Members of the Shelby County Commission approved an add-on resolution Wednesday, Sept. 17, requesting that Gov. Bill Lee call off plans for a National Guard deployment to Memphis and instead invest in the city’s most crime-ridden areas.
However, a separate resolution that acknowledges the deployment as inevitable was pushed to the next meeting Monday, Sept. 22. That item would ask that troops, if sent, operate under the direction of local law enforcement.
“I don’t think the National Guard is going to change that narrative,” said Commissioner Charlie Caswell Jr. “If they are to come to our city, we want our local authority to still have control over this process, because they know this community.”…