MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Authorities on Friday raided and shut down the Governor’s Inn on Mount Moriah after declaring it a public nuisance.
During a nearly two-year investigation, the Memphis Police Department said their officers responded to approximately 57 calls involving robberies, rape, prostitution, aggravated assaults, drug sales and drug possession, drug overdose deaths, armed parties, suspicious persons and theft.
During that time, 20 people were arrested. Police say eight of those were already wanted on warrants.
Two years ago almost to the day, Bruce Love’s brother, Donnell Love, was murdered at the Governor’s Inn during a robbery.
“Always crime over here, always always. Once or twice a week there’s a parking lot full of cop cars,” he told us at the time. “Something needs to be done security-wise. This is a bad place.”
That same year, employees were robbed at gunpoint two months in a row.
Before that in 2016, police investigated at least three shootings there.
That all happened after the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office shut the motel down for the first time in 2014 for the same problems.
At the time, police said they had been called to the Governor’s Inn 175 times in less than a year on complaints of robbery, aggravated assault, drugs and theft.
D.A. Amy Weirch said investigators found marijuana, heroine and cocaine inside.
“We as a community are not going to tolerate drug sales and criminal activity on your business premise,” D.A. Amy Weirich said after declaring the business a public nuisance for the first time.
But before long, it was back open.
Some people living nearby say the motel needs more of a constant police presence.
“If they had like more supervision like that I guess – more officers – I think it would take crime down a little bit,” one man told WREG.
But overall, crime seems to be down at the motel.
Police responded to more than three times as many calls back in 2014 when it was shut down the first time.
The motel will be shut down until at least Tuesday when the owner and manager head to court for a hearing.
