In a Nov. 8 announcement, the U.S. Marshals Service said the “Memphis Safe Task Force” that it led located and returned 101 missing children during the 40-day operation that began in October.
The announcement came from the U.S. Marshals Service because its Missing Child Unit worked with local and state authorities to find the missing kids.
President Trump signed an executive order Sept. 15 that formed a federal-led task force to tackle crime in the famous Southern city. Memphis, perhaps best known for Beale Street and Graceland, also has a per-capita violent crime rate that dwarfs larger cities such as Detroit, Oakland, Baltimore, and St. Louis.
Law enforcement advocate Randy Sutton, a former police lieutenant, tells AFN many of the missing children are runaways who have been located.
“Some will have been trafficked, too, so there's no doubt about that,” he advises.
Asked about the large number of children, Sutton says he’s not surprised at that number considering the number of arrests topped 2,000 in the city.
With the U.S. Marshals Service heading it, more than 20 local, state and federal agencies formed the task force that included federal agents, Memphis police officers, Tennessee National Guard soldiers, and Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers.
Sutton says that is a fairly common arrangement in major cities across the U.S. when state and local authorities are deputized by the Feds.
As far as the U.S. Marshals leading the task force, Sutton is a fan of that federal agency that has been tracking people since the 1800s.
“The United States Marshals Service is very, very good at tracking people,” he said. “They're the experts. They have been since the days of the Old West.”
Despite the crackdown on crime, including serving drug warrants, gang arrests and firearm-related arrests, the city's Democrat politicians complained Memphians felt "unsafe" because of the federal task force.
There was also outcry from immigrant activists because ICE agents descended on the city. Those immigration-related arrests took violent gang members, domestic abusers, pedophiles, rapists, and drug traffickers off the streets, Homeland Security reported.
