Before Task Force, there was Operation Viper — and nearly 500 arrests
FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a press conference following the shooting of two National Guard soldiers near the White House on Nov. 26. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
This spring, FBI Director Kash Patel singled out Memphis’ violent crime rate during an interview with Fox News.
“We have a problem (in Memphis). We are now addressing it,” he said. “We are rolling out one of our task forces to Tennessee.”
When Patel’s comments were publicized, the FBI and local law enforcement were already well underway on the prep work for what would become Operation Viper, according to an interview and public records The Daily Memphian obtained through a Tennessee Public Records Act Request. The prep work yielded a list of 160 people to investigate; more than half of those people were arrested by early September.
The information sheds new light on an operation that received little fanfare while underway from July to September but was highly touted by elected officials in the days ahead of President Donald Trump announcing Sept. 12 that the National Guard — and dozens of federal agencies — would come to Memphis.
Jeremy Baker, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Memphis presence, said the agency used late April and early May to prepare for what became known as Operation Viper. Internally, FBI Memphis called the effort CRIME Team (Crime Reduction in Memphis) after headquarters told the local office that an initiative would be rolled out in Memphis during the summer.
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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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