The State Released the Chase Data. It Is in Court to Keep the Chase Rules Secret.

The director of Memphis's Institute for Public Service Reporting has sued the Tennessee Department of Safety for the Highway Patrol's vehicle pursuit policy, after the department handed over pursuit data but called the rules governing those pursuits confidential.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security will tell the public how many high-speed chases its troopers ran in Memphis. It is now defending, in court, its refusal to say what its own rules for those chases are.

Marc Perrusquia, director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, filed suit against the department in Davidson County Chancery Court, the Institute reported on August 20. Perrusquia requested the Tennessee Highway Patrol's vehicle pursuit policy in February 2026 while investigating the surge in high-speed chases that followed the Memphis Safe Task Force's launch. The department released pursuit data in response but withheld the policy itself, claiming confidentiality.

Paul McAdoo of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who represents Perrusquia, argues that no exemption in the Tennessee Public Records Act justifies withholding a policy that governs how armed state officers pursue drivers on public streets.

The data the department did release is the reason the policy matters. By the Institute's analysis, 75 vehicle pursuits occurred during the task force's first five weeks of operation, which began in late September. The Highway Patrol initiated 66 of them, and 29 ended in crashes. Some pursuits exceeded 100 miles per hour and followed minor traffic violations. The Institute reports that at least three people have died in chases since then, including photographer Reggie Pederson in August 2026.

The 901 Report has covered the task force's toll separately, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's inquiries into eight use-of-force incidents involving task force officers, four of them fatal.

This is a civil public-records case. It accuses no one of a crime; the question before the Chancery Court is whether a state agency may keep an operational policy secret while the operations it governs kill people.

Why It Matters for Memphis

The chases at issue happened here. Memphis streets carried the 75 pursuits, the 29 crashes, and the deaths the Institute has counted. Memphians cannot evaluate whether troopers followed their own rules, or whether those rules are adequate, without seeing them. A ruling for the department would also give every Tennessee law enforcement agency a template for shielding operational policy from the public that funds it.

The Transparency Gap

Who holds the authority here. A state agency headquartered in Nashville sets the rules under which armed officers chase drivers through Memphis neighborhoods, and that agency decides for itself what the public may see of those rules. No Memphis body has a say. The City Council does not approve the Highway Patrol's pursuit policy, MPD does not supervise state troopers, and the Shelby County Commission has no role. The only check available is the Tennessee Public Records Act, and the department's position is that the Act does not reach this document. That question now sits with a Davidson County chancellor, roughly 200 miles from the streets where the pursuits happened.

What has not been disclosed. The pursuit policy itself has not been released. The specific statutory exemption the department claims has not been stated publicly. The Chancery Court case number is not in the available reporting. Whether the department has released pursuit data covering any period after the task force's first five weeks is unknown, which means the public count effectively stops in late 2025 while the pursuits did not. And MPD's own pursuit policy, governing city officers on the same streets, has not been produced or requested on the record.

Why the gap matters, and what we are requesting. The department has already conceded the part that is usually hardest to pry loose. It gave up the numbers: 75 pursuits, 66 of them trooper-initiated, 29 crashes, speeds over 100 miles per hour, some of it starting from minor traffic violations. What it will not give up is the one document that would let anyone judge whether those numbers represent policy working or policy failing. Without the rules, the data is a body count with no standard attached to it, and every question a resident might ask about a specific chase is unanswerable by construction. The 901 Report is requesting the Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle pursuit policy, the department's written denial and the exemption it cites, the complaint and the department's answer in the Davidson County Chancery Court case, Tennessee Highway Patrol pursuit data for Shelby County from the task force's launch through the present, and the Memphis Police Department's own vehicle pursuit policy and pursuit data for the same period. We will report what those records show.

Your city. Your money. Your receipts.

The State Released the Chase Data. It Is in Court to Keep the Chase Rules Secret.

Why It Matters for Memphis

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