Carjackings and robberies are up in Memphis. Now, police are making big changes to fight the war on crime. Squads are working together and targeting the crimes that affect the most Memphians.
This is a major initiative by the Memphis police department and the D.A.'s office under the Safe Streets Task Force. It is a plan to target particular crimes, round up the crooks and put them behind bars for a long time. Business-owners are ecstatic.
Ernest Donati says he's fed up with crooks robbing his counter top business on Broad Street. It's happened three times in the last couple of years. "I don't know what to think about it. I'm getting tired of it," he said.
Donati says a couple of months ago crooks stole his business truck after breaking into a locked area, getting away with the truck and thousands of dollars worth of tools inside.
"You have to work to pay all of your bills and taxes and people are getting by with coming in and stealing and nothing really can be done about it. The same ones are out on the street," he said.
"I think the crooks will pay attention to it," said District Attorney Bill Gibbons about the new initiative.
"We've had 660 business robberies this year and we've had 523 carjackings. SO all of those business robberies and carjackings will be moved over to the Safe Streets Task Force," said Memphis Police Chief Dewey Betts.
And the Safe Streets Task force will focus on just those kinds of crimes.
And there's another benefit. With the Safe Streets Task Force taking over those crimes, the robbery division of the Memphis police department will be better able to focus on robberies of individuals. "We're trying to do the best job we can to hold those who commit those crimes accountable by sending them to prison as long as we can," said Gibbons.
Gibbons says the Task Force will look at each case and decide if it should be prosecuted federally meaning a much stiffer sentence.
The Safe Streets Task Force will meet every week to share information and look at each case and then decide how to proceed, whether the case should go to the Feds or to the state. Investigators believe it will make an impression on the criminals.
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