Memphis News

Black youths arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, were much more likely than white juveniles to be jailed and tried as adults, discriminatory practices that also affect Hispanic youths in other cities, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

A review of 66,000 juvenile court cases in Memphis, where numerous abuses drew Justice Department investigators in 2009, revealed “serious and systemic failures” in the way youthful offenders were treated, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.

One of the top prospects in the state of Tennessee resides in Memphis. It appears that four star defensive end Frank Herron of Memphis Central High School, who recently picked up an offer from LSU, is thinking a lot about Tigers but not the ones from Baton Rouge.

State prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty in the fatal shooting of a police officer and another man at a downtown Memphis hotel last year. Alexander Haydel of Cleveland, Miss., is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of 39-year-old officer Tim Warren and 49-year-old Arthur Warren, who are not related.

The Commercial Appeal reports (http://bit.ly/HUkgxl ) that prosecutors announced during Haydel’s brief court appearance Wednesday that they will seek the death penalty. No trial date has been set.

Stooped after 91 years of living, Wilbur “Bill” Hoffman, still managed to stand tall as medals honoring his bravery during World War II were pinned on his chest in a ceremony on Tuesday.

Hoffman, then 20, was with the U.S. Army Rangers when they climbed the cliffs at Normandy on D-Day in 1944 and was wounded during the fighting but while recovering in a military hospital and feeling at the time that others had given so much more, Hoffman refused to accept a Purple Heart.

Forty-four years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of a Memphis hotel, the Tennessee city is overcoming what some call protracted guilt and embarrassment, and naming a street in his honor.

A nearly 1-mile stretch of Linden Avenue will be renamed Dr. M.L. King Jr. Avenue on Wednesday, the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s assassination.

A Memphis prosecutor told a jury a mother’s behavior after her baby daughter disappeared points to her being the child’s killer.

Shakara Dickens seemed more concerned with partying and getting new tattoo work as police searched for her 9-month-old daughter, Lauryn, prosecutor Jennifer Nichols said in opening statements Tuesday.

A convicted drug dealer said Wednesday he helped drug enforcement agents obtain a .45 caliber handgun used in a gang killing by arranging a secret handoff at a Memphis park.

TeMarcus Cartwright testified in the federal trial of cousins Clinton Lewis and Martin Lewis, who are charged with being contract killers for a drug gang led by Craig Petties. Cartwright’s statements about the gun used to kill Marcus Turner in September 2006 have been the focus of the trial since Monday.

A 16-year-old Memphis boy has been indicted in the fatal stabbing of his high school principal. The Shelby County district attorney’s office said Tuesday that Eduardo Marmolejo has been charged with first-degree murder in the killing of 49-year-old Suzette York.

York was the principal of Memphis Junior Academy, a private school affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist church.

With names like Isner, Roddick and Raonic in the men’s draw at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships this week, it’s easy to overlook the WTA’s Memphis International also going on through Saturday in Memphis.

A deep and international field came together on the women’s side and close matches throughout the week have been the rule rather than exception at the Racquet Club of Memphis.

According to data provider CoreLogic’s December Home Price Index (HPI), the value of residential real estate in Memphis fell for the seventh consecutive month.

Compared with home prices in December 2010, the company’s HPI indicated home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 5.4 percent. November 2011 was also a tough month for sellers of residential real estate — home prices were down 5.1 percent compared with the same period in 2010.