A state senator visited with a new Republican club in a majority-black Memphis area to discuss solutions to rampant crime in the city.
The Whitehaven Republican Club, which formed last year, reportedly invited State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) to speak at the Whitehaven YMCA.
“It wound up being a packed house inside the meeting room at the Whitehaven YMCA, as attendees listened to Sen. Taylor discuss the bills he successfully passed in the Tennessee General Assembly this year,” according to Action News 5.
Melanie Mosley, president of the Whitehaven Republican Club, praised Taylor, who has passed a litany of anti-crime bills, for keeping his promise to try to reduce crime in the city.
“In the beginning of the year he told us everything he was going to do, all the laws he planned on passing,” she said. “And the thing is, he kept his promise. You rarely hear that from many politicians.”
In March, Taylor (pictured above) introduced SB 2659, called the Juvenile Organized Retail Theft Act (JORTA).
According to the General Assembly’s website, that bill “allows a juvenile court to transfer a child 15 years of age or older to be tried as an adult in criminal court for the offense of organized retail crime, theft of a firearm, or an attempt to commit such offense.”
At the same time, he introduced SB 2571, the “Parental Accountability Act,” which requires juvenile courts “to assess a fine of $1,000 against a child who is found to be delinquent for a second or subsequent delinquent act, to be paid by the child’s parent, legal custodian, or guardian who had custody of the child at the time of the offense [and] permits the court to require the parent, legal custodian, or guardian to perform community service work in lieu of the mandatory fine if indigent.”
Taylor rose to national prominence when he sounded the alarm about crime in Memphis on Fox News at the end of last year. In 2023, Memphis led the country murders for major cities
“It’s really bad here, Todd,” he told Fox News’ Todd Piro at the time. “The crime is really out of control here in Memphis. Matter of fact, just last week I sent a letter to the governor asking him to send in additional state troopers to Shelby County. Just in a weekend, Todd, we had 21 shootings, five murders, four smash-and-grabs, we had a FedEx truck stopped in traffic by a group of people that then opened up the back of the truck and looted the back of the FedEx truck.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter/X.
Photo “State Senator Brent Taylor” by Senator Brent Taylor.
