FIRST ON FOX: Law enforcement officials have made more than 1,000 arrests and found dozens of missing children in Memphis, Tennessee, as part of President Donald Trump‘s crime crackdown in the notoriously violent city, Fox News Digital learned Wednesday.
“From arresting more than 100 gang members to locating more than 70 missing children, our brave federal agents and local authorities are doing incredible work to protect the good people of Memphis,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday in comment to Fox News Digital. “Tolerating crime is a choice: under President Trump, we refuse to accept the victimization of innocent American citizens and will continue making our cities safe again.”
A White House official told Fox Digital that there have been 1,309 total arrests since September, when the operation officially launched, including nine arrests for homicide, 52 arrests for sex offenses, 527 for warrants and 132 for firearm offenses.
Memphis, Tennessee, has long been one of America’s most dangerous cities, frequently ranking in the top spot for violent crime and recording 40.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 2024.
Trump signed a presidential memorandum Sept. 15 that established the Memphis Safe Task Force and authorized the National Guard to report to the city.
Tennessee is a red state, with Republican Gov. Bill Lee supporting and encouraging the administration’s efforts to snuff out crime in the city. Lee said during a press conference earlier in October that the crime crackdown could last “forever” as federal officials converge on the city.
“We do know this is going to last for months, and we have just begun,” Lee said. “In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever.”
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The White House official told Fox News Digital that the operation has located 72 missing children and seized 247 firearms from the streets of Memphis, Tennessee. All in, law enforcement officials made 109 arrests of known gang members associated with groups such as Tren de Aragua or MS-13.
The official provided Fox News Digital with a snapshot of arrests on the night of Oct. 21, including one man who was arrested on a warrant for aggravated rape of a child, the arrest of a known Grape Street Crip gang member on a warrant for kidnapping, aggravated assault, theft, domestic assault and parole violation, and the arrest of a known Bloods gang member on a warrant for harassment.
A known member of the gang Gangster Disciples, and a known member of the Vice Lords were also arrested Tuesday evening, according to the White House official.
National Guard troops arrived in the city in September, with Bondi, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller meeting with the task force in Memphis, Tennessee, Oct. 1 to rally the team as the operation launched.
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Local lawmakers, such as Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen, railed against the operation when it first launched.
“Memphians are not enemies; they are Americans,” Cohen said, The Associated Press reported in October. “They are entitled to constitutional rights, not their government working to ‘intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill’ them. We are not a training ground or target practice.”
The Memphis crime crackdown is a piece of a larger puzzle the administration is working on to obliterate crime trends in cities that have been racked by violence since 2020’s crime spiral and before.
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Trump federalized the Washington, D.C., police force in August in an ongoing effort to end crime in the nation’s capital, and also has ordered troops to crime-riddled cities such as Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, but those operations have been ensnared in court battles.
“Memphis is deeply troubled,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” in September. “We’re going to fix that, just like we did in Washington.”
