The Tennessee Highway Patrol presence in Memphis should be up to 16 by early summer 2022 with four more troopers being assigned to duty in Memphis.

And the state Department of Safety has plans for a new Memphis district headquarters building in the budget proposal it presented to Gov. Bill Lee last week in Nashville.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said Safety Commissioner Jeff Long has included a class of 25 THP cadets in his budget as well.

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The comments by Strickland come amid a long-running discussion between the city and the state over who has responsibility for safety on state highways and federal interstates within Memphis and Shelby County. Local officials have repeatedly sought more state involvement as a way to help stem speeding and shootings on the city’s roadways.

“Hopefully, we would get a percent of those on top of the 15 or 16 we would have by early summer,” Strickland said of the requested 25 THP cadets. Strickland spoke to The Daily Memphian in an interview you can hear in its entirety with this article.

Strickland has been pushing the state for a permanent Highway Patrol presence in the city, specifically to patrol the city’s interstate system and state routes, which are supposed to be a Highway Patrol responsibility.

He continued to push last week during a two-day visit to the capitol on a number of issues that included meetings with Lee, Long and THP commander Col. Matt Perry.

“We always want more,” Strickland said of the city’s position when it comes to the number of troopers assigned to the city.

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“They have listened and worked with us and I’m so appreciative,” he said of Lee and other state officials. “I know they can’t do things as quickly as we’d like them to.”

THP did not respond to a request for comment on the situation. Lee spokeswoman Casey Black said: “(The trooper shortage) has been a primary focus of the Governor’s Law Enforcement Training Advisory Council, which includes representatives from Memphis, and it continues to be a nationwide challenge.”

She noted that at a budget hearing last week, Long asked Lee for another $2 million to those 25 troopers.

Black also highlighted a “law enforcement training advisory council,” which Lee convened this summer. Perry, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis and Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner were involved in those discussions.

Strickland specifically wants THP to patrol the interstate where gun violence and “stunt” driving by illegal street racers have become a problem in the past year or so.

During his first term as mayor, Strickland turned over grass-cutting and landscaping duties to the state along the interstate within the city and state routes like Poplar Avenue and Union Avenue on the same premise that the state is ultimately responsible for those areas and not the city.

“One of the things that takes so much time from our point of view is responding to auto accidents on the interstate. The interstate is really governed by the state law,” he said of the impact on police. “When we have to respond there, it’s really an extra duty.”

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The Memphis Police force is at about 2,100 officers with a goal of 2,500 by the time Strickland ends his second and final term at the end of 2023.

The Memphis THP presence at present is 12 full-time highway patrol personnel, which is double the six based in the county during Strickland’s first term starting in 2016.

Last month, 46 new state troopers completed their training and were “pinned” by Long and THP commander Col. Matt Perry.

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Of those 46, eight are assigned to the Memphis District of the THP that covers several counties. Of those eight, two are assigned to Shelby County. Another three are assigned to Haywood County, including a trooper working at the truck weigh scales there.

There are eight THP districts across the state. The Memphis district covers 10 counties and has four “troops.” The troop that includes Shelby County also includes Fayette County.

The Nashville district got almost half of the class of 46 with 20 new state troopers assigned to the regional district based in the capital city. Of those 20, five are assigned to Montgomery County and another five to Robertson County, including two working at the truck weigh scales there.

Davis’ first major action after taking office in July was increased and targeted police patrols and presence on the city’s interstate system specifically to stop shootings, reckless driving and speeding.

Davis said the goal of the August Slow Down Memphis campaign was “to return order to the streets of Memphis.”

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At that point in 2021, police had responded to 77 shootings on the interstate system. Of those 77, 16 involved people who had been shot. A total of 12 people were arrested or named in arrest warrants in those 77 incidents.

Strickland says the operations, or saturations, have worked in terms of combatting the violence.

“When we have one of these operations, which is increased presence of highway patrol, more Shelby County sheriff’s deputies and Memphis police on the interstate, interstate shootings drastically decrease during that time,” Strickland said.

“I think that the data will show zero or maybe one during those times. And then when we don’t have that increased presence, the interstate shootings tick up,” he said.

But he also said not every violent incident to which police respond on the interstate is necessarily something that happened on the interstate.

“They are certainly not all road rage,” Strickland said. “I think a very small percentage are road rage. I think most of the shootings are essentially targeted individuals. Some of the time, some kind of argument exists prior to getting on the interstate.”

But Strickland says an increased Highway Patrol presence on the interstate is also key to stemming a rise in traffic fatalities that Perry mentioned this past week during their meeting in Nashville.

“Those across the state have increased significantly during the pandemic,” Strickland said. “Probably the number one reason for that is an increased rate of speed. There may be fewer vehicles on the interstate and state routes that allow people to travel faster, and they are doing it.”

At the August kickoff of “Slow Down Memphis,” Davis also said she wanted a sustained presence on the interstate system.

“Let’s start with this proposition: This is not just a job for the Memphis Police Department,” Deputy Chief Don Crowe said at the same press conference. “It’s a job for the entire city, the entire county, the entire region of this area.”

None of the agencies involved, however, have said how many officers they devoted to the effort.

“We will devote manpower,” Bonner said. “We won’t divulge right now how many officers and what days we are working. I will assure you of this -- we have overtime funds.”

Davis also downplayed any hard numbers on the law enforcement presence.

“You are going to see a lot of presence,” she said. “This presence isn’t about numbers. It’s about being laser-focused on individuals who are committing the most egregious crimes on our streets and trying to provide an atmosphere of safety.”

Staff reporter Ian Round in Nashville contributed to this story.