Tennessee Guard members fatally shoot man during Memphis pursuit

Who authorized Tennessee Guard troops to move from a crime patrol into a deadly downtown chase, what rules governed their use of force, and who now investigates the shooting are the questions pressing Memphis after guardsmen killed 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson. The encounter happened around 4 a.m. Sunday, July 5, 2026, near Ida B. Wells Avenue and Union Avenue, putting the city’s new public-safety strategy under immediate scrutiny.

Authorities said the Tennessee National Guard members were working with the Memphis Safe Task Force when they chased Johnson after reports that a man in the area had a handgun and had fired shots. Memphis police said Johnson turned his weapon toward the guardsmen before they fired. No law enforcement officers or National Guard soldiers were injured. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is handling the case at the request of Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.

Mayor Paul Young called the shooting “unfortunate” and said Memphis would wait for the TBI process before commenting further. State Sen. London Lamar called for a rapid investigation and transparency about the Guard’s rules of engagement, reflecting the pressure now on city and state leaders to explain how a military deployment meant to deter crime ended in a fatal confrontation on a downtown street.

The shooting also landed in the middle of a broader debate over the Memphis Safe Task Force, which Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis told the City Council in October 2025 included about 700 federal and state resources. The Guard’s role had been described earlier as part of a “visibility in hot spot areas” strategy, and Gov. Bill Lee said troops would be deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service and would not be armed or make arrests. About 1,472 National Guardsmen remained in Memphis when the shooting occurred, while another 120 were deployed in New Orleans and roughly 5,000 were operating in Washington, D.C.

That deployment entered a city where police data had already shown falling violence. The Memphis Police Department said overall crime was at a 25-year low in September 2025, with robbery, burglary and larceny also at 25-year lows and murder at a six-year low. Year-end figures later showed 235 homicides in 2025, down 31% from 334 in 2024, and 184 murders, down 26% from 249 the year before.

Civil-liberties groups have warned that Memphis remains unusually sensitive to militarized policing because of the Kendrick Consent decree, which grew out of 1978 civil-rights abuses and was updated in 2020 to address modern surveillance tools. Local advocates had already organized against the task force under the slogan “Free the 901,” and the Johnson shooting is now certain to deepen the dispute over how far the city can go in the name of public safety.