Memphis reported the fewest crimes since 2010 last year, but it still topped the nation with its overall crime rate.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation recently released annual crime statistics. TBI's showed Memphis continued its downward trajectory from 2023's record high crime rate, but the FBI numbers still had Memphis as America's crime hotbed.
Special Agent in Charge Terence Reilly, the FBI's lead agent in the Nashville Field Office, called the numbers encouraging during an interview with The Commercial Appeal, but also acknowledged there was plenty of room to improve.
"I think the Crime in the Nation report is a success story, but it's not over yet because people don't feel safe in certain communities,"
Reilly said. "We need to make that longer term impact to make Memphis safe and a vibrant community where people feel safe to live here and travel and become tourists here. It's not an overnight solution. It's not just a law enforcement solution. It's multiple facets working together."
Reilly said his role leading Tennessee's FBI contingency is in lending a hand when local law enforcement needs it. The FBI has long worked with local law enforcement in Memphis. Oftentimes the FBI helps on local cases, he said, offering resources behind the scenes to expedite investigations.
"That's where I think we take pride in the overall Crime in the Nation report," he said. "We want to be seen as someone who's supporter all our state and local law enforcement. There's sort of this old thought process that the feds are gonna come in and take the case. And that day and age is gone because it's really all about doing the right thing and helping our our community."
Sometimes, he said, local cases can also be charged federally. For Reilly, those instances are when the federal government can "drop the hammer" with sentencing in ways that state cases might be limited.
Reilly said the crime numbers show that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are targeting the right types of crimes. In the coming months he said his office is not going to "drop the ball on focusing on making [Memphis] a safer city," but said he wants to see more long-term investigations into organized gang and trafficking activity.
"As long as I'm leading this office, my direction is to try to take those street level gang vendors, who are doing this as a business or an enterprise and that's their life, I want them off the streets," he said. "Whether that's wiretaps that we still deploy — even though it's getting harder with technology — or a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) investigation. I really want to see us as the FBI taking the lead here and driving those investigations."
In the waning months of former President Joe Biden's administration, the FBI moved its field offices from Memphis and Knoxville to Nashville. Both sides of the state still have an FBI presence, though, in the form of local resident agencies, but Reilly went further and said the move did not reduce the number of agents in the city.
With the addition of the Memphis Safe Task Force, which was established in September 2025 under President Donald Trump's administration, Reilly said a surge of agents came to Memphis. At the beginning, there were around an extra 150 agents in Memphis. But that number has dwindled to about 55 additional agents as of the start of September.
As part of the work with the task force, Reilly said the FBI has created a second squad that focuses on violent crime and gang violence. That squad, he said, could work closer with Memphis police and, potentially, work with them from the same building.
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: FBI talks about future Memphis operations amid decline in crime
