MEMPHIS, Tenn. — There's familiar feelings of frustration following another violent weekend across Shelby County.
The latest violent surge - following a record high set in 2020 for homicides in Memphis - will be a major challenge that confronts whoever succeeds Memphis Police Director Mike Rallings after his retirement this week.
"We've got to get to the substance of the problem," Memphis anti-violence advocate Stevie Moore said.
Moore had a busy weekend, dealing with 13 people shot between Friday night and Monday morning, five of them who didn't survive.
"Violence don't solve nothing. It makes the problem worse," Moore said. "You kill somebody, you get caught, you go to jail - the problem gets worse."
"The pandemic has brought about a number of challenges that we are still suffering from," Memphis Police Director Mike Rallings said.
Director Rallings responded Monday to the especially violent weekend. He believes COVID-19 helped create a perfect storm for more deadly altercations, on top of the existing challenges of gangs and guns.
"We see police law enforcement not being in the community as we were, not conducting enforcement actions. We see the results of when courts shut down and we are not holding people accountable," Director Rallings said.
Moore believes the City of Memphis should add more resource centers as another option for citizens to report crimes and issues on their blocks.
But Director Rallings argued the overarching challenge is recruiting and retaining officers to MPD.
"I'm not sure we need more physical places because our facilities are underutilized. The programs that are available are underutilized," Director Rallings said.
Mayor Jim Strickland will soon ask the Memphis City Council to fund in their upcoming budget the 'Violence Interruption Program', based on best practices in other cities.
"It's an intense intervention in the lives of those who are involved in crime recently, whether it's gang related or not," Mayor Strickland said.
The proposed program would include job training and potential financial assistance for those who want to go down the right path.
"We are trying to give people a real choice in life. It works, we just have to grow the number of people that we interact with," Mayor Strickland said.
