resolution opposing the presence of National Guard troops in Memphis as part of a crime-fighting strategy.

The resolution, which the full council could vote on next week, urges Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to reject the Guard’s deployment, which is part of the Memphis Safe Task Force President Donald Trump announced from the White House on Monday. 

Council member Jerri Green is sponsoring the resolution with support from fellow council members JB Smiley Jr., Pearl Walker and Dr. Jeff Warren. It is not binding on Lee.

There are many uncertainties around the proposed Memphis Safe Task Force and what exactly will happen when a cadre of federal, state and local agents hits Memphis to try and solve the city’s crime problem.

For one, no task force leader has been appointed yet, with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi expected to name that person at some point.

No exact timetable for when the task force will begin or end has been revealed, either, although Gov. Bill Lee told The Daily Memphian Tuesday, Sept. 16, that it would be “sooner than later” and that it could last longer than six months.

There will also likely be a new U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, a post typically considered the area’s top federal law enforcement officer, soon. 

It’s been a little more than a month since President Donald Trump mobilized National Guard troops and sent them into Washington, D.C., pledging a crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital.

Now Trump has announced Memphis as the location of the next deployment. He signed a presidential memorandum Monday, Sept. 15, that established the Memphis Safe Task Force, a federally led crime-reduction effort that promises coordination among 13 federal agencies and potential assistance from a host of state and local law enforcement, including the National Guard.

In announcing the task force, Trump said crime-reduction efforts in the Bluff City would be a “replica” of the “extraordinarily successful” efforts in D.C.

So what has military involvement in D.C. looked like? And what does it say about how this could go in Memphis?

Most Memphians agree that the city needs to address crime rates. But residents interviewed by The Daily Memphian on Tuesday, Sept. 16, disagreed about whether a National Guard deployment would offer a solution.

Some raised concerns that bringing troops to the city under President Donald Trump’s new “Memphis Safe Task Force” could irritate political tensions and cause chaos. Others think the move is worth a try if it brings crime down.

“You can’t complain about crime and complain about the National Guard,” said Emory Hammonds, who runs a barber shop in the Southland Mall in Whitehaven.

“But I do have a serious concern about those who are not criminals, young, Black, who don’t know how to conduct themselves when encountered by law enforcement,” Hammonds said. “… A lot of times, they might not comply as they should, and get hurt or killed.” 

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee does not have a date for when the Tennessee National Guard would arrive in Memphis but said in an interview Tuesday afternoon that it would be “sooner than later.” 

“Part of our plan is just to make sure people know when we know ... We obviously want the community to understand when this is going to happen, what it’s going to look like, how many soldiers there are going to be, how many police officers there are going to be, how many troopers there will be,” Lee said. “The more we tell Memphians, the better off it’s going to be.” 

Lee spoke to The Daily Memphian on Tuesday afternoon. On Monday, he appeared alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office as the president created the Memphis Safe Task Force. Trump has focused on crime reduction in cities run by the opposite political party, and he has interspersed his remarks about Memphis with threats that the National Guard might go to other cities. 

A presidential memorandum established the task force, a federally led crime reduction effort that promises coordination among 13 federal agencies and potential assistance from a range of state and local law enforcement agencies.

President Donald Trump said Monday, Sept. 15, that he has established the Memphis Safe Task Force.

The president signed a memorandum to that effect from the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, flanked by a number of government leaders and Tennessee elected officials.

“This task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here (in Washington D.C.), and you’ll see it’s a lot of the same thing (in Memphis), although the numbers here are really something, they’re really bad. Now, we did send the FBI in about four months ago to work, and it brought some of the numbers down, and they did a great job, but we’re sending in the big force,” Trump said Monday.

He said the task force will include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the National Guard. 

The impending arrival of National Guard troops to Memphis, along with additional federal and state resources, is sparking a wave of local leaders speaking on — and to — national news outlets.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said on CNN Monday, Sept. 15, that the presence of the National Guard in the city will be a “threat to democracy.”

Memphis City Council Chairman Ford Canale, also on CNN Monday, disagreed with Harris’ view.

“I think that the National Guard is a short-term solution, and let’s be honest, these guys, these men and women, have jobs and families just like we do, and they would probably rather not be here as well,” Canale told CNN host Wolf Blitzer. “What we’re focused on as the legislators for the city of Memphis is long-term solutions. So what we would welcome is more federal agents, federal prosecutors, those that can help us get the violent criminals and drugs off our streets.”

One of the last times the National Guard was called into Memphis, the city was a different place. 

It was the summer of 1978. Simultaneous police and fire union strikes and a city-wide blackout prompted late Memphis Mayor Wyeth Chandler to declare a civil emergency and call in the guard.

The power of the state military force was helpful and needed then, according to Buddy Chapman, who was director of the Memphis Police Department at the time. But with recent news that the guard is making a return to the Bluff City, Chapman said he feels differently this time around. 

In an interview, Chapman called the move a “political stunt” and a “severe dis-allocation of resources.”

Last week, the CEO of a rail company met with President Donald Trump to discuss a giant train merger. During that conversation, Trump sought his opinion on National Guard deployment, the president said Friday, Sept. 12.

“And so I said, ‘What do you think? Where should we go next, as a city?’” Trump said during a Friday morning interview on “Fox & Friends.” “He said, ‘Sir, Memphis would be good.’” 

Trump did not name Jim Vena, the CEO of Union Pacific, but described the person he spoke to as the head of the company. Union Pacific confirmed Vena, a FedEx board member from 2022 to 2023, met with the president. 

Speculation had mounted that Trump would target Memphis for National Guard deployment, something his administration Friday called an “aggressive push to dismantle the rampant violent crime fueled by failed Democrat governance in major cities.” With his comments Friday, the president tied that official announcement to advice from an executive pushing for a major business deal, who was said to have traveled around Memphis in an armored vehicle because of “terrible” crime.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and President Donald Trump had a productive conversation about the plan to bring the National Guard to Memphis, and the two plan to talk again early next week about the plan, a spokeswoman told The Daily Memphian. 

“The governor and the president discussed the remarkable community in Memphis that includes top global businesses and strong faith leaders as well as the cultural significance that the city represents. They agreed this is a historic opportunity to make an already great city a safer city,” Elizabeth Lane Johnson, Lee’s press secretary, said Friday, Sept. 12. 

Lee’s call with Trump followed the president's Friday morning announcement on Fox News that he would send the guard to Memphis. The governor responded later in the day, saying the guard would be sent to Memphis as part of a comprehensive mission to lower crime in the city further. 

The National Guard is a group of state-run part-time military organizations. In the 50 states, the state National Guard reports to the governor but can be activated by the president. In Washington, D.C., where Trump deployed the National Guard, it can be federalized and under federal control. 

The city’s strategy on a National Guard deployment to Memphis — at least up until President Donald Trump announced Friday, Sept. 12, that the guard will be coming — was to hope it didn’t happen.

But if it did, federal and State of Tennessee officials could be convinced to let the city have a say in where the troops are sent and what they do in the city.

That’s what Shelby County Democratic Party Chairman Willie Simon took from his discussions with Mayor Paul Young and others who were meeting in the days ahead of Trump’s confirmation Friday morning to a national audience on Fox News.

Less than 24 hours later, Young, backed by several dozen backers and allies of the strategy at City Hall, began a political journey.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young pointed to three things Friday, Sept. 12, he believes have reduced city crime in light of the announcement that President Donald Trump would send the National Guard to the city.

During a press conference Friday, Young highlighted the city’s strategy of “identifying the most violent individuals and groups in the city;” investments in a “citywide camera network,” and a recent FBI and Memphis Police Department partnership, which he said have led to reduced crime numbers. 

MPD preempted the National Guard announcement with a Tuesday release of year-to-date crime numbers that showed a 25-year low in some categories.

Among the strategies Young referenced was the city’s camera-focused initiatives in the last year.

Memphis Police Department Chief C.J. Davis will remain the city’s chief law enforcement officer when the National Guard arrives, Davis and Memphis Mayor Paul Young said Friday, Sept. 12. 

Young said Davis’ status as the city’s top cop would not change when the guard arrives. The city still does not know when the deployment will begin, how many personnel will come or where they will be stationed. 

“There will be a lot of coordination, and obviously, we’re still, this is something we’re all new to. So we’re going to be learning, working with our attorneys, but Chief Davis will remain the chief of police and continue to drive law enforcement in the city of Memphis,” Young said during a news conference. 

Davis spoke to reporters after Young. She said the city hoped to reach a memorandum of understanding with the National Guard. Such a document would presumably govern how the guard would behave in Memphis. 

Memphis Mayor Paul Young did not ask for the National Guard to be brought to Memphis and does not believe it is the way to bring down crime in the city, he said during a press conference Friday, Sept. 12.

“I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime. However, that decision has been made,” Young said. “And as mayor of the city that I love, Memphis, Tennessee, my commitment is to make sure that we work strategically to ensure that this happens in a way that truly benefits and strengthens our community.”

Young said the City of Memphis is in talks with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and the federal government about the National Guard’s deployment to Memphis. President Donald Trump said during a Friday morning interview on “Fox & Friends” he would be sending the National Guard to Memphis.

For now, Young said, he does not know when the National Guard will arrive. Other details are still being determined, he said, such as how many guardsmen will be deployed, how long they will stay in Memphis, where they will be stationed and what their specific assignments may be.

The National Guard is coming to Memphis, President Donald Trump said Friday, Sept. 12, on the cable news show “Fox & Friends.” 

“We’re going to Memphis. Memphis is deeply troubled. He’s a Democrat mayor. The mayor is happy and ... the governor is happy. Deeply troubled. We’re going to fix that just like we did Washington,” Trump said. “I would’ve preferred going to Chicago.” 

Gov. Bill Lee, in a statement on Friday, said the next phase of combatting crime in Memphis will involve a “comprehensive mission with the Tennessee National Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis Police Department, and other law enforcement agencies, and we are working closely with the Trump Administration to determine the most effective role for each of these agencies to best serve Memphians.”

Lee stopped short of saying he had activated the Tennessee National Guard. 

State and local leadership reacted largely along partisan lines to President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would send the National Guard to Memphis. 

Republicans praised the move. Democrats called it unnecessary. Here’s a roundup of some of those reactions.

Tennessee Senate Minority Leader Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis:

“As a lifelong Memphian, I want to be clear: We do not need the National Guard occupying our city. The last time a U.S. president sent the Guard to Memphis was in 1968, after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel and our community was in deep grief and unrest. Other times the Guard was deployed to Southern cities, it was to enforce civil rights laws when segregationists refused to comply. That history matters — because what we are seeing now is not about justice, it’s about politics.

“This is an abuse of power, using troops to score political points off of crime statistics, even though overall crime in Memphis is down to a 25-year low. That’s not leadership — that’s overreach.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen’s real-time reaction to the National Guard coming to Memphis was one of support for Mayor Paul Young.

Less than an hour after President Donald Trump announced in a Friday, Sept. 12, television appearance that he would send the troops to Memphis, Tennessee’s only Democratic U.S. Representative — and the highest ranking Democrat in the state — spoke about the news publicly after a planned press conference at Memphis International Airport.

Cohen said Mayor Young, a Democrat who holds a nonpartisan office, has little choice in the matter and that the city isn’t in a position to resist via court challenge as Chicago officials have done.

“The mayor’s got a tough job. He’s got to look out for the overall good of the city. We do have a crime problem,” Cohen said Friday. “He’s got to work with (Tennessee) Governor (Bill) Lee and the state – and the federal government too. I’m not going to criticize Mayor Young and (Memphis Police Department) Chief (C.J.) Davis. I think they are doing a good job, and they are going to do a better job.”

Memphis Mayor Paul Young said Thursday, Sept. 11, that the National Guard could be deployed to Memphis, confirming media reports about the matter.

In a statement sent to media outlets, Young said, “Earlier this week, I was informed that the Governor and the President were considering deploying the National Guard and other resources to Memphis. I am committed to working to ensure any efforts strengthen our community and build on our progress.” 

Like Lee did in a statement on Wednesday, Young highlighted the ongoing federal law enforcement resources in the city and said the city needed more of those resources. 

“We agree with Governor Lee that effective support for Memphis comes through focused initiatives that deliver results like we have seen with the FBI, state troopers, and other law enforcement partnerships. What we need most are financial resources for intervention and prevention, additional patrol officers, and case support to strengthen MPD’s investigations,” Young said. 

The White House, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s office and Memphis Mayor Paul Young’s administration have discussed a possible deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

The person, whom The Daily Memphian agreed not to name due to the sensitive and evolving nature of the situation, said the discussions remain preliminary and subject to what President Donald Trump decides to do. The president had previously said in a radio interview that he would consider sending troops to Memphis. 

The source said legal restrictions could prevent some police actions by the National Guard in Memphis. They said any deployment locally would be far different than the recent arrival of troops in Washington, D.C., because of those legal hurdles.

The person said National Guard troops could not set up roadblocks or arrest people for crimes because they are not local law enforcement officers. They would be allowed to guard federal assets — for example, the Odell Horton Federal Building in Downtown Memphis — or respond to a natural disaster.