Shelby County prosecutors on Monday released four videos from the July night two Tennessee National Guard soldiers shot 20-year-old Tyrin Johnson dead on a downtown Memphis sidewalk. NBC News and Action News 5 have seen the footage and describe the same hole in it: the chase is there, the aftermath is there, and the seconds in which Johnson was shot are not. We have not watched the videos ourselves, so this rests on how those two outlets describe them. The hole matters because the only account of those seconds so far belongs to the soldiers.
What the soldiers say
A Tennessee National Guard report obtained by the AP says Johnson “rounded on them and pointed a tan handgun at them.” Both soldiers fired their M17 service pistols.
What the autopsy says
One bullet entered the right side of his back and left through his upper right chest, with no soot, stippling or muzzle imprint. A forensic pathologist told the AP that points to a shot from more than three feet away.
What the Footage Shows
Johnson was armed, NBC reports, and the sequence the two outlets lay out starts with him firing his gun. In order:
- Around 4 a.m. on July 5, near AutoZone Park, Johnson fires shots into the air toward a group of men and runs. His loved ones call them warning shots.
- A Memphis police body camera records the sound of that gun. Two officers start chasing him.
- Less than 90 seconds later, gunfire is heard on the same recording.
- The officers round a corner and find Johnson on the sidewalk, surrounded by Guard members. A soldier says “Turn over!” An officer says, “Hey, leave that gun alone!”
- The body camera shows soldiers pointing handguns at Johnson as he lies on his back, shouting “Hands!” At least six Guard members are on the scene.
The encounter between the soldiers and Johnson is not in that list because it is not on the tape. Family attorney André Wharton said the footage leaves out what matters most: “What is absent is that he was running away, and that is critical to this investigation.” A community organizer working with the family had said in July that a video not yet public contradicted the police account. Nothing we have read establishes whether the footage released Monday is that video.
A Back Wound Settles Less Than It Seems
An entry wound in the back does not prove a man was running. Someone turning toward a threat can be hit from behind and to the side, and the autopsy as reported does not say which way Johnson was facing. What it does give the public is the one tension anyone can currently measure: a report that has him facing the soldiers, against a wound that has the bullet arriving from behind.
A second mismatch sits inside the autopsy itself. Its investigative narrative, which draws on an account from a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent, says officers “saw the unknown male draw a firearm” and “shot at the unknown male, striking him once in the chest.” The wound documentation says the bullet went in at the back and came out through the chest. A secondhand narrative and a pathologist’s measurement describe the same body in two directions, and a charging decision should trust the measurement.
Soldiers on Patrol, Four Dead
The federal task force was involved in four fatal shootings between May and July, NBC reports, and Johnson’s was one of them. President Trump created that task force, and Gov. Bill Lee deployed the Guard to support it.
We think that is the story, more than any single frame. Soldiers are trained to end a threat. Put them on a downtown street at 4 a.m. with service pistols, next to a police chase, and four deaths in a few months is what that mismatch costs. A Guard spokesperson did not respond to NBC’s request for comment, and the soldiers’ attorney, Ed Yarbrough, said they had no comment.
District Attorney Steve Mulroy has not decided whether to file charges, and the TBI is still investigating. Mulroy said he made a commitment to release videos “when doing so would not interfere with an investigation.” That was the right call, and it is incomplete.
Three Things That Should Happen Next
- Say whether the soldiers wore cameras. The body camera footage described so far is Memphis police’s, and the Guard has said nothing about its own.
- Weigh the physical evidence first. The wound path and the range finding are measurements. The Guard report is the shooters’ own word, and a charging decision should not start there.
- Publish the investigators’ timeline of where Johnson was facing when each shot was fired, if they know.
Four videos exist, and the one thing they were needed for is not in them. Either the moment was never filmed or it has not been shown. Someone with authority should say which.