Senator Hagerty meets with city leaders to discuss crime, federal assistance

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — US Senator Bill Hagerty was in Memphis on Wednesday meeting with city and county leaders.

Hagerty and the city officials talked at length about the crime problems plaguing the community.

“Our goal is to really demonstrate a unified front as we work to address public safety in our community,” Mayor Paul Young said.

Young was one of the many city leaders in attendance. Also there were the city’s police chief, CJ Davis, Shelby County Mayor, Lee Harris and Shelby County District Attorney, Steve Mulroy.

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In an effort to improve public safety, city leaders asked the Senator for more help at the federal level.

Senator Hagerty acknowledged crime in the greater Memphis area as a serious challenge, but also said there are heartfelt efforts being put forward to make a change.

“What we talked about today were the interactions of various programs that are here and broadly speaking what the challenge looks like and what’s working,” Hagerty said.

Though the discussion was closed to the media, the group said they talked about how they could have greater coordination at the federal level and access to more federal resources.

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“There was conversation around the jail, we know there is a big need there,” Young said. “There was conversation around the crime lab and the opportunity for us to be able to analyze some of the evidence that’s needed for us to process things quicker.

There was talk around some of the community programs, where young people can go and have those opportunities to go and try to change their lives.”

The group says they focused the discussion on things they knew they would have bipartisan agreement on so they could get advancement on things to move Memphis forward.

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