A woman was sitting in her car at a Poplar Avenue gas station near the I-240 interchange when two teenagers walked up, opened her door, and told her to get out. She did. They drove off in her Nissan Altima. The whole thing took maybe fifteen seconds. No weapon was displayed, though the victim told Memphis police she assumed they were armed. The car was found abandoned in Frayser two days later with the steering column ripped apart.
That incident from January isn’t remarkable anymore. And that’s the problem.
Memphis recorded 639 carjackings in 2020, according to Memphis Police Department data. That number represents a 52% increase over 2019. Vehicle thefts overall topped 10,000 for the year. To put that in perspective, the national average for auto theft is roughly 246 per 100,000 residents. Memphis is running close to 1,500 per 100,000. We’re not in the same conversation as most American cities. We’re in a different category entirely.
It’s Not Just Downtown Anymore
Five years ago, carjackings in Memphis were concentrated in a predictable geography. North Memphis, South Memphis, parts of Whitehaven. The kind of neighborhoods where residents, fairly or not, expected a certain level of crime. That pattern has blown apart.
In 2020 and into early 2021, carjackings have hit gas stations along the Poplar Avenue corridor from Midtown to Germantown. Parking lots at Wolfchase Galleria have seen multiple incidents, including one in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon in December. Oak Court Mall’s parking garage, always a target because of its enclosed layout, had at least three reported carjackings between October and January. Driveways in Cordova, a suburb where people moved specifically to avoid this kind of crime, are showing up in police reports.
Germantown police reported their first carjacking in years last fall. It happened at a gas station on Germantown Parkway. The suspects were 15 and 16 years old.
That detail matters. A significant portion of the individuals arrested for carjackings in Memphis are juveniles. MPD has said publicly that suspects as young as 12 have been involved. The juvenile justice system cycles many of them back onto the streets within days. Officers arrest the same kids multiple times. Judges’ hands are tied by state sentencing guidelines for minors. The loop keeps spinning.
The Kia and Hyundai Factor
A newer trend is making the numbers worse. Certain Kia and Hyundai models manufactured between 2015 and 2021 lack electronic immobilizers, which means they can be started with a USB cable or a flathead screwdriver. Videos showing the technique have been circulating on social media since late 2020. In Milwaukee, police blamed a 2,500% increase in Kia thefts on the trend. Memphis is starting to see the same thing.
Thieves don’t need to confront anyone to steal these vehicles. They just need an empty parking lot and sixty seconds. For property managers running commercial parking facilities, this is a liability nightmare. A tenant’s Kia gets stolen from your garage, and the first question their insurance company asks is what security measures were in place.
What This Means for Private Security
The carjacking and auto theft surge is creating demand for security services in places that didn’t need them two years ago. Three areas are seeing the biggest growth.
Parking lot patrols. Shopping centers, office parks, apartment complexes, and hospital campuses are all increasing patrol frequency. The standard model of one guard doing a loop every two hours isn’t cutting it anymore. Property managers want visible presence, especially during evening hours and shift changes. Wolfchase-area retail properties have been the most aggressive about adding patrols, partly because the mall itself invested in additional security after negative press coverage.
Residential patrol services. Neighborhoods in East Memphis, Cordova, and Germantown are forming or expanding neighborhood watch programs and contracting with private patrol companies. The demand for marked patrol vehicles doing regular sweeps through residential streets has gone up sharply since the fall. Some homeowners’ associations in Cordova are splitting the cost of a dedicated patrol car during evening hours, running $3,000 to $5,000 per month depending on coverage area.
Valet and parking garage security. Hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues along Beale Street, in the Overton Square area, and around the Germantown restaurant district are adding security specifically to protect valet operations and customer vehicles. A carjacking in a restaurant parking lot is the kind of incident that kills business for months.
What Businesses and Property Managers Can Do Right Now
If you manage a commercial property in Shelby County, there are concrete steps that reduce your exposure without hiring an army.
Lighting is the cheapest fix and the most neglected. MPD’s crime prevention officers have said repeatedly that well-lit parking areas see fewer vehicle crimes. Yet drive through any strip mall parking lot on Summer Avenue after dark and you’ll find sections where half the pole lights are out. Replacing bulbs and adding LED fixtures in shadowed areas costs a fraction of what one stolen vehicle claim costs.
Camera placement needs to be rethought with carjacking in mind. Most existing camera systems are aimed at building entrances and loading docks. Parking areas often have sparse coverage. Modern cameras with license plate recognition can capture suspect vehicles entering and leaving the property. That footage has been critical in helping MPD identify serial offenders.
Access control for parking structures matters more than ever. A garage with an open entry point is an invitation. Card-access gates, even basic ones, create a barrier that opportunistic thieves won’t bother with. They want easy targets. Any friction you add pushes them to the next lot.
Employee education is free and effective. Distribute a memo reminding staff to lock their vehicles, avoid leaving them running to warm up, and report suspicious activity. At least two carjackings in the Poplar corridor this winter involved cars left idling while the owner ran inside a convenience store.
The Numbers Don’t Lie, and They Don’t Lie Down
Memphis PD’s year-to-date figures for 2021 show auto thefts tracking above last year’s pace through the first two months. Carjacking numbers are roughly flat compared to the same period in 2020, which was already elevated. The cold months usually bring a dip in these crimes. If the numbers are this high in January and February, summer could be brutal.
The national conversation around auto theft tends to focus on cities like San Francisco, where brazen smash-and-grabs make viral videos. Yet Memphis has been dealing with vehicle crime at a scale that dwarfs most cities its size. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report consistently ranks Memphis among the top five worst metro areas for auto theft. That ranking hasn’t improved in years.
For the security industry in Memphis, this isn’t going away soon. Juvenile justice reform moves slowly. The Kia/Hyundai vulnerability won’t be fixed until manufacturers issue recalls or owners install aftermarket immobilizers. Social media keeps showing young people that stealing a car is easy and rarely punished.
The firms getting ahead of this are the ones already talking to property managers, HOAs, and business owners about parking lot security plans. The ones waiting for an RFP will find themselves bidding against companies that already have relationships in place. In this market, being reactive means being late.