Three days ago, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd begged for air. Floyd died. The video went everywhere. And now American cities are on fire.
Minneapolis burned first. Then Louisville. Then cities across the country, one after another, like dominoes falling on a map. Last night, protests erupted on Beale Street here in Memphis. Crowds gathered near 201 Poplar, the Shelby County jail and courts complex where so many Black Memphians have had their own encounters with a system they don’t trust. This morning, downtown business owners are calling their security companies. I know because those security companies are calling me.
This is what I can tell you right now, on the morning of May 28, 2020.
Memphis Is Not Minneapolis. It Might Be Worse.
Every city has its own history with race and policing. Memphis carries more weight than most.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. He was in Memphis to support sanitation workers, Black men who were striking for basic dignity and fair wages. The city tore itself apart in the aftermath. Decades later, those wounds still haven’t fully closed. You can draw a straight line from the 1968 sanitation strike to the protests forming right now on Beale Street.
Memphis knows how this goes. The city has lived through it before. That institutional memory cuts both ways. It means some protesters carry a generational fury that runs deeper than what happened in Minneapolis. It also means the city, its leaders, its police, its people, has a frame of reference for what’s coming.
MPD Director Michael Rallings condemned the killing almost immediately. He called the video “disturbing” and said the officers involved should face justice. That matters. Rallings has spent years trying to build trust between MPD and Memphis communities, and his response this week will either strengthen or shatter that work.
The Calls Are Already Coming In
I spoke with four security company owners yesterday afternoon and again this morning. Every single one reported the same thing: their phones are ringing off the hook.
Downtown Memphis businesses want guards. Tonight. Tomorrow. For the weekend. Property managers on Main Street and Second Street want overnight patrol. A restaurant group on South Main asked one company to post armed officers at three locations starting Friday.
“I had a client call me at 11 p.m. last night asking if I could have two guards at his storefront by midnight,” one owner told me. “He saw the news from Minneapolis and panicked.”
The demand is real. Whether security companies can meet it is a separate question entirely. Remember, these firms were already stretched thin from COVID reopening duties. Guards are screening temperatures, counting heads, and dealing with mask confrontations. Now they’re being asked to protect storefronts from potential civil unrest. The workload just doubled overnight, and the labor pool didn’t grow at all.
What Private Security Can and Cannot Do
This is critical, and I want to be direct about it because the legal lines matter.
Private security guards in Tennessee are licensed through the state to protect property and people. They are not law enforcement. They cannot arrest protesters. They cannot use force to disperse crowds. They cannot block public sidewalks or streets. Their authority begins and ends at the property line of whatever client they’re serving.
An armed guard posted outside a business on Union Avenue can observe. They can report. They can deter through visible presence. If someone attempts to break into the property, they can respond within the boundaries of Tennessee law regarding defense of property and self-defense. That’s it.
The temptation during civil unrest is to project force. Stand out front with visible weapons and an aggressive posture, hoping the show of strength keeps people away. In my experience covering this industry, that approach backfires more often than it works. An armed guard staring down a crowd of angry protesters is one bad moment away from a tragedy.
The smart companies know this. They’re telling their guards to stay calm, stay visible, stay on the property, and stay out of confrontations.
Board Up or Stand Guard?
Some downtown businesses aren’t waiting to find out how the weekend goes. I drove through the area this afternoon, and plywood is already going up on windows along Main Street. A couple of shops near Beale have covered their glass entirely. Others are leaving storefronts open and hoping for the best.
The boarding-up trend tells you something about expectations. Business owners who lived through unrest before, or watched what happened to shops in Minneapolis over the past three nights, aren’t taking chances. Plywood is cheaper than plate glass, and insurance claims are a nightmare even when they pay out.
For security companies, the calculus is straightforward. A boarded-up building still needs someone watching it. Plywood stops a thrown rock. It doesn’t stop a determined person with a crowbar. Clients who board up still want patrol. Clients who don’t board up want even more patrol.
The Liability Question Nobody Wants to Ask
Here’s the part of this conversation that makes security company owners uncomfortable. What happens when a guard gets hurt during a protest? What happens when a guard hurts someone?
Workers’ compensation in Tennessee covers injuries sustained on the job, and civil unrest doesn’t automatically void that coverage. If a guard is posted at a client site and gets injured by a thrown object or a physical altercation, that’s a workplace injury. The company’s insurance should cover it.
The scarier scenario is the other direction. A guard overreacts. Draws a weapon. Uses force against a protester. In that moment, the security company is exposed to civil liability, potential criminal charges for the guard, and the kind of media coverage that ends businesses.
Every company I talked to this week said they’re briefing their guards on rules of engagement. One firm sent a written memo to all field staff yesterday with three words circled at the top: “Observe. Report. Protect.” No engagement with crowds. No verbal confrontations. No weapons drawn unless there’s an immediate threat to life.
That’s the right call. Whether every guard follows it in a tense moment at 2 a.m. is another matter.
What Rallings and MPD Will Do
Director Rallings has been vocal about his stance on the Floyd killing, and that’s important. A police director who acknowledges the anger has a better shot at managing it than one who dismisses it.
MPD will almost certainly increase patrols downtown and in areas where protests form. They’ll coordinate with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office for the area around 201 Poplar. Whether they request outside assistance (state troopers, National Guard) depends on how the next few nights unfold.
For private security, the MPD response matters because it defines the operational environment. Heavy police presence means security guards can focus on their specific client sites. Light police presence means guards might find themselves as the only uniformed presence on a block at 3 a.m. with nobody to call for immediate backup.
I’ve heard from two company owners who’ve already reached out to their MPD contacts to coordinate. That’s smart. Communication between private security and law enforcement during civil unrest isn’t optional. It’s survival.
The Next 72 Hours
I don’t know what Memphis looks like on Monday morning. Nobody does. The protests forming right now could remain peaceful. They could escalate. Other cities will provide clues. If Atlanta, Nashville, and St. Louis see violent unrest tonight and tomorrow, Memphis will likely follow a similar path.
What I do know is this: the private security industry in Memphis is about to face its most difficult operational period in decades. The last time anything close to this scale hit the city was the 1968 riots, and the modern private security industry barely existed then.
Companies need to do five things right now.
First, brief every single guard on rules of engagement. Written instructions. Signed acknowledgment. No ambiguity.
Second, identify high-risk client sites. Downtown storefronts, banks, retail locations near protest routes. Prioritize staffing at those locations.
Third, coordinate with MPD. Know who to call and when. Make sure guards have dispatch numbers saved in their phones.
Fourth, review insurance policies. Make sure general liability and workers’ comp are current and adequate. Call your broker today, not Monday.
Fifth, talk to your guards honestly. Some of them are angry about George Floyd too. Some of them have their own stories about police encounters. Some of them won’t want to stand between protesters and a storefront. That’s a conversation you need to have now, face to face, before the weekend starts.
Memphis has a long memory. The city knows pain. It knows rage. What the next few days bring depends on a thousand decisions made by thousands of people, from Rallings all the way down to the guard standing alone outside a boarded-up shop on Main Street at midnight.
I’ll be covering this as it develops. Stay safe.
Marcus Johnson covers the Memphis security industry. Contact him at marcus@memphissecurityinsider.com.