Warning: This story contains mention of suicide and mental illness. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
The night that her son was having a mental breakdown, Jessica Neal called 911, hoping to save his life.
Jonah Neal, 25, had a handgun and was threatening suicide. Instead of local police, federal agents arrived at her doorstep. Within minutes of entering her home, a special agent had shot her son, Neal said. It would be hours before she found out her son was dead, she added.
The agent was with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which operates under Immigration and Customs Enforcement. HSI was sent to Memphis as part of a crime-fighting task force composed of roughly 350 federal agents and 1,450 members of the Tennessee National Guard, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. It began last fall at the direction of President Trump and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
At least five people — including Jonah Neal in May — have been shot by a member of the Memphis Safe Task Force. Four of those confrontations were fatal. In one deadly encounter last week, two National Guard soldiers were the ones who fired their weapons.
Nationally, there has been a troubling drumbeat of shootings involving federal personnel as the Trump administration ramps up their use to address crime, clamp down on protests and conduct immigration enforcement. Last week, in Texas, an ICE officer fatally shot an immigrant from Mexico during a traffic stop — marking the 26th incident where an immigration agent shot at civilians during Trump’s second term, according to The Trace, an outlet focused on covering gun violence.
In its only press release regarding Jonah Neal’s death, which was released in May, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) said members of the task force encountered him “with multiple weapons inside the residence.” The TBI added, “At this time, it is not immediately clear whether Neal died as a result of the agent firing upon him or if it was self-inflicted stab wounds.”
In their first public interview since Jonah Neal died, his mother and his grandmother, Cindy Leachman Aldridge, told NPR it’s difficult to believe that a gunshot did not play a role in his death. They are asking to see any body-camera footage from that night.
“I want answers,” Neal said. “ It was May 20th and I still don’t know anything.”
The TBI told NPR that the investigation was ongoing and the bureau did not “have any information that we can share.” Neither the TBI nor U.S. Marshals Service, which leads the task force, responded to questions about whether the HSI agent who struck Jonah Neal has been placed on leave or remains on the task force.
In a statement, the office for Memphis Mayor Paul Young said he supports an independent review any time deadly force is used.
“Mayor Young expects those reviews to be completed fully and transparently, and he believes the facts should guide any conclusions,” the office added.
After a long struggle, Jonah Neal wanted to get better
Jonah Neal’s family described him as smart, quiet and caring. He loved watching anime, reading Twilight and listening to music, whether it be his grandmother’s Motown jams or Bob Marley.
“ He was such a happy little boy,” Leachman Aldridge said about her grandson. ”He was so full of life.”
Neal said her son was particularly good at math and science, and he wanted to be a doctor. After high school, the plan was for Jonah Neal to work at Sam’s Club and take a gap year before heading off to college. But starting in his 20s, Jonah Neal began to struggle with his mental health, according to his mother.
“He would say, ‘I can’t just be happy,'” she said.
A little while later, Jonah Neal started to seek alcohol to cope, Neal added. His mental health worsened after his father died last year. According to his mother, it was also difficult to get him help because he didn’t have health insurance.
In the months before his death, Neal said her son was becoming open to the idea of going to a rehab center. Then, on May 20, Neal said she came home and saw her son holding her handgun in her bedroom. According to Neal, her son attempted to take his own life but struggled to take off the gun’s safety component. Seeing this, Neal said she ran outside and called 911.
Not long afterward, three HSI agents appeared, Neal said. She assumed they were simply the nearest officers able to respond to the emergency. Upon meeting, Neal said one agent instructed her to wait outside. Minutes later, she heard a single gunshot ring out, she added.
Jonah Neal died on scene — though it would be hours until authorities told Neal, she said. For the rest of the night, Neal assumed her son had shot himself. It wasn’t until the next day, when her sister sent her an article about the incident, that Neal learned it was an agent who opened fire.
Since then, the family’s grief has been tangled with confusion over what happened — adding that Jonah Neal wasn’t the type to want to hurt anyone.
“ There wasn’t a mean bone in Jonah’s body, ever,” Leachman Aldridge said.
Neal said she was taken aback by the TBI’s statement that they found “weapons inside the residence.” According to Neal, she kept a few self-defense tools in case of intruders.
A string of shootings
The Memphis Safe Task Force launched last September. Since then, there have been at least five shootings involving federal agents or the National Guard, according to TBI data. In none of the five incidents were law enforcement officers injured, and all five cases remain under investigation, according to the TBI.
Federal and National Guard personnel work closely with local and state law enforcement in Memphis under the task force, often responding to relatively routine events, like traffic stops and 911 calls, alongside them.
The first task force-related shooting took place last October after agents spotted an attempted robbery suspect running off, the TBI said at the time. The shooting victim, who was not named, was critically wounded, according to the bureau.
In two deadly shootings that occurred on May 13 and July 8, both cases involved agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and took place while task force members were attempting to serve an arrest warrant.
Last Sunday, two Guard members were responsible for killing 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson in downtown Memphis. The TBI claims that officers were pursuing Johnson and he was armed with a handgun when the shooting occurred. His family is demanding to see video that supports authorities’ narrative. The U.S. Marshals Service and Tennessee National Guard say the Guard there does not own or wear bodycams.
Gov. Lee had originally said Guard members would not be armed or make arrests, unless specifically requested by local law enforcement. On Sunday, the U.S. Marshals Service told NPR that all Guard personnel “involved in direct support to law enforcement in Memphis have been armed for the defense of themselves and others since the start of this mission in October.”
A troubling pattern as Trump declares task force a success
When the task force was first announced, Miriam R. Nemeth, the executive director for the ACLU of Tennessee, said her first worry was whether Memphis would see more instances of deadly force.
“ It was the first thing I feared and that fear grew to a deep pit in my stomach when we saw what happened in Minneapolis to people involved in the protest there,” she said, referring to the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti.
“I turned to my colleagues and I said, ‘Memphis is next. I’m terrified that Memphis is next,'” she added.
Nemeth called the string of shootings “deeply concerning” and said the issue won’t go away on its own: “I fear that it’s not and the way to get to the end of this is to have more accountability and to have a real reckoning about what the task force is doing in Memphis,” she said.
There are many layers of complications that come with large multiagency federal task forces — which Trump has said he wanted to replicate in other cities, and has been carrying out in Washington, D.C., for almost a year, according to Thaddeus Johnson, a former high-ranking Memphis police officer and now senior fellow for the Council on Criminal Justice.
He said there are different communication styles, types of training, practices in de-escalation, priorities and even equipment, like body cameras or weapons. And at a very basic level, many of the federal officers coming in aren’t familiar with the environment they’re working in.
“You’re not trained for it. You don’t have a connection to the community, and you’re coming in like a foreign invader,” Johnson said. “It’s a very shortsighted way to view public safety.”
It also means that when something like an officer-involved shooting happens, it’s not clear how to get answers, with so many agencies involved.
“Who is responsible? Who and how do we hold people accountable? I think oftentimes, pointing back at the civilians, they’re not sure who is in charge,” he said.
The White House did not respond to a request to comment on the task force-related shootings. But the incidents took place just months after Trump visited Memphis and declared that crime had been “fixed” in the city.
“That’s the reason I’m here, to tell you how well you’ve done, how well we’ve done,” he said in March.
The Memphis Safe Task Force has resulted in more than 10,900 arrests and over 1,800 illegal firearms seized, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. But more broadly, crime had been trending downward in recent years, according to city data.
Jonah Neal’s family demands answers for them and others
As Neal and Leachman Aldridge mourn, they are also grappling with the fact that they are not the only ones who lost a loved one to the task force.
“I want answers,” Leachman Aldridge said. “Not only for us, but for these other young gentlemen whose family has lost them because of the task force.”
At Jonah Neal’s funeral last month, his younger sister wrote the eulogy, which recalled his days running cross-country in high school and his deep affection for his dog, Flynn. Although Jonah Neal struggled in his final years, family members and his best friend spoke at length about the good moments and the joy he brought to their lives.
Neal, too, said she never forgot who her son was beyond the pain he was experiencing. She said she prayed every night for him and clung to success stories of people who overcame depression and addiction — thinking one day soon, he would be one of them.
“ I never gave up hope,” Neal said.
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