A member of a federal crime-fighting task force in Memphis shot and killed a person there on Wednesday, the second fatal shooting by a task force member in four days.
The Wednesday shooting occurred while U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents were serving a drug warrant out of Shelby County at around 8:30 a.m. The suspect was in a hotel room and refused to open the door for agents, so they knocked the door down, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Brady McCarron said.
A news release from the Marshals Service sent out earlier in the day said the man was killed after pointing a handgun at task force members. A later news release from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the circumstances of the shooting, is less specific. It says only that, “For reasons still under investigation, the situation escalated, resulting in a DEA agent firing into a room, striking a man and killing him.”
No law enforcement officers were injured. The DEA team included at least one local Memphis Police Department officer, McCarron said.
The Memphis Safe Task Force was created last year by President Donald Trump as part of an effort to place National Guard troops and federal agents in Democratic-run cities he described as crime-ridden. Although plans to send troops to other cities were blocked by the courts, Tennessee National Guard troops have been serving in Memphis as part of the task force since last fall.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, two Guardsmen fatally shot 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson after they said he turned toward them with a gun during a downtown pursuit.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has been charged with investigating both shootings and will turn the results over to the local district attorney general.
