The Early Word: Clayborn fire was intentional; DOJ drops MPD probe
Hey there, Memphis. It’s Thursday, May 22, and artist Suchitra Mattai opens a new exhibition at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art today. Mattai has created fruit sculptures, made with braided and woven Indian saris, that are meant to invoke wombs and fertility spirits.
In less artsy news, public-school students in Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville and Lakeland won’t have to deal with teachers’ dirty looks again until August. It’s the last day of class.
The Memphis Fire Department said its investigation revealed the late April fire that destroyed the historic Clayborn Temple was set on purpose. And now the Memphis Police Department is looking for a male suspect, shown in this surveillance video pic. The church was a base for the 1968 sanitation-worker strike and a place where people gathered to remember Martin Luther King Jr. on the April 4 anniversary of his assassination. The nonprofit behind Clayborn Temple’s restoration has pledged to rebuild.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it would drop the investigation it started after Tyre Nichols died after being beaten by five Memphis police officers. That DOJ probe, which started under the Biden administration, already resulted in a scathing report that found the Memphis Police Department discriminates against Black people and those with behavioral health disabilities, but the DOJ now says it’s retracting those findings. The City of Memphis declined to enter into a reform agreement with the DOJ when the report was released, instead opting for in-house reform, a strategy that now seems like a better idea. The city may have seen this coming considering that it’s not the first time a Trump-led DOJ has dropped an MPD civil-rights probe.
Plus, FBI Director Kash Patel calls Memphis the ‘homicide capital,’ cops bring the Thunder in crime crackdown and the new Regional One is a few steps closer.
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Bianca Phillips
Bianca Phillips is a Northeast Arkansas native and longtime Memphian who’s worked in local journalism and PR for more than 20 years. In her days as a reporter, she covered everything from local government and crime to LGBTQ issues and the arts. She’s the author of “Cookin Crunk: Eatin’ Vegan in the Dirty South,” a cookbook of vegan Southern recipes.
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