The 901: Memphis averts mass church shooting tragedy

Good Wednesday morning from Memphis, where One Beale has finally broken ground and this column is on hiatus tomorrow and Friday before returning Tuesday. But first...

The big news in Memphis yesterday was about a mass shooting that never happened.

That's because federal agents arrested Florida truck driver Thomas Matthew McVicker, 38, in Indianapolis on suspicion that he was planning a mass shooting at an undisclosed church in Memphis. McVicker, whose mother says he's on medication for schizophrenia and uses cocaine and meth, told a friend that "spiritual snakes" and evil "entities" were attacking and torturing him but didn't say why he targeted a Memphis church.

Our Laura Testino has more about McVicker and his alleged plans here.

The case highlights the importance of the phrase, "See something, say something." Thank God for McVicker's friend who reported his plans before he could carry 

We don't know yet whether McVicker's case is related to the threats against two other churches in Bartlett, The New Hope Christian Church and Christ Church, our Micaela Watts reports. More on those cases and the eerie similarities from Micaela's story:

Family members told police that the person who left the notes has several mental health issues, according to BPD. 

"The letters in question are not that of a direct threat of imminent violence but more related to delusional ideologies," BPD wrote on Facebook.

The person who left the letters is no longer in the Mid-South metropolitan area and police said there is no apparent threat to Barlett.

It's no wonder that in the wake of recent mass shootings and threats that churches and other worship places are beefing up their security, as our Katherine Burgess reports. Here's the reaction from New Direction Christian Church pastor, the Rev. Stacy Spencer:

“With the heightened rhetoric of racism and hate that has been out on the airways recently and the attacks against black churches and synagogues and mosques, we’ve taken precaution to make sure that our security are always alert," Spencer said. “Jesus told his disciples to be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. We’re a loving congregation and yet we also have to be watchful and discerning of any odd behavior, any peculiar patterns. So we watch and pray."

Here are the court documents we have on the McVicker case:

Speaking of potential mass murder: Martez Tarrell Abram, the suspect in a shooting at the Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi, is fighting his extradition back to DeSoto County, where he faces charges related to the slaying of two people and the wounding of a police officer, our Katherine Burgess reports. Abram is currently recovering from a gunshot wound in Shelby County.

Where's U of M's minimum wage plan?

The University of Memphis had a "definitive plan" to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour for some 300+ custodians, we were told via Twitter by President David Rudd.

But it's looking more and more like there never was a real plan.

That's according to the reporting of our Katherine Burgess, who has filed several public records request in a quest for the plan mentioned by Rudd. Not only did the records request not turn up a plan — it found evidence that there never was a plan to start with:

According to a July 10 email, just three days after Harris vetoed funding to the university in an effort to force them to raise the minimum wage, Chief Financial Officer Raaj Kurapati emailed Rudd saying he would work with others to develop a plan, suggesting that one did not exist.

“I have several ideas on how we get to 15 in two years,” Kurapati wrote in the email. 

To be fair, maybe Rudd has a detailed, 4-5 year plan stashed in some vault somewhere and one day soon he'll pull it out and surprise us all. Or maybe he meant "definitive" and "plan" in the loosest of loose senses, in that he had a definitive plan in his own mind. But if that's the case, then he should say so instead of ghosting reporters. The longer you wait, the more it hurts when you get around to ripping off the Band-Aid.

Shelby County Lee Harris had an, um, less charitable take on the missing plan:

“I’m pretty sure I won’t live forever, I’m pretty sure I’ll always have to pay taxes and I’m pretty sure they never had a plan to pay their employees $15 an hour,” Harris said in an interview earlier this month. “In my opinion, it appears there was some deliberate attempt to mislead the public, and that’s unfortunate.”

Of course, even if Rudd was deliberately misleading the public, as Harris accuses, that still doesn't mean Harris was right to veto $1 million in county funding for a new U of M pool that will include programs teaching kids how to swim. While I respect that Harris is taking a principled, politically disadvantageous stand, I've opined before that Harris should be working with, not against, an institution so crucial to the future of Memphis.

What's really sad about this brouhaha is how avoidable it all was. After Harris' veto, all the U of M had to say was that it was already committed to raising its minimum wage and that a plan is forthcoming but that it hopes the county will see the benefits in supporting a project that will help the community. That's it. PR 101. Controversy over.

But unless the U of M or Harris changes their approach, it's looking like neither side will make it out of this controversy without a black eye.

One Beale project (finally) is underway

Thirteen years after it was first announced, the One Beale project overlooking the Mississippi River in Downtown Memphis is finally and officially under construction.

Our Desiree Stennett covered the groundbreaking ceremony for the project, which in the latest plans includes "high-end apartments, a full-service Hyatt hotel, an office tower and space for a restaurant, retail and events." Here's Chance Carlisle, CEO of Carlisle Corp., talking about the significance of the project and the fears it would never happen:

"To be here today puts [fears the project won't happen] to bed," Carlisle said of the groundbreaking ceremony. "It's been an amazing journey; we have so much farther to go. I really do believe that Memphians are going to wake up five, six years from now and see a Downtown that is completely different and yet the same Downtown that we've always had. I think One Beale shows a way to do that."

I've written in previous columns (most recently here) about why Carlisle is exactly right about Downtown looking radically different in five or six years. Just to zip through the list, there's St. Jude's deep-pocketed expansion, the proposed Union Row mixed-use development, the planned Tom Lee Park revamp, the Memphis Cook Convention Center renovation, One Beale, the Clipper, FedEx Logistics, the Loews hotel, etc.

In short, Downtown Memphis is going from "happened" to "happening."

Here's more from Carlisle about how One Beale fits into that excitement:

Things to know, places to go, in the 901

• For subscribers: Our Phillip Jackson has a deep dive into the question of whether police body cameras are responsible for a reduction in internal affairs complaints in Memphis and elsewhere.
• Catfish Cabin, the Memphis restaurant that never recovered from having its health code violations flaunted on celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's "24 Hours to Hell and Back" in January, has a new owner and a new name, our Jennifer Chandler reports. The handoff is scheduled for Sept. 1.
• RIP, Ronzo: Well-known artist Ron Shapiro of Oxford, Mississippi, died of cancer on Monday, our John Beifuss reports.
• Just because Germantown's annual Running of the Weenies isn't until next month doesn't mean you can't enjoy all of the dachshund photos and videos in this Corinne Kennedy story about the preparations.
• The Teamsters want more transparency in FedEx lobbying, our Max Garland reports.
• Our David Cobb shadowed Ja Morant as he helped 25 local kids spend $100 on athletic gear.

The Fadeout: Grace Askew

Native Memphian Grace Askew, a contestant on the fourth season of NBC's sing-off show "The Voice," has a new music video for her song, "Let's Sleep In," off of her forthcoming album "Denim & Diesel." That's set to drop Aug. 30. Here's the video:

Like The Fadeout? The 901's Spotify playlist has all the Fadeouts featuring local artists.

Columnist Ryan Poe writes The 901, a running commentary on all things Memphis. Reach him at poe@commercialappeal.com and on Twitter @ryanpoe.

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