MEMPHIS — The Memphis Safe Task Force is not going anywhere. At a Justice Department roundtable marking the task force’s one-year anniversary, Attorney General Todd Blanche made the commitment plain. “We’re not here saying we’re shutting it down. We’re not here saying that we’re packing up and going home,” Blanche said, as reported by The Tennessee Star. “To the contrary, we’re saying that we have invested in this city, and we’re not cashing out our investment.”
Blanche said the department will keep putting resources into Memphis. “We’re actually going to continue to pay into this city, and to pay into this investment with manpower, and funds, and working together, so that in another year when we come back here, we will be able to champion even more successes,” he said. He set no end date, saying the task force will stay “as long as it takes,” according to the Tennessee Lookout. “We haven’t won yet. It’s not over.”
The results speak for themselves. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, task force members are responsible for 13,598 arrests, including 144 for homicide, 1,464 for controlled substances, 1,336 for firearms violations and 126 for sex offenses, and they have located 196 missing children. President Trump authorized the task force in September 2025.
U.S. Attorney Mike Dunavant said his office is keeping pace. “Caseloads have gone up, really by three times. We’ve tripled our caseload,” he said. “Turns out nothing works quicker, or more effectively, to reduce violent crime than hyper-vigilant policing and aggressive prosecution.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee for governor, said her office gets a daily update on the task force and called its members “the best team in the entire country.” “We truly feel that Memphis is the model for how you can move forward,” Blackburn said. She praised President Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel for sending federal resources to the city, and told the officers: “You’re in Memphis, which will be the safest city in the United States.”
Blanche wants the model to spread. “If Chicago called me and said, ‘we want to replicate Memphis in Chicago,’ we could transform an entire city, one of the most pivotal cities in this country, in the same way that we’ve transformed Memphis,” he said.
