The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has promoted a new first deputy.

Chris Lareau is taking on the No. 3 role within the DA’s office.

Lareau has been a prosecutor for 18 years, having tried nearly 60 cases. Most recently he supervised a prosecution team of eight assistant district attorneys and was the lead prosecutor in the DA’s case against Ezekiel Kelly.

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Although his title is different, Lareau will take on the duties of Gerald Skahan, the office’s special assistant for post-conviction litigation. Skahan is on extended medical leave and will have different responsibilities upon returning.

Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy announced Lareau’s new role during a Tuesday, Sept. 5, press conference in his office’s 10th-floor conference room at 201 Poplar Ave.

Lareau said he’s excited to help lead the DA’s office and implement some of Mulroy’s reforms, including more data transparency, a renewed focus on violent crime and focusing probation on rehabilitation.

“And all of those things within the context of placing victims first,” Lareau said. “I can tell you getting to know (Mulroy) over the past year, he has a heart for victims and victims of violent crime. They are first in his consideration.”

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During the press conference, Mulroy was asked about the video release of officer-involved shootings. On Aug. 24, his office released portions of footage from Jarveon Hudsepeth’s fatal encounter with a Shelby County Sheriff’s Office deputy. Hudspeth died during a June 24 traffic stop.

Lorna McClusky, who heads the DA office’s Justice Review Unit, said there is no timeline on the release of footage from the Memphis Police Department’s Dec. 16 traffic stop that led to Jaylin McKenzie’s death. But she said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has completed its investigation into the case.

“We have to reach out to the family and our timeline will depend on their timeline,” McClusky said.

Mulroy’s one-year anniversary in office was Sept. 1, and he plans to issue a report this fall on that first year.

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“The first week of my term, we saw two very, very high-profile and tragic cases, the Eliza Fletcher case followed a few days later by the Ezekiel Kelly case,” Mulroy said. “It put us in the national spotlight for unfortunate reasons. We responded to all this by doing something that I talked about during the campaign, which is refocusing on violent crime as a priority.”

Mulroy touted initiatives launched in his first year:

• De-emphasizing marijuana possession.
• Requiring approval from the office’s deputy DA before an assistant district attorney dismisses a non-fatal shooting.
• Denying probation on aggravated assaults involving firearms.
• Launching the office’s Justice Review Unit, which reviews shootings involving officers and post-conviction cases.
• Hiring a grants coordinator.
• Hiring a chief data officer.
• Diversifying the team.

According to Mulroy, of the 120 prosecutors in his office, 20% are people of color, up from 15% when he started. The number of minorities in the DA’s overall staff has increased from 30% to 33%.

“Now, that’s just the first year,” he said. “It takes time. But we will continue to make these efforts and I expect those percentages to continue to increase.”

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Mulroy recently announced another leadership transition in his office with the promotion of Paul Hagerman to deputy DA, the No. 2 job.

Hagerman took over for Ray Lepone, who left for a job with Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti handling appeals to trials from the Shelby County DA’s office.