MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A meeting with the Memphis Police Department and city council members began with community members speaking up about their frustrations over what the Greenlaw Community Center will be used for once the Memphis Police Department takes over with their Community Engagement Unit.
Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis worked to change the narrative about what the center will be used for as many community members believe it will be used as a detention center for kids out past curfew.
Chief Davis said it isn’t being used like that, but earlier Tuesday, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said they are on a trial run of where to take kids who are out past curfew.
“You can’t do your job with a juvenile in the backseat so that officer may be offline for an hour or two hours or three hours,” Strickland said. “So we thought as a pilot program, we’d hold them in a city facility until their parents can come pick them up.”
ABC24 asked Chief Davis if she’s spoken with Mayor Strickland about the use for the community center as she tried to leave the meeting. Davis said she clarified herself and everything she said at this meeting can be quoted, ultimately avoiding our questions about whether she’s been in communication with Strickland about the use for the center.
“Now they’re coming back with holding a detention center here,” community member Casio Montez said. “What the kids gone do? It’s already enough kids dying. They ain’t got no recreational activities period.”
But Chief Davis insists it’s not a detention center.
“This facility, nor any of our precincts are detention facilities,” Chief Davis said.
The City’s communication team pulled ABC24 to the side during the meeting expressing that it was just an “idea” to have the Greenlaw Community Center be used as a detention center.
Allison Fouche, a City of Memphis spokesperson, also said the video that was made public about the Juvenile Abatement Program was released in error. Fouche said both herself and Chief Davis were out of town when the video was publicized.
“It had nothing to do with curfew,” Chief Davis said. “It has nothing to do with anything dealing with our youth – only to continue the programs that we have right now.”
MPD released a statement on Twitter just hours before the meeting began, saying they planned to move an MPD Community Engagement Unit into the Greenlaw Recreation Center. The statement said the center will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and be shared with the city’s Parks and Recreation department to hold things like a citizens police academy, the Feed the Needy program, and LGBTQ Liaison Programs, as well as physical activities..
But activists said, the issue is the changing narrative about what the center is being used for and that elected and appointed leaders are taking up space at a center where activists say kids are not comfortable going when police are present.
“I've been over here for years,” Montez said. “So I take this personally. Don’t come in our community and think that you can just pull a sheet over our head and tell us it’s this it’s that. It’s a lot of facilities y’all can house these children in if that’s the case. Why y’all taking from the community?”
Council members ended Tuesday night’s meeting assuring the community that the Greenlaw facility will never be turned into a detention center.