NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The grandfather of a man who was shot and killed by the Tennessee National Guard in Memphis over the weekend says he wants answers from law enforcement.
Evaniel Johnson said he is waiting to see if video footage supports the police narrative that his 20-year-old grandson, Tyrin Johnson, turned toward U.S. guard members with a gun while running from them early Sunday. Memphis police say the guard members were responding to a report of gunfire.
The National Guard members had been assigned to a crime-fighting patrol in Memphis created last year by President Donald Trump, who has sent troops and federal agents to Democratic-run cities he described as crime-ridden.
“Show me the video,” Evaniel Johnson told The Associated Press. “Please show me that – and then I’m OK. Until you show me that, I’m gonna fight and advocate for my grandson until there’s no breath in me.”
Johnson, a former correctional officer with the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville, disputes that his grandson would have tried to fire a gun at U.S. guard members and that they deadly force would be needed if he was running away. His grandson, he said, was “no hoodlum.”
According to his grandfather, Tyrin Johnson carried a gun for protection after being “jumped” recently in Nashville and was likely wary about being attacked again over a murky social media feud.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says it is reviewing the shooting and that two guard members fired their weapons. Johnson’s family says they were told by the TBI that he was shot twice in the chest. The Memphis Police Department declined to comment on what footage existed and when it would be released.
The National Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the two members involved in the shooting had been placed on leave.
Democrats call for a transparent investigation
Tennessee Senate Democratic Leader Raumesh Akbari and Chairwoman London Lamar, both of Memphis, issued joint statement expressing their sympathy and emphasizing the need for transparency during the investigation. They asked the TBI to release any available video as soon as it is possible to do so without jeopardizing the investigation.
“Transparency serves everyone – the Johnson family, the members of the National Guard involved, and a community that deserves confidence in the outcome, whatever the facts ultimately show,” they wrote.
State Rep. Justin Pearson, a Democrat running for the U.S. House, echoed the call for a transparent investigation and demanded the disbanding of the federal task force.
“Memphis does not need armed soldiers in our streets terrifying our people,” he said in a statement.
Trump’s decision to send Tennessee National Guard troops to Memphis to combat crime was met with a mixed response from residents and was the subject of a lawsuit. However, it was never the subject of widespread protests.
TBI data shows that at least three people have died in four shootings by officers tied to the federal task force.
Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee embraced federal intervention, while Democratic Memphis Mayor Paul Young took a pragmatic approach. Young said he never asked for National Guard troops but recognized they were coming regardless of his opinion.
Evaniel Johnson wishes his grandson stayed home that weekend
Tyrin Johnson did not appear to have a criminal history besides a handful of traffic violations, according to a review of online federal and state court records and Memphis and Nashville courts. In May, he was arrested for failing to appear at a 2025 hearing for driving without a license in Wilson County, just outside Nashville. He bonded out, records show.
He was enrolled in Tennessee State University from August 2023 to May 2024, according to university spokesperson Angel Higgins.
Evaniel Johnson said he had hoped his grandson would return to university and he was training him to take on a bigger role in the family’s real estate development business, including lining up a project for him in Nashville to oversee in the coming weeks.
On the Fourth of July, Evaniel Johnson said his family had gathered on his back porch in Nashville to play cards. He wished his grandson had stayed with them. Instead, Tyrin Johnson ended up in Memphis.
“He was down there like all the rest of the people trying to enjoy the Fourth of July,” Johnson said. “His future was buying homes, living life, taking care of his little baby. He had a future. It’s gone now.”
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Brook reported from New Orleans.
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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
