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50 recent articles by Yolanda Jones:
The family of Darrius Stewart filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Memphis, the officer who killed the 19-year-old and the former head of the Memphis Police Department. The trial is set to start next month in federal court.
Charges have been dropped in a "hoodie arrest" incident at Wolfchase Galleria last year, with the two men charged ordered to pay court costs.
A new website will give the public a chance to weigh in on the city's progress in meeting court-ordered reforms resulting from its violation of the 1978 consent decree over political surveillance.
Memphis reported 184 homicides in 2018, eight more than in 2017. The 5 percent increase is less than the record number of homicides in 2016, but authorities said one homicide is too many.
The 6th Circuit Appeals Court has struck down a Tennessee cap on punitive damages related to a lawsuit filed in Memphis.
After finding checks stuffed in desks, no payments to agencies since 2016 and other issues, Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk Heidi Kuhn calls for an audit of her office.
For 10 days during the holiday season, prisoners in Shelby County jails will get free five-minute phone calls to family and friends.
After six years of monitoring Shelby County Juvenile Court, a recently released U.S. Department of Justice report states that oversight at the court should have not ended because the agency is “deeply flawed,” enabling a “culture of intimidation” undermining due process for African-American children in the system.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office has hired a former U.S. Department of Justice monitor as a consultant to help ensure the detention center at Shelby County Juvenile Court stays on track even though the facility is no longer under federal oversight, said Sheriff Floyd Bonner.
In January, deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office are slated to be equipped with 300 body cameras the department purchased earlier this year.
The two men charged in the Nov. 3 “hoodie arrests” at Wolfchase Galleria Mall will have their cases heard in January.
Sherra Wright, accused of fatally shooting her ex-husband, NBA player Lorenzen Wright, and dumping his body in a field in southeast Memphis in 2010, will stand trial for his murder in September.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker visited Memphis Wednesday to announce a new initiative in which the Memphis Police Department will partner with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to form a “Memphis Crime Gun Strike Force.”
Rinisha Wright, the 16-year-old girl charged along with two others in connection with the slaying of Greater Memphis Chamber CEO Phil Trenary, was back in court Tuesday but the media and others were barred from entering the courtroom as a security measure on another case, Shelby County Juvenile Court officials said.
Kevin McKenzie and Montavious Smith will be in court next month after they were arrested at a Memphis mall over an incident that centered around a hoodie.
Jaylon Cohen was out with friends enjoying Fourth of July fireworks when he was shot in the parking lot of a Taco Bell in Bartlett.
A federal judge already has ruled the city of Memphis violated a consent decree when police officers conducted surveillance on protesters in recent years. This summer, another non-jury trial will be held after the city asked the court to modify the 40-year-old consent agreement.
Memphis police are investigating after a 22-year-old man was injured when he was grazed by a bullet during a fight outside Oak Court Mall in East Memphis Thanksgiving night.
Two of the three suspects accused in the fatal shooting of Greater Memphis Chamber CEO Phil Trenary waived their rights to a preliminary hearing Tuesday and now their case will be sent to the grand jury for possible indictment on the murder charges.
Two people were killed and 44 were injured when a tour bus headed to Tunica flipped over on an icy section of Interstate 269 in DeSoto County Wednesday afternoon.
Rosalind Harrison has made history twice in the last year with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.
Tremaine Wilbourn was born to a teen mother who, by the time he was a toddler, was on drugs and allegedly a prostitute.
Shelby County Prosecutor Reginald Henderson stood in the middle of the courtroom and pulled the trigger on an unloaded 9mm gun. He then pulled the trigger 10 more times.
The jury in the death penalty trial of Tremaine Wilbourn, the man charged with fatally shooting Memphis police Officer Sean Bolton, was selected Tuesdy night. Attorneys will present opening arguments Wednesday when the trial begins at 9 a.m..
Memphis police officer Sean Bolton was shot eight times last year on a Parkway Village street, and one of the bullets to his thigh pierced an artery killing him, according to Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Marco Ross.
For the last few years, Memphis activist Keedran Franklin said police have sat outside his office in an unmarked car. Some have followed him, and other officers he doesn’t know have approached him and addressed him by name.
Jury selection began Monday, Oct. 29, in the death penalty murder trial of Tremaine Wilbourn, the man charged in the 2015 killing of Memphis Police Department officer Sean Bolton. He is at least the fourth defendant since 2011 to face a capital-murder trial in Shelby County Criminal Court.
U.S. District Judge Jon P. McCalla ruled Friday that the ACLU of Tennessee had legal standing to sue the city of Memphis, saying that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that the city conducted political intelligence against activists in violation of a 40-year-old consent decree.
A 92-year-old Memphis company that makes skin care and hair care products has been ordered by a federal court to stop making its over-the counter products after the company was found in violation of several Food and Drug Administration safety measures, the U.S. Department of Justice said this week.
Gabrielle Cole served 21 months in jail. When she got out, her anger and frustration consumed her.
For the last seven weeks, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has quietly dismissed more than 3,000 cases where people were charged with driving on suspended, revoked or canceled driver’s licenses.
The man shot and killed by Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies early Wednesday was wanted in connection with one of several recent interstate shootings, authorities confirmed Wednesday.
A Hickory Hill club closed down as a public nuisance following two homicides is reopening under court supervision and will no longer be a strip club.
Thousands of people issued misdemeanor citations each year in Memphis and Shelby County will now have to make one trip instead of two to 201 Poplar to be processed for their initial court date.
Martavious Banks, the man shot Sept. 17 by a Memphis police officer, is awake and talking about the night he was critically wounded, an attorney representing him said during a press conference Thursday.
Attorneys representing the family of the man whose body was left in a van for seven weeks at the Memphis Police Department impound lot have filed a wrongful-death and negligence lawsuit against the city of Memphis and police director Michael Rallings.
Memphis attorney Arthur “Art” Horne, acquitted of aggravated rape, aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping, was given a sentence Thursday of 11 months, 29 days’ probation and 30 days in jail on the misdemeanor assault charge he was convicted of during his August trial.
More than a dozen undocumented immigrants have been indicted, including some with previous arrests and convictions, during a recent sweep by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Memphis’ homicide rate was the third highest among the country’s 50 largest cities last year, according to the FBI’s latest data. In 2017, there were 181 homicides in Memphis, 28 deaths per 100,000 people in the city, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting statistics released last month.
In 1997, a 14-year-old Memphis girl was raped inside her home after a man broke in and armed with a gun, held her and four women captive.
Two suspects accused in the fatal shooting of Greater Memphis Chamber leader Phil Trenary appeared in court for a second day where both were appointed attorneys and will return to court next week.
Three people have been charged in the fatal shooting of Phil Trenary, the president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce, who police said was gunned down during an attempted robbery Thursday night in Downtown Memphis.
Personnel records of the three Memphis police officers involved in the shooting that critically wounded Martavious Banks earlier this month shed some light on their work history, including the fact this is the second time one of the officers has turned off his body camera during an incident.
Latanya Jones’ children have been coming to the Carpenter Art Garden “purple house” in the Binghampton neighborhood for years. Now in addition to the “purple house,” her children also will be able to go to the “turquoise house,” a new addition at the six-year-old Art Garden.
Memphis police released the names Wednesday, Sept. 26, of the three officers involved in the Sept. 17 South Memphis traffic stop and shooting of Martavious Banks.
The mother of Martavious Banks, the man shot by Memphis police on Monday evening, stood on the street where he was shot earlier this week and demanded the names of the officers who critically wounded her son and that they be arrested.
Two days after Martavious Banks was critically wounded by a Memphis police officer in a shooting, protesters stood on the sidewalk at the entrance to the Airways police precinct calling for justice Wednesday night. About 50 protesters, some with bullhorns and carrying signs that read, “We have our cameras on," arrived shortly before 7 p.m. to the “Citywide Protest” organized by Memphis activist, Mac Freddie.
The Memphis Police Department said an officer who critically wounded a 25-year-old man in a shooting in South Memphis Monday night did not record the encounter because he and two other officers failed to turn on their body and in-car cameras during the incident.
Siblings were truant at a Shelby County school last year because they had to share a uniform.
About 18,000 times each year, the state of Tennessee suspends the driver’s license of a Shelby County resident for failure to pay traffic fines and fees, according to data obtained by the nonprofit advocacy organization Just City. A disproportionate number of those drivers are black, making the fines a social justice issue, said Just City executive director Josh Spickler.
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