In the pre-dawn dark this morning, runners in Memphis are completing the morning jog Eliza Fletcher began on September 1, but never got to finish. As the 34-year-old kindergarten teacher ran down a section of Central Avenue around 4 a.m., she was abducted, forced into a vehicle, brutally assaulted, and slain by a recently released serial criminal.

Even a few of the runners are wearing pink sports tank and/or purple shorts… the outfit similar in appearance as Liza was running in on her last run.
Local law enforcement is also present watching over the runners. #FinishElizasRun pic.twitter.com/6V7P09zLsz

— Jurnee Taylor (@JurneeTaylorTV) September 9, 2022

Police received tips about an individual cleaning the interior of an SUV similar to that seen in surveillance footage from the site. Cleotha Abson, 38, was arrested and subsequently charged with her murder when police recovered her body near that area.

Not receiving as much press because, thankfully, the outcome was so much happier, was a terrifying mother/child robbery and kidnapping in a Target parking lot just the day before:

Memphis moms are on edge after two mothers were abducted last week, including deceased kindergarten teacher Eliza Fletcher and an unidentified mother who was kidnaped from a Target in broad daylight and released just a day before Fletcher disappeared.

…The day before Fletcher disappeared, two suspects allegedly kidnaped a mother and her 1-year-old toddler outside a Target in broad daylight, forced them into a vehicle, drove them to an ATM and demanded the mother withdraw $800 in cash before releasing her and her child. The Memphis Police Department (MPD) has arrested and charged Will Hayes in the case, but they are still looking for the second suspect.

Target spokesperson Brian Harper-Tibaldo told Fox News Digital that the company’s Memphis location has increased security “in the parking lot at this location.”…

…MPD did not have any new information about the second suspect as of Wednesday afternoon.

“That was in the middle of the day, too, in a very large shopping area,” Schneider explained. “… The fact that they thought they could even get away with it, and they only caught one of the guys…”

A 247WallSt statistical analysis led them to anoint Memphis as “America’s Deadliest City” for 2021.

That’s not going to do much for tourism, which used to be a huge part of Memphis’ appeal. I can remember, even in the early 1980s when the city was just starting to get its act together, and Beale Street was a dark hole with Blues Alley/maybe 3 other clubs open and the riverfront was mostly abandoned warehouses, there were still entrepreneurs opening restaurants, smallish music venues, trying to encourage foot traffic from the skyscraper city core (where they’d blocked off a pedestrian section) to the river.

We women Marines would go in a smallish group and really enjoy ourselves. Overton Square was humming with college kids. It had promise, and it came to fruition. (I don’t know what happened. Beale Street now comes up flagged on Yelp as “not safe” along with links for “shoot-out” news reports.)

The local NBC affiliate makes a case for stolen weapons from cars being the source of more armed robberies and violent crimes…

…“The other side of the coin,” Gibbons continued, “is that an increasing percentage of our violent crime is being committed with guns.”

MPD data shows more than 70 percent of violent incidents in the city this year involved guns. In 2016, it was 60 percent. In 2011, 40 percent.

The report suggests that this trend corresponds with gun thefts.

Preliminary TBI data shows that major property crime (burglary, motor vehicle theft, and other felony theft) increased during the first half of the year compared to last year, up 18 percent in Memphis and 14.8 percent countywide.

According to the report, this increase was driven primarily by over 3,600 motor vehicle thefts countywide and over 15,000 reported felony thefts.

”I can tell you, I’m one of the victims in the last year, I’ve had my car broken into,” said Gibbons, “and more than 1,200 guns have been stolen during car break-ins in Memphis this year. We’ve been seeing this increase since 2014 when the Tennessee General Assembly, in an incorrect decision in my opinion, passed legislation allowing guns in cars without a permit.”

Gibbons said it didn’t take the criminal element very long to figure out there are more guns being stored in cars.

…but that doesn’t begin to explain what happened from 2006 to the present, when…

…major violent crime rates have increased 17 percent for Memphis and 10.8 percent in Shelby County.(Memphis Shelby Crime Commission / UofM Public Safety Institute)

Who was in charge? Didn’t they see what was happening?

The Shelby County District Attorney from 2011 until this past August 4th was a woman named Amy Weirich, who is a Republican.

…Weirich has held the role of Shelby County District Attorney General since 2011, when she was named to the role by then-Gov. Bill Haslam. She joined the district attorney’s office in 1991 as a courtroom prosecutor, working her way up the ranks until she became deputy district attorney, the first woman to hold that job.

Now 57, Weirich easily won reelection in 2012 and election to a full eight-year term in 2014. Her supporters portray her as being tough on crime, praising her for her advocacy for “truth in sentencing” laws that do away with parole, causing people convicted of certain crimes to spend the entirety of their sentences behind bars.

What the heck was going on this whole time? The Memphis Crime Commission charts aren’t very complimentary to her tenure.

Along came August 4th and, as one would expect, she lost her job.

BUT. She lost it to a guy named Steve Mulroy, a progressive law professor, former DoJ civil rights lawyer and a former federal prosecutor, who brought in activist heavy hitters from outside the area.

…Mulroy, in contrast, drew support from high-profile national figures, including EGOT winner John Legend, rapper and actor Common and civil rights attorney Ben Crump. And, he was joined at a luncheon by family members of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, Black men and women whose stories spread nationwide after they were killed or severely injured by police…

There’s a rogue’s gallery of progressive destruction, no? The reforms he’s instituting are pure Soros (although I’ve yet to find a direct dollar link), while mouthing all the correct verbiage about addressing violent crime from one side, the other side is talking bail reform, etc. We have seen THIS movie. The ending is awful.

Weirich, during the campaign, repeatedly warned Memphis would become San Francisco in short order, were Mulroy to be elected, but her credibility was pretty well shot. She had her chance, whatever the myriad problems with the Memphis city administration might be, and she flubbed it. She was blown out of the water at the ballot box, 56% -43%.

Talk about a rock and a hard place for voters. The devil you know, or GOLLY – the guy that reads like trouble, but you cross your fingers, and Hail Mary.

“Memphis is tired right now.” – @MemphoNewsLady 😭 #Memphis pic.twitter.com/Q64jGiirPZ

— Andrew Bartolotta  #powertheGOOD (@andrewjpg) September 8, 2022

I hope the city isn’t shortly crying with her.