Security spotted tagging FedEx truck following string of robberies in Memphis
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - When a FedEx package absolutely, positively must arrive safely at its destination in Memphis, you might see extra security tagging along on your next delivery.
An eagle-eyed Action News 5 employee noticed something different on Thursday when FedEx dropped off her package. Following behind the driver as he made his deliveries was what appeared to be a security officer in a marked black car.
FedEx is the largest employer in Memphis, with countless trucks and vehicles transporting packages to and from the Hub, warehouses, and homes and businesses. And now, the Memphis-based shipping giant is apparently taking added steps to keep their employees and your deliveries safe from armed bandits who’ve been busy terrorizing the Bluff City.
“We were basically trapped in our car in the middle of five lanes of traffic with nowhere to turn,” a witness to a November truck robbery told Action News 5, “and we couldn’t go anywhere.”
The terrified Memphian said he watched in shock as a mob of people blocked in a FedEx truck at a red light on Mallory Avenue, then swarmed in and scooped up package after package out of the back.
”I couldn’t see the driver,” he said, “because we were facing the back of the truck, so I don’t know what was happening up front. But I would imagine that driver was sitting in there, locked in, petrified.”
After a second FedEx delivery driver was robbed in December on Tennessee Street in Downtown Memphis, CrimeStoppers offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in either case.
Fast forward to this week, when the package heists really ramped up.
Four robbers, armed with knives and guns, targeted a FedEx truck as the driver made deliveries to a strip mall at the corner of Winchester and South Germantown Road in Southeast Memphis on Tuesday.
On the same day, two UPS delivery trucks got hit, one in Berclair, the other at a business on Appling Road.
“We’re bringing back the Wild Wild West,” said Tennessee State Rep. Antonio Parkinson, “that’s what we’re living in right now.”
When the legislature reconvenes next Tuesday, January 9 in Nashville, Democratic Rep. Parkinson said he plans to introduce legislation making certain gun crimes, like an adult providing a juvenile with a gun, a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
Another member of the Shelby County Delegation, Republican State Senator Brent Taylor, intends to sponsor a bill making possession of a stolen firearm a felony.
Both lawmakers trying their best to stop the lawbreakers.
“Everybody’s shooting each other,” said Rep. Parkinson, “People are robbing trains and FedEx trucks. It’s like stagecoaches. It’s the same. We’re taking ourselves back to a period of lawlessness.”
Thursday in Binghampton, an Action News 5 employee noticed a black car pulled up with the FedEx driver who dropped a package on her porch. When the FedEx truck pulled away, the black car followed closely.
FedEx declined to confirm if that car was part of a new, anti-theft strategy, telling Action News 5: “We take the safety of our people very seriously. As such, we do not publicly discuss our security procedures.”
The witness to the wild crime back in November now wonders, is extra security sustainable?
“Well, I feel really bad for the drivers,” he said, “having to work under surveillance by a security car for their safety. And also, what are we going to do about the costs to have a security car follow these trucks around? That’s expensive. And it’s just going to add to the cost of our shipping and add to FedEx’s costs.”
CrimeStoppers informed Action News 5 on Thursday that the agency has received several tips about the November and December FedEx truck robberies, and that investigators are following up on every piece of information.
If any tip proves successful and leads to a charge and/or an arrest, the $10,000 reward will be given out.
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