At 5:47 this morning, a line of about forty people stood outside the Target on Colonial Road in Cordova. The temperature sat at 38 degrees. Two Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies leaned against their cruiser in the parking lot, watching the crowd. A Tennessee National Guard Humvee was parked near the entrance, which would have seemed bizarre any other year. Nobody gave it a second look today.
That’s the mood across Memphis this Thanksgiving. Eleven days ago, a shooting inside Wolfchase Galleria killed one person and sent shoppers scrambling for exits. Now the biggest shopping day of the year has arrived, and the tension between deal-hunting and personal safety is playing out in every major retail corridor in the city.
Operation Jingle Bells
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office launched Operation Jingle Bells today, a holiday security initiative running from November 28 through December 26. The program puts additional deputies at shopping centers throughout the county. Lieutenant Calvin Grantham told local media that officers will be “out in extreme force,” especially around closing time.
This year’s version is different. The SCSO has partnered with the Tennessee National Guard to expand coverage beyond what the department can staff alone. Guard members are posted inside Wolfchase Galleria, at several Target locations, and near other high-traffic retail zones.
I spoke with three shoppers at Wolfchase this afternoon. Two of them didn’t even know about the November 17 shooting until they noticed the National Guard presence and asked someone what was going on. The third, a woman from Bartlett who declined to give her name, said she’d thought about staying home. “I almost didn’t come,” she told me. “Then I figured if there’s National Guard here, it’s probably safer today than any random Tuesday.”
That logic tracks with what law enforcement intended. Grantham said the entire point is visibility. Deputies are watching for large groups who might be casing vehicles, cars circling parking areas, and anything that seems off.
What Retailers Are Dealing With
Black Friday shoplifting is an annual problem everywhere, and Memphis is no exception. The National Retail Federation estimated that retail theft cost the industry over $112 billion in 2022, and those numbers have climbed since. Memphis consistently ranks among the top cities for retail crime.
The local picture is more specific than national statistics suggest. Organized retail theft rings have targeted stores along the Poplar Avenue corridor and in the Hickory Hill area for years. These aren’t teenagers pocketing a phone case. They’re coordinated groups hitting multiple locations in a single day, stealing high-value merchandise for resale.
During holiday shopping season, the volume of legitimate customers makes detection harder. Loss prevention teams at stores in Wolfchase Galleria and Saddle Creek have to balance surveillance with customer service. Too aggressive, and you drive away paying customers. Too relaxed, and your shrinkage numbers spike.
I talked to a loss prevention manager at a Saddle Creek retailer who asked to stay anonymous because his company’s media policy prohibits individual employees from speaking to press. He said his team staffs up 40% for the Black Friday weekend and runs a tighter floor plan that keeps high-value merchandise closer to registers.
“We change the layout the week before Thanksgiving,” he said. “Anything over a hundred dollars in retail value gets moved to a position where we have clear sightlines. We’ve been doing it for three years and it works.”
Parking Lot Crimes: The Overlooked Threat
Most shoppers worry about what happens inside the store. The real risk, statistically, is in the parking lot.
Vehicle break-ins spike hard during the holiday shopping season. The pattern is predictable. Someone shops for an hour, loads bags into their car, then goes back inside for another round. Thieves watch for exactly this. A car sitting in a busy lot with visible shopping bags is an easy target.
Wolfchase Galleria’s parking lot covers an enormous area. So does the lot at Carrefour at Kirby Woods, which sits at the intersection of Kirby Parkway and Poplar Avenue. These sprawling lots are difficult to patrol effectively even with extra security.
Memphis Police Department held a holiday safety session earlier this month to train officers and business owners on keeping shoppers safe. The advice they gave was practical: park near lights, don’t leave bags visible in your vehicle, shop in pairs after dark, and keep your phone charged.
Simple stuff. The kind of advice people nod at and then ignore.
The Staffing Crunch Behind the Scenes
What most shoppers don’t see is how thin private security is stretched this weekend. Every major retail location in Memphis wants extra guards for Black Friday through the end of December. The supply of licensed, trained officers can’t always match that demand.
Security companies across the metro area have been running recruitment drives since October. The problem isn’t just finding warm bodies. Tennessee requires guards to be registered through TDCI, and the licensing process takes time. You can’t hire someone on Monday and post them at a mall entrance on Friday.
Armed guards are even harder to come by. The firearms qualification requirements, the background checks, the training hours: all of it creates a bottleneck that gets worse during peak season.
Some retailers solve this by contracting with national firms that can pull officers from other markets. Others rely on local companies that know the Memphis territory and have long-standing relationships with property managers. Each approach has trade-offs. The national firm can staff up faster. The local company knows which parking lot exit gets the most break-ins and which stairwell attracts loiterers.
What I’m Watching This Weekend
As I write this on Thanksgiving evening, the early reports from today’s shopping are mostly calm. Wolfchase was busy starting around 6 AM. Saddle Creek saw heavy traffic by midmorning. The Carrefour at Kirby Woods shopping center filled up around noon.
No major incidents reported yet, which is good news. The real test comes Friday afternoon and Saturday, when the biggest crowds hit and the fatigue factor kicks in for both shoppers and security staff.
Three things I’ll be tracking through the weekend:
Whether the National Guard presence at Wolfchase continues at the same level or tapers off after the initial show of force. Guard deployments are expensive, and they can’t stay forever.
How parking lot crime numbers compare to last year. MPD typically releases preliminary data within a week of the holiday weekend. Those numbers tell you more about the state of retail security in Memphis than anything else.
Whether any of the smash-and-grab activity that plagued several Memphis shoe stores and electronics retailers this fall shows up at the major shopping centers. Organized retail theft doesn’t take holidays.
Staying Safe This Weekend
If you’re heading out to shop over the next few days, the advice from MPD and SCSO is worth repeating even if it sounds obvious.
Stay aware of your surroundings in parking lots. This matters more than anything you do inside the store. Keep your head up. Don’t sit in your parked car scrolling through your phone with the doors unlocked.
Carry your purchases in smaller batches to your car if possible, rather than making one massive trip at the end. If you’re shopping at Wolfchase or one of the larger centers, consider moving your car to a spot closer to your next store rather than walking across a massive lot loaded with bags.
Travel with someone when you can. After-dark shopping at any Memphis retail center is safer with a companion.
And if you see something that looks wrong, report it. SCSO’s Operation Jingle Bells has extra deputies specifically positioned to respond. Use them.
The holiday shopping season in Memphis is always a mix of excitement and edge. This year, that edge is sharper than usual. The presence of National Guard troops inside a suburban mall tells you everything about where we are. The fact that shoppers are still showing up in big numbers tells you something too.
Memphis doesn’t scare easy.