Agents operating under the Memphis Safe Task Force — a federal-state operation created by executive order in September 2025 — have shot seven people, four of them fatally, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as reported by the Tennessee Lookout. The TBI has opened eight use-of-force investigations involving task force members since the deployment began; seven involved gunfire and the eighth involved a person being run over, a TBI spokesperson told the Lookout. The Lookout reported that all four men killed were Black.
The four men killed have been publicly identified through TBI releases and local reporting:
Darrin Pigram, 41, was shot May 13 by a DEA agent while working a shift at a Burger King in the Frayser neighborhood as agents served an aggravated-assault warrant. The DEA said Pigram reached for a gun in his waistband; his family disputes that account and says he was shot eight times in front of coworkers. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy declined to prosecute the agent and released surveillance video of the shooting in late July.
Jonah Neal was fatally shot by a Homeland Security special agent inside his home roughly a week after Pigram’s death; NPR reported he was experiencing a mental health crisis. As of June, the TBI was still investigating whether the agent fired the fatal shot or Neal died of a self-inflicted stab wound.
Tyrin Johnson, 20, was shot July 5 by two Tennessee National Guard members during a pursuit in downtown Memphis; authorities say he turned toward them with a gun. His family has called for the release of video evidence, and Memphis lawmakers described him as a student and young father.
Alfonso Ivy, 47, was shot July 8 at an Extended Stay hotel in East Memphis during warrant service. The U.S. Marshals Service said Ivy pointed a handgun at agents; the TBI’s own release was less specific, saying only that “for reasons still under investigation, the situation escalated, resulting in a DEA agent firing into a room”.
The identities and conditions of the three people wounded, and details of the eighth use-of-force incident, have not been publicly released.
The task force includes the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, Homeland Security, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee National Guard. Oversight of agent shootings runs through the TBI, which forwards findings to the Shelby County DA; that process has concluded in only one of the four deaths. Six days before the executive order creating the task force, the Memphis Police Department reported overall crime at a 25-year low and murders at a six-year low. Task force officials, Gov. Bill Lee’s office and the Highway Patrol have repeatedly declined to disclose the operation’s costs, personnel numbers and arrest totals.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young called the Johnson shooting “unfortunate” but declined further comment pending TBI investigation. Community organizations including Vecindarios 901, Free the 901 and MICAH have demanded oversight and transparency. The Trump administration has promoted the task force as a national model, and Sen. Bill Hagerty released a campaign ad praising it roughly a week after the fourth death was reported.
The submission characterized the story as receiving “almost no national coverage”. That framing is partly contradicted: CNN, NBC News, ABC News, NPR, The Hill and NewsNation each covered the July shootings. What holds up is the Lookout’s narrower argument — that national coverage came in brief episodic bursts around the back-to-back July 5 and July 8 shootings, with little sustained national reporting on the full pattern of seven people shot and four killed.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.