Memphis Police Department (MPD) has shuttered the doors of the Economy Hotel at 3896 Lamar Ave. after a surge in criminal activities rendered it a public nuisance, according to official statements released today. In a detailed account of law enforcement efforts reported by Local Memphis, MPD's Organized Crime Unit (OCU) enforced the closure at approximately 10 a.m., following a temporary injunction issued by the court yesterday.
Officers were beckoned almost a thousand times between August 2022 and August 2024, responding to a litany of incidents including robberies, drug dealings, violent assaults, and fatalities, FOX13 Memphis outlined the hotel's grim statistics: 996 calls answered by the MPD and 172 offense reports filed.
The MPD, diligently compiling evidence of the multifaceted crimes at this location, funneled this documentation to the Shelby County Attorney General's Office, culminating in the court's classification of the hotel as a public nuisance, as revealed by FOX13 Memphis. Over the investigation's two-year course, a range of illegal acts were witnessed: homicides, narcotics sales, gang activities, alongside a tally of 41 arrests associated with the establishment.
