Hunter Demster, an organizer for the group Decarceration Memphis who has raised red flags about SCORPION and other plainclothes units in Memphis, said people in neighborhoods with higher crime want more police officers to solve murders, but when the department puts these patrols in their communities what they get is targeted harassment.
“A good friend of mine, Chase, got pulled over about a month ago by an ... unmarked car, unmarked clothing. And the officer said that his license plate was bent in the corner and everything was still visible. They use that as a pretext to do an investigation into hoping they can smell weed,” Demster said.

These units act with impunity looking for any reason to arrest people regardless of the validity of such arrests. We need top down reform of these units at the federal level.