NASHVILLE — Tennessee Republican U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty are urging President Joe Biden to tackle what they call a national crime epidemic, citing as prime examples last week’s “shocking and tragic episodes” in Memphis, where three people died and three others were wounded in a one-man shooting spree while in a second case a school teacher was abducted and later found dead.
In their letter to Biden, the senators wrote cases of violent crime in Memphis are “symptomatic of a rise in violent crime across the country that demands decisive federal law enforcement action.”
“A clear cause of this undeniable deterioration of public safety is the anti-law-enforcement movement that has wrought soft-on-crime policies — from the eradication of bail and pretrial detention to prosecutors declining to prosecute or seek jail time for serious crimes — as well as emboldened criminals who are often quickly returned to the streets,” the senators wrote. “Importantly, support for this sentiment by certain leaders at the highest levels of our government has led to restraints on and attrition within law enforcement.”
The senators also held a Senate news conference where they unveiled a new bill, titled the “Restoring Law and Order Act.” They were joined several other Republicans who sought to blame Biden and congressional Democrats.
A Biden press official did not immediately respond to a Chattanooga Times Free Press email request for comment on Wednesday.