National Guard members on patrol in Memphis fatally shoot man during pursuit, police say

Two Tennessee National Guard members assigned by the Trump administration to a crime-fighting patrol in Memphis fatally shot a man Sunday who turned toward the soldiers with a gun during a downtown pursuit, authorities said.

The administration has ordered National Guard deployments in Memphis and five other Democrat-run cities, including New Orleans and Washington, D.C., to confront what Trump has described as an out-of-control crime wave — though violent crime in dozens of cities led by Democrats is down significantly since a pandemic high. The Guard members in Memphis were part of a troop deployment the administration launched in Tennessee's second-largest city last fall.

Local leaders in these cities have said they do not believe the federal intervention is necessary, and some have challenged the deployments in court.

The soldiers in Memphis were responding with local police to reports of gunshots around 4 a.m. when they began pursuing an armed man fleeing on foot, the city's police department said.

The guardsmen opened fire after the man turned towards them with his weapon, the department said.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation identified the man as 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson and said it is investigating the circumstances of the shooting. No law enforcement officers were injured, the agency added.

Johnson died at the scene after two National Guard medical specialists attempted first aid, Guard spokesperson Lt. Col Darrin Haas said in a statement.

Johnson’s older cousin, Terracle Nelson, 46, told The Associated Press that he was “as good a boy as can be.” Johnson was living in Nashville, working in construction and taking university classes, she said. He had just had his first child earlier this year, she added.

Nelson was present with other members of Johnson’s family when authorities told them that Johnson had been shot twice in the chest.

“I just want to know, how they shot a 20-year-old twice in the chest, he hadn’t harmed anyone,” Nelson said.

Law enforcement authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the number of shots fired. The TBI declined comment on Nelson's account of the shooting.

Mayor Paul Young called the shooting an “unfortunate incident” and said he was waiting to see the results of the TBI investigation before commenting further, according to a statement provided by spokesperson Penelope Huston.

Federal troops have been patrolling the city since October over the objections of Young, a Democrat, but with the support of Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican. The troops are part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, convened by Trump and comprised of federal and local agencies.

For years, Memphis, whose population exceeds 600,000, has dealt with high violent crime, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. Both Democratic and Republican officials have noted decreases last year in some crime categories, preceding the deployment and paralleling trends across U.S. cities.

The deployments cost nearly half a billion dollars through the end of December and are expected to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion this year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

In April, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that state and local Democratic officials lacked standing to block the deployment of federal troops in Memphis.

In May, four Memphis residents filed a pending federal lawsuit seeking to block the federal task force from applying a law that bars residents from approaching within 25 feet of law enforcement officers to record their activities.

The residents, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, also alleged that task force members have engaged in a pattern of retaliating against them for filming their operations. They alleged they have been followed by law enforcement officers and that unmarked vehicles and individuals in tactical vests have showed up outside their homes after they observed the task force.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.