Stolen Kia reports in Memphis are up nearly 1,000% compared to this time last year. That’s not a typo. Memphis Police Department data shows the city is on pace to shatter every auto theft record in its history, and we’re barely into March.
The warm weather hasn’t even arrived yet. Historically, property crime in Memphis ticks upward between March and October, peaking in the summer months when longer days and higher temperatures put more people outside, more cars in parking lots, and more opportunities in front of people looking for them. If the first ten weeks of 2023 are any indication, this spring and summer could be brutal.
And all of this is happening while the city is still adjusting to life without SCORPION.
The Auto Theft Explosion
Memphis has always had an auto theft problem. The city regularly lands among the top five metropolitan areas nationally for vehicle theft per capita, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. What’s different in 2023 is the speed of the increase and the reason behind it.
The Kia and Hyundai vulnerability is driving much of the surge. A TikTok trend that emerged in mid-2022 showed teenagers how to start certain Kia and Hyundai models manufactured between 2011 and 2021 using nothing more than a USB cable. These vehicles lacked engine immobilizers, a standard anti-theft feature that other manufacturers had included for years. The “Kia Boys” trend, as social media labeled it, spread from Milwaukee to St. Louis to Memphis within months.
MPD reported that stolen Kias alone jumped nearly 1,000% year-over-year in early 2023. Hyundai thefts followed a similar trajectory. The vehicles often turn up abandoned within hours, sometimes wrecked, sometimes stripped for parts. In many cases, the thefts are committed by juveniles who are joyriding rather than running a chop shop operation. That distinction matters legally because juvenile offenders cycle through the system faster and face lighter consequences.
The geography of auto theft in Memphis isn’t random. Parking lots along Poplar Avenue in East Memphis, the shopping centers near Wolfchase Galleria in Cordova, and apartment complexes in Hickory Hill have all seen spikes. Thieves target locations with large parking lots, minimal lighting, and no security presence. A Kia Optima parked overnight at an apartment complex on Winchester Road is a ten-second score for someone who knows the trick.
Hyundai and Kia announced a software update in February that adds an engine immobilizer to affected models, but the rollout is slow. Dealership service departments are backed up. Most affected vehicle owners in Memphis haven’t gotten the fix yet, and many don’t even know it exists.
SCORPION’s Absence in the Numbers
The SCORPION unit was disbanded on January 28, roughly three weeks after Tyre Nichols’ death. The unit, formally known as the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, had operated in Memphis’s highest-crime areas since 2021. Officers on the unit conducted saturation patrols, warrant sweeps, and proactive stops in neighborhoods like Frayser, Raleigh, Whitehaven, and Orange Mound.
Whatever your opinion on how SCORPION operated, the unit had a measurable effect on visible crime in those areas. When 200 officers shift from aggressive street-level enforcement to regular precinct duties, the math changes. Fewer proactive stops mean fewer guns recovered during those stops. Fewer warrant sweeps mean more outstanding warrants sitting in the system.
MPD hasn’t released granular Q1 crime data broken out by precinct yet. What we can see from the department’s public data portal is that aggravated assault and robbery numbers in North Memphis zip codes (38107, 38108, 38127) haven’t improved. Carjacking incidents, which had been a citywide problem throughout 2022, remain elevated. The Shelby County District Attorney’s office reported that juvenile carjacking arrests are running ahead of last year’s pace.
The gap is real. Residents in Frayser along Thomas Street and in Raleigh near Yale Road describe a noticeable change since late January. “You used to see them every night, the unmarked cars,” one Frayser resident told a local news station in February. “Now you might see a patrol car come through once, maybe twice a shift.”
That kind of anecdotal evidence lines up with what property managers across the city are telling me. Response times for non-emergency calls, which were already long in high-crime areas, have stretched further. A call about a suspicious person in a parking lot at 10 p.m. might get a response in 45 minutes. Or it might not get one at all.
Neighborhoods Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
The response to the SCORPION gap is playing out differently depending on the neighborhood and who’s paying the bills.
In Whitehaven, along Elvis Presley Boulevard between Shelby Drive and Holmes Road, business owners along the commercial strip have started informal conversations about pooling resources for private security patrols. Nothing formalized yet. Right now it’s business owners texting each other about incidents and a few of them talking to security companies about group rates. The economics are straightforward: a single business can’t afford a dedicated guard at $20 an hour for overnight shifts, but ten businesses splitting one mobile patrol can.
In Raleigh, community organizations connected to churches along Austin Peay Highway have been organizing citizen patrols on weekend nights. These aren’t armed patrols. They’re groups of residents driving predetermined routes, calling police when they see something, and posting updates to private Facebook groups. MPD’s Neighborhood Watch program provides some structure, but much of the organizing is happening independently.
Frayser has a longer history of community-led safety efforts. The Frayser Community Development Corporation has been coordinating neighborhood cleanup and safety initiatives for years. Since the SCORPION disbandment, their focus has shifted toward connecting residents with resources and working with MPD on communication strategies. The challenge in Frayser has always been trust: residents who felt over-policed by SCORPION officers are the same residents now feeling under-protected without them.
Cordova and Germantown, the suburbs east of Memphis, haven’t seen the same level of anxiety. Both areas have their own police departments (Germantown PD and Shelby County Sheriff’s Office for unincorporated Cordova), and crime rates there are a fraction of what inner-city Memphis experiences. Property crime is up slightly in both areas, consistent with the regionwide auto theft trend, but violent crime remains low.
The divide tells you something about who bears the cost of policing changes in Memphis. When a specialized unit gets disbanded, the impact isn’t distributed evenly across the city. It concentrates in the neighborhoods that unit was assigned to patrol.
What the Numbers Say About Spring
The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission publishes periodic reports tracking Part 1 crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Their most recent full-year data showed 2022 was one of the deadliest years in the city’s history, with over 300 homicides.
Early 2023 data is incomplete and the commission hasn’t released a Q1 report yet. What we can piece together from MPD’s weekly CompStat meetings and the public crime map: homicide numbers in January and February tracked roughly even with the same period in 2022. Auto theft is dramatically higher. Aggravated robbery is up in several precincts. Property crime overall is elevated.
Seasonal patterns suggest these numbers will climb through the spring. March through June has been the steepest incline for property crime in Memphis for at least the past decade. Add a viral auto theft method targeting millions of vulnerable vehicles and the removal of a 200-officer suppression unit from the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods, and you have the ingredients for a difficult spring.
What Property Managers and Business Owners Should Know
If you operate in Frayser, Raleigh, Whitehaven, Hickory Hill, or South Memphis, the next three months warrant a security review. Not a panic, but a review.
Check your parking lot lighting. The simplest auto theft deterrent costs a few hundred dollars per fixture. Well-lit lots with visible camera systems are less attractive targets than dark ones. If your cameras are fake or broken, fix them or replace them. A visible, functional camera deters more crime than a guard who may or may not be awake at 3 a.m.
If you’re considering private security patrols, talk to your neighbors about shared coverage. A single patrol vehicle covering a commercial strip on a four-hour overnight rotation costs less per business than individual coverage and provides a visible deterrent across a wider area. Several security companies in the Memphis market offer shared patrol contracts for exactly this scenario.
For vehicle fleet operators, the Kia and Hyundai vulnerability isn’t theoretical. If your business runs affected models, get them scheduled for the software update through the dealership. In the meantime, steering wheel locks are unglamorous and they work. The Club sells for $30 at the AutoZone on Union Avenue.
Memphis isn’t falling apart. The city has survived worse years than this one and come out the other side. What’s happening right now is a gap: the gap between the old approach to high-crime enforcement and whatever comes next. Gaps create opportunity, for criminals and for the businesses that help fill the void.
Spring is coming. So are the numbers that come with it.