The administration says the results demonstrate what can happen when federal agencies, state authorities and local police combine resources and aggressively target repeat offenders, illegal guns, gangs and violent criminals.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis celebrated the operation’s first-year results.
“President Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force has driven down violent crime in a city that was failed by extreme Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies. The Task Force has made more than 12,000 arrests, including of murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers and other violent criminals, and has seized more than 2,100 illegal firearms. President Trump restored law and order and made Memphis safe again,” Bis told Fox News Digital.
The operation dates back to September 2025, when Trump signed a presidential memorandum establishing the Memphis Safe Task Force.
Trump’s directive called for federal agencies to coordinate with Tennessee and Memphis authorities to combat violent and street crime. The operation eventually brought together more than 20 local, state and federal agencies, while the Tennessee National Guard was assigned a supporting role.
Memphis certainly presented a formidable challenge.
The White House cited FBI statistics showing that Memphis had the highest violent-crime rate per capita in the country in 2024. The city had also endured an especially bloody 2023, when homicides reached 397.
But Memphis had already begun making progress before Trump’s task force arrived.
Mayor Paul Young has emphasized that the city’s crime turnaround started under local initiatives launched earlier in his administration. Memphis officials say serious crime has now fallen to its lowest level in roughly 25 years and credit police, neighborhood programs and community organizations alongside the additional state and federal resources.
Since the federal operation began, however, the declines have continued — and in several categories they have been dramatic.
According to data reported by Fox News Digital, overall crime is down 36 percent year over year.
Motor vehicle theft has plunged 57 percent.
Murders are down 44 percent.
Robberies have dropped 43 percent.
Aggravated assaults and burglaries have each fallen 27 percent, while shoplifting has declined 44 percent.
Those improvements followed a 28 percent decline in overall Memphis crime during 2025 compared with 2024.
The enforcement numbers have also continued climbing.
By February 24, Memphis Police Department figures showed 3,155 felony arrests and 4,574 misdemeanor arrests associated with the initiative, along with 1,876 firearms taken off the streets. The operation had also recovered more than 1,000 stolen vehicles.
By the task force’s first anniversary, the administration said arrests had surpassed 12,000 and illegal firearm seizures had crossed 2,100.
Federal prosecutors have meanwhile pursued cases involving drugs, firearms, robberies and attacks on law-enforcement officers.
The broader crime decline has become a major talking point for the Trump administration as it promotes aggressive federal cooperation with cities facing persistent violence.
But determining exactly how much of Memphis’ improvement can be attributed to the task force is more complicated than simply comparing crime totals before and after its arrival.
Crime was already moving downward before the September 2025 federal intervention. Memphis Mayor Paul Young has specifically argued that no single initiative or individual deserves all the credit for the city’s progress.
What is indisputable is the scale of the enforcement operation and the direction of the city’s crime statistics during its first year.
Thousands of suspects have been arrested.
Thousands of illegal firearms have been seized.
And murders, robberies, car thefts and other major offenses have continued falling sharply.
For the Trump administration, Memphis is now being presented as evidence for its law-and-order strategy: concentrate manpower, coordinate agencies, aggressively pursue offenders and give local authorities additional federal resources.
One year after that strategy was deployed in Memphis, the city that entered the operation with one of America’s most serious violent-crime problems is reporting dramatically different numbers.
