Memphis Mom Backs Trump Crime Push as DA Fights Task Force Oversight

For a Memphis mother, President Donald Trump’s federal crime crackdown has delivered something years of appeals to local officials did not: quiet streets and the freedom for her children to play outdoors.

“For once, I’m walking to my mailbox and it’s quiet,” Dalisia Ballinger told News Media. “I’m hearing the birds chirp. I’m hearing the birds sing. I’m seeing children play in the middle of the street. I’m seeing fathers playing football.”

Ballinger, a former journalist and survivor of violent crime, has become one of the Memphis Safe Task Force’s most vocal backers as the federal operation reaches its first year in the city.

Her support has also placed her in the middle of an escalating dispute with Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, a Democrat. Mulroy is challenging two recently enacted state oversight laws in court, prompting a petition that calls on him to drop the lawsuit and publicly explain how his office is processing cases stemming from the task force.

“Public safety should not be up for debate,” Ballinger said. “I don’t care if you are a Republican. I don’t care if you are a Democrat.”

Trump launched the multi-agency Memphis crime initiative via a presidential memorandum on Sept. 15, 2025. The order directed federal, state and local agencies to work together in combating violent and street crime across Memphis. The U.S. Marshals Service leads the task force, which also includes activated Tennessee National Guard personnel.

According to the White House, which released an update Tuesday, the operation had resulted in 12,747 arrests by Sept. 15. Those totals included 131 homicide arrests, 1,276 firearms-related arrests and 1,408 arrests involving known gang members.

The administration said the Memphis Safe Task Force also removed 2,160 illegal firearms from the streets and helped locate 189 missing children.

Overall crime in Memphis fell nearly 36% compared with the previous year, while murders dropped 36%, robberies fell 42% and vehicle thefts plunged 57%, according to figures released by the White House. City data had already shown crime falling before the task force arrived, and the statistics do not establish how much of the decline resulted directly from the federal surge.

“That era is over. President Trump rejected the excuses, restored law and order, and once again proved that decline is a choice,” the White House said.

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Ballinger said the change became personal when her children could play outdoors without the constant fear that had gripped her neighborhood.

She recalled a shooting four houses away in which she said roughly 30 gunshots struck a home occupied by a grandmother and her grandchildren. The family never returned, she said, leaving the property overtaken by grass and weeds.

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“We’ve been begging for years for our local leaders for assistance and for help,” Ballinger said. “My children deserve peace, and with the Memphis Safe Task Force being here, we’ve finally been able to get that peace.”

Now, she and other supporters argue the operation’s arrests mean little if prosecutors later reduce or dismiss cases without explaining why.

A Change.org petition titled “Stop Memphis DA From Protecting Criminals” had gathered nearly 10,000 verified signatures Wednesday. 

The petition calls on Mulroy to drop a May lawsuit challenging the Memphis Safe Task Force Accountability Act and a separate law that authorizes the Tennessee attorney general to audit his office’s decisions in task force cases.

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The accountability law requires Mulroy’s office to submit a report every 10 business days when it settles or dismisses a charge arising from the task force. The second law allows the state attorney general to review prosecutorial decisions in those cases and ask the Tennessee Supreme Court to appoint a temporary prosecutor.

Mulroy argues that both laws unconstitutionally single out Shelby County, intrude on the discretion of a locally elected prosecutor and burden his staff with duplicative reporting. His office said it already reports case outcomes under existing Tennessee law.

“These bills target Shelby County unfairly and infringe on the rights of Shelby County voters,” Mulroy said when the lawsuit was filed. He has characterized the dispute as a battle over whether Shelby County voters or state officials in Nashville control the district attorney’s office.

Petition supporters see the lawsuit differently.

“Thanks to President Trump, the Memphis Safe Task Force has delivered more for this city in one year than anyone thought possible,” Ballinger, one of the petition’s leading voices, said in a statement. “While federal, state, and local agents risk their lives taking criminals off our streets, DA Mulroy is fighting in court to hide how his office is undermining this task force.”

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Tennessee state Sen. Brent Taylor previously pressed Mulroy for details after his office reported that 430 of 514 felony cases resolved in December 2025 ended without prison time and that 166 of the cases were categorized as violent. The lawmakers said the figures left unanswered how many defendants in violent cases received no prison sentence. Mulroy has accused his Republican critics of distorting crime data for political purposes.

Ballinger rejected the claim that the petition is merely a partisan campaign against a Democratic prosecutor.

“We have children. We have regular people that might not even be into politics,” she said. “We deserve peace. Whether it’s on the East Coast, the West Coast or South, we all deserve peace.”

The task force has also drawn fierce opposition. The ACLU of Tennessee and several Memphis residents have accused agents of aggressive policing and retaliation against people who record law enforcement.

Four residents filed a federal lawsuit this year alleging harassment, unlawful arrests and physical mistreatment while exercising their First Amendment rights.

The allegations have not been proven in court, while task force supporters point to thousands of arrests and sharply falling crime numbers as evidence the operation is working.

Ballinger said legitimate complaints should be reviewed, but she does not believe they justify dismantling an operation she credits with making her neighborhood livable again.

“I’m all for fairness, and I’m all for law and order,” she said. “If we need to go back to the table [and] restructure so that people can feel safe, we can definitely put that on the board.”

For Ballinger, the anniversary is measured less by government statistics than by what she can see and hear beyond her front door.

“It was noticeably enough to where it’s like, ‘Wow, there’s kids actually outside playing,’” she said.

News Media reached out to Mulroy’s office for comment.