
Just like every major city in the United States of America, my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, has had its share of corruption. going back to the days of the notorious Boss Crump.
Within my lifetime, Memphians have borne witness to the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the infamous Ford family of municipal and state politicians whose corruption carries on to this day.
I’m pretty sure that’s why Harold Ford Jr. got the heck out of Dodge and moved up to the Northeast.
In September 2018, Chamber of Commerce President Phil Trenary was on South Front Street near G.E. Patterson, coming home from running in a race held in Downtown Memphis when someone in a white truck drove up and shot him. The suspects then took off.
He had previously been CEO of Pinnacle Airlines and was a tireless advocate for Memphis.
Two men were later arrested and tried on lesser charges than murder, and given 25 and 35 years respectively, with time served, which knocked off 5 years.
Their story was that they were looking for somebody to rob. In the trial, the Defense argued that one of the men was mentally impaired because of alcohol and cocaine in his mother’s bloodstream.
The question remains to this day: What are the odds that they would choose the President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce?
What started me thinking about the subject of corruption was the news that came out late this week concerning the former Memphis Police Officers found guilty of the murder of Tyree Nichols.
“A federal judge on Thursday granted three former Memphis Police Department officers convicted for their roles in the death of Tyre Nichols a new trial due to concerns about judicial bias.
Nichols’s death while in MPD custody in Tennessee sparked nationwide protests and calls for police reform in 2023 due to accusations that he was unfairly targeted and treated by law enforcement during a traffic stop.
The case took a new turn this week when Chief United States District Judge Sheryl Lipman granted Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith a new trial because of concerns that Judge Mark Norris, who oversaw the previous trial in which the three men were convicted last October, was biased against the officers and the MPD.
Norris recused himself from the case days before the officers’ sentencing, leading Lipman to take over proceedings in June.
Lipman said she believed Norris made rulings that were “sound, fair, and grounded firmly in the law.” However, “the appearance of judicial bias against the MPD created “an unconstitutional probability of bias” requiring a new trial, she wrote.
“Justice must not only be done but must manifestly be seen to be done,” she said in the ruling, arguing that the perception of bias could undermine public confidence in the verdict.
The concerns about the appearance of bias against the MPD stem from an incident involving one of Norris’s law clerks who had assisted the judge during the Nichols trial.
After the clerk was attacked in a separate shooting, Norris met with federal prosecutors and an FBI special agent about the incident, and alleged during that encounter that “at least one” of the MPD officers charged in the Nichols case was also involved in targeting his clerk.
During the May 2025 meeting, the judge also said that the MPD was “infiltrated to the top with gang members,” an assistant U.S. attorney present at the meeting said, according to court documents.”
Mark Norris is known as a very honest man and a very fair and smart judge.
Sheryl Lipman is a Chief US District Judge appointed by former President Barack Hussein Obama.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
If gangs have indeed infiltrated the Memphis Police Department from top to bottom and if the shooting of Judge Norris’s Clerk was done to intimidate the judge to drop the case or to recuse himself as he did, then this case screams for the FBI to look into it.
Given the crime rate in the outrageous number of homicides, carjacking, assaults, and robberies in Memphis, which are now moving like a crippling fog spreading to the suburbs including those across Mississippi State Line, I believe that Memphis needs a Clean Sweep Operation such as was just ordered by President Trump and carried out by the National Guard.
Just like other Democrat-run cities, the Memphis mayor and his administration have gotten in front of the cameras and said they would not cooperate with such an operation.
Perhaps, it’s not just the Memphis Police Department that the gangs have possibly infiltrated.
Just like every law-abiding average American, Memphians deserve to be able to enjoy the city that their tax money pays for without fear.
Until He Comes,
KJ
