A Memphis mother is crediting President Donald Trump's federal crime crackdown with bringing quiet to her neighborhood, as a petition demanding that the local district attorney abandon his legal challenge to new state oversight laws nears 10,000 signatures.
Dalisia Ballinger, a former journalist and violent-crime victim, told Fox News Digital that the Memphis Safe Task Force has changed daily life on her street. «For once, I'm walking to my mailbox and it's quiet,» she said. «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.»
The operation, established by presidential memorandum on Sept. 15, 2025, directs federal, state and local authorities to coordinate against violent and street crime in Memphis. It is led by the U.S. Marshals Service and includes mobilized members of the Tennessee National Guard.
The White House said Tuesday that the task force had produced 12,747 arrests as of Sept. 15, including 131 homicide arrests, 1,276 firearms arrests and 1,408 arrests of known gang members. The administration also credited the operation with taking 2,160 illegal guns off the streets and recovering 189 missing children.
According to figures released by the White House, overall crime in Memphis fell nearly 36% compared with the previous year, while murders dropped 36%, robberies fell 42% and vehicle thefts plunged 57%. 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.
Ballinger said the change became personal when her children could play outdoors without the fear that had gripped her neighborhood. She recalled a shooting four houses away in which 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.
«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 petition titled «Stop Memphis DA From Protecting Criminals» had gathered nearly 10,000 verified signatures Wednesday.
The petition calls on Shelby County District Attorney Steve 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.
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 effort, saying public safety should not be up for debate. «I don't care if you are a Republican. I don't care if you are a Democrat,» she said.