‘Reckless and irresponsible’: Tennessee DAs, Collierville chief respond to Mulroy use-of-force column

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Eight current and former members of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference and Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane are pushing back against Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy after he published an opinion piece in USA Today questioning police use-of-force training.

In the column, Mulroy said he attended a weeklong training by a private company called Force Science and came away concerned that officers are “trained to kill.”

Conference responds

The eight current and former conference members called Mulroy’s words “reckless” and “irresponsible.” They said Mulroy speaks only for himself — not Tennessee’s 31 other elected district attorneys.

The group said prosecutors decide cases based on evidence and law, not opinion pieces or political ideology.

Collierville police chief responds

Chief Lane said he was disappointed by Mulroy’s decision to evaluate national police training through the lens of a single class, saying the article leaves readers with “the false impression that deadly force is a regular occurrence.”

Lane said officers in many high-stress encounters “actively choose to utilize de-escalation tactics instead of lawful lethal force, deliberately taking on higher personal risk to preserve life” — outcomes he said the DA’s piece overlooks.

“There is a vast difference between analyzing a crisis from the safety of a desk and experiencing it in real time,” Lane said. “Investigators and critics have months to evaluate a file, while officers have mere fractions of a second to make split-second, life-altering decisions.”

Lane said he hopes Mulroy “will reconsider his stance and work alongside us to support the overwhelming majority of dedicated public servants in our region.”

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