This week, the Commercial Appeal obtained a copy of Darrin Pigram's autopsy. It showed the man was shot five times by a Memphis Safe Task Force agent.
Shelby County got two new criminal court judges. Both were appointed by Gov. Bill Lee, and both spent most of their careers as prosecutors.
And the CA this week published several pieces in a series looking back at the last year of the Memphis Safe Task Force
.Plus, Shelby County Jail inmates filed a class action lawsuit against the county. They are asking a judge to appoint an independent monitor over the jail.
Here's what else was on the docket for the week of Sept. 14, 2026.
Darrin Pigram was shot five times by Memphis Safe Task Force agent
According to an autopsy report obtained by the CA, the Drug Enforcement Administration agent who shot Darrin Pigram while
trying to serve a warrant in May shot him five times.
The autopsy found two bullet entry wounds in his left upper chest area, one bullet entry wound on the side of his shoulder, and two bullet entry wounds in his back.
Pigram was killed on May 13 while DEA agents with the Memphis Safe Task Force attempted to serve a warrant on him while he worked a shift at Burger King.
The Shelby County District Attorney's Office, in July, said it would not be filing charges against the DEA agent. The DA's office also, after declining charges, released footage from inside the Burger King.
That footage showed Pigram backing away from the DEA agents after opening the door for them. At no point in the video could Pigram clearly be seen pulling a gun from his waistband, which law enforcement has said caused the shooting.
The DEA agents were not wearing body cameras, according to the DA's office.
It was not clear in the video how many shots had been fired or how the agent was able to shoot Pigram twice in the back.
A toxicology report, included as part of the autopsy, found the chemical breakdown products of marijuana and cocaine in his system at the time of his death.
Pigram was the first person to be killed by members of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
Jonah Neal was killed by a Homeland Security Investigations agent on May 20 during a mental health crisis; Tyrin Johnson was killed by the National Guard during a foot chase on July 5; and Alfonzo Ivy was killed by DEA agents on July 8 while they attempted to serve a warrant.
As of publication, no charges have been filed in any of the shootings.
Shelby County gets two new criminal court judges
Lee appointed two soon-to-be former prosecutors to Shelby County's two newly established criminal court judgeships this week.
Paul Hagerman has spent the better part of the 21st century with the Shelby County District Attorney's Office. At the time of his appointment, he was the DA's office's second-in-command.
Hagerman prosecuted many high-profile criminal cases in his time, including defendants accused of killing Memphis rapper Young Dolph, Sherra Wright and Billy Ray Turner, and Cleotha Abston.
"This is terrible news for the DA's office, but great news for Shelby County," Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy said in a press release. "Paul's extensive experience, knowledge and temperament will serve him well on the bench. The office won't be the same without him."
Hagerman graduated from Vanderbilt University before earning his law degree from New York University School of Law. He began practicing in Tennessee in 1999.
"I love serving Memphis. I love the people that I work with and the people who support me," Hagerman said in the statement. "Together, as a team and as a city, we have gotten through so many trying cases — Holly Bobo, Lorenzen Wright, Liza Fletcher, Young Dolph and Tyré Nichols — and together, we have seen the worst of Memphis, but also the best. I feel I have served as best as I could. And I feel like we have tried to do some justice together. Now, I am humbled by this appointment, but also ready to get to work and ready to continue to do what is right."
Lee also appointed Maques Young, who is currently the deputy criminal chief at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee.
Young graduated from the University of Memphis and also earned his law degree at the U of M's Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.
"We're very proud of him. We're sorry to lose him," U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee Mike Dunavant said during a Sept. 15 interview. "He's certainly an outstanding talent. He's a career prosecutor. He's been in this office for many, many years, and really spearheads our violent crime prosecutorial model here."
The two criminal court seats were created during the last legislative session. The state previously took away Shelby County's 10th criminal court judgeship in the wake of now-former Judge Melissa Boyd's resignation as she was being prosecuted for drug offenses.
The CA looks back at one year of the Memphis Safe Task Force
The Memphis Safe Task Force has been operating in Memphis for about a year. In that time, it has made more than 12,000 arrests, launching thousands of local criminal cases and more than 400 federal criminal cases.
President Donald Trump created the Memphis Safe Task Force through a Sept. 15, 2025 executive order. By Oct. 1 that year, thousands of additional federal agents had touched down in Memphis and started operations.
"President Trump's Memphis Safe Task Force has driven down violent crime in a city that was failed by extreme Democrats' soft-on-crime policies," Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said in a Sept. 15 press release commemorating the executive order's signing. "The Task Force has made more than 12,000 arrests including of murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers, and other violent criminals and has seized more than 2,100 illegal firearms. President Trump restored law and order and made Memphis safe again."
Of the more than 12,000 arrests, though, it is not exactly clear how many people were arrested for violent crimes. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told the Commercial Appeal in an interview the vast majority of arrests were nonviolent and minor offenses.
Crime in Memphis steadily rose for about eight years, starting in 2016 and peaking in 2023. Over the last three years, crime has plummeted from that peak, and law enforcement officials from all walks of life — including Task Force officials — have acknowledged the decline in crime cannot solely be attributed to the efforts of the Task Force.
The U.S. Marshals Service was tasked with leading the task force, which is made up of at least 30 federal organizations from eight different federal departments. The main organizations seen throughout Memphis have been the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the National Guard.
Local law enforcement has also been a key instrument in the Task Force, prominently featuring the Tennessee Highway Patrol alongside the Memphis Police Department and Shelby County Sheriff's Office.
Inmates file class action lawsuit, ask judge for independent jail monitor
A class of Shelby County Jail inmates has filed a civil rights lawsuit against Shelby County Government over the jail’s crumbling infrastructure and jail staff’s own description of “ongoing inhumane and cruel conditions.”
The lawsuit alleges multiple constitutional violations, including violations of inmates’ Fourteenth and Eighth Amendment rights, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. It also asks for an independent monitor to be appointed to oversee compliance.
Shelby County Mayor Mickell Lowery, Sheriff Anthony Buckner, and the entire Shelby County Commission are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Five inmates — Thaddeus Norris, Eric Wallace, Ahmad Walton, Vintrell White and Enoch Zarceno-Turner — are the named plaintiffs hoping to represent the full class of 201 Poplar detainees.
"The record here isn't disputed — it comes largely from the county's own constituents, the county's own jail inspectors, and the county's own former sheriff," said Stella Yarbrough, one of the attorneys representing the inmates, in a press release. "The people held at 201 Poplar are legally presumed innocent, and even those who have been convicted are entitled to be held somewhere that doesn't put their health and safety at serious risk. These conditions have been documented and flagged for years. What's needed now is a court order requiring the county to actually fix them."
If successful in appointing a monitor, it would not be the first time the jail has had outside oversight. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice found the jail's conditions violated inmates' constitutional rights, and Shelby County entered into a monitoring agreement with the DOJ.
That agreement was later dissolved after the jail's conditions and policies were updated.
Top Commercial Appeal courts, public safety stories readers have viewed
- From Sept. 16, 2026: Memphis Safe Task Force approaches 1 year. What has happened in court?
- From Sept. 17, 2026: Memphis Safe Task Force, local officials distance themselves from ICE
- From Sept. 14, 2026: Woman dies at Shelby County Jail East after being found unresponsive
- From Sept. 14, 2026: Shelby County moves forward with new healthcare provider for jails
- From Sept. 16, 2026: Man acquitted of Young Dolph murder pleads guilty to separate federal charge
Latest in Memphis' biggest cases
Former Shelby County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. had his sentencing pushed back yet again, federal court documents show.
Ford pleaded guilty to five counts of attempted tax evasion on Feb. 2, just under a year after he was federally indicted for one count of bribery and six counts of attempted tax evasion. As part of the plea agreement, one count of attempted tax evasion and the bribery charge were dismissed.
If given the maximum sentence, Ford could face 25 years in federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system, so Ford would have to serve the entirety of his sentence.
This is the latest reset in what has been an ongoing delay in Ford's sentencing.
Another person pleaded guilty in federal court this week. Hernandez Govan — the man who was accused, and later acquitted, of planning Memphis rapper Young Dolph's murder — pleaded guilty to threatening to post sexually explicit content of a woman online without her consent.
Govan was arrested on June 11 by Memphis police after a warrant was issued. According to police, he repeatedly harassed the victim and threatened to publish explicit content of her on social media.
The federal court indictment charged him with one count of threatening intentional disclosure of "nonconsensual intimate visual depictions" and one count of cyberstalking. He was facing, if convicted of both charges, up to seven years in federal prison.
There is no parole in the federal system.
According to federal documents, Govan pleaded guilty to the threat of posting explicit content charge on Sept. 16. In exchange, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee agreed to dismiss the cyberstalking charge.
He faces up to two years in prison.
And, in state court, three people have been indicted in connection to a 6-year-old's death on a Memphis daycare's van, the Shelby County District Attorney's office said on Sept. 11.
Winter Jones, the 6-year-old, was found unresponsive inside a van at Kid University, a daycare located at 771 Walnut Knoll Ln. in Cordova, on Aug. 13. It was 95 degrees that day, with a heat index of 103, according to the National Weather Service in Memphis.
Tametria Norry, the van driver, Sabrina Powe, assistant director of Kid University, and Amilya Hardin, an assistant at the daycare, were each indicted, the DA's office said in a press release. They each face one count of aggravated child neglect, criminally negligent homicide and destruction of and tampering with governmental records
Have a question for us?
Do you have a burning public safety question you want answered? Send an email to metro@commercialappeal.com or lucas.finton@commercialappeal.com.
Lucas Finton covers crime, policing, jails, the courts and criminal justice policy for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by phone or email: (901)208-3922 and Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, and followed on X @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Year of Memphis Task Force revisited by the CA; Prosecutors named judges
