Walk into Range USA on Germantown Parkway any Saturday morning and the scene tells you everything. The store’s pepper spray display, which used to sit in a quiet corner near the checkout, now sits front and center. The rack gets restocked twice a week. It sells out by Thursday.
“We’ve moved more personal safety products in the last three months than in the previous two years combined,” said a Range USA associate who asked not to be quoted by name. “Pepper spray, personal alarms, tactical flashlights, stun guns. Women are buying this stuff for themselves and then coming back to buy it for their daughters, their mothers, their friends.”
The reason is no mystery to anyone in Memphis. On September 2, Eliza Fletcher — a 34-year-old teacher and mother of two — was kidnapped while jogging near the University of Memphis campus around 4:20 in the morning. Her body was found days later. Cleotha Abston was arrested and charged with her murder. The case drew national attention and, for many Memphis residents, turned an abstract fear about personal safety into something immediate and personal.
Three months later, the ripple effects are everywhere. Self-defense class enrollments are up. Running groups have rewritten their safety protocols. GPS tracking devices are selling at rates that surprised even the companies making them. Residential security camera installations have spiked across Midtown, East Memphis, and the University area. Memphis is spending money on personal safety in ways this city hasn’t seen before.
The Numbers Are Staggering
National data on personal safety product sales tends to lag, since most manufacturers are private companies that don’t report quarterly earnings. What we can track locally tells a clear story.
SABRE, one of the largest pepper spray manufacturers in the country, told the Washington Post in September that online orders tripled in the week after Fletcher’s death compared to the same period the previous year. Amazon sales data showed personal alarm keychains surging into the platform’s top-selling items in the safety category during the second week of September.
In Memphis specifically, local retailers are seeing numbers that don’t have a recent comparison.
Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid has expanded its personal safety section twice since September. The store now stocks five brands of pepper spray where it previously carried two. Personal alarm keychains, small devices that emit a 120-decibel siren when activated, are a new addition to the store’s inventory. They retail for $10 to $25 and have become one of the store’s fastest-moving accessories.
Guns and Ammo Garage on Summer Avenue reports that concealed carry permit classes are fully booked through January. The shop added two additional class sessions per month in October and those filled within days.
“Women are the growth market right now,” said Kevin Pratt, a firearms instructor in Bartlett who teaches classes for new gun owners. “Before September, maybe 20% of my students were women. Now it’s closer to 60%. And a lot of them aren’t just buying guns. They’re buying pepper spray, taking self-defense courses, downloading safety apps. They’re doing everything.”
GPS Trackers and Safety Apps
The Fletcher case had a specific detail that changed how many Memphis women think about morning exercise: Fletcher was running alone, before dawn, without anyone tracking her location in real time. That detail has driven a surge in GPS tracking products and location-sharing apps.
Apple AirTags, which retail for $29, became hard to find in Memphis stores during September and October. Best Buy at Wolfchase and the Apple Store at Saddle Creek both reported running out of stock multiple times. People aren’t just using them to find lost keys. Runners, walkers, and commuters are carrying AirTags as a way to ensure someone can locate them if something goes wrong.
Dedicated GPS safety devices have also seen a jump. Companies like Garmin sell personal GPS units with SOS buttons that connect to emergency monitoring services. The Garmin inReach Mini 2, priced around $400, lets users send their GPS coordinates to emergency contacts or directly to a 24/7 monitoring center. Outdoor stores in the Memphis area, including REI in East Memphis, say interest in these devices has grown well beyond the usual hiker-and-camper customer base.
On the app side, products like Life360, Noonlight, and bSafe have gained traction. Life360, which allows family members and friends to share real-time locations, reported nationally that new user signups spiked in September. In Memphis, the app has become standard within several running groups and among University of Memphis students.
“Every woman I know has some kind of location sharing turned on now,” said Danielle Moore, a Midtown resident who runs three mornings a week along the Shelby Farms Greenline. “I share my location with my husband, my sister, and my best friend. Before September, I didn’t bother. Now it feels reckless not to.”
Self-Defense Classes Can’t Keep Up with Demand
Memphis martial arts studios and self-defense programs are packed. The increase started in September and hasn’t slowed.
Memphis Krav Maga on Poplar Avenue expanded from four classes per week to seven. The studio, which teaches a practical self-defense system originally developed for the Israeli military, added a dedicated women’s self-defense workshop on Saturday mornings. It fills up within hours of being posted.
“We had a waiting list of 40 people in October,” said the studio’s head instructor. “These aren’t people who were already thinking about martial arts. These are women in their 30s, 40s, 50s who have never thrown a punch. They’re scared, and they want to feel like they can do something.”
The YMCA of Memphis and the Mid-South has added self-defense modules to its fitness programming at several branches, including the Fogelman location Downtown and the Germantown branch. The classes focus on situational awareness, escape techniques, and basic strikes rather than long-term martial arts training.
Local gyms are responding too. Fitness studios in Cooper-Young and Overton Square are booking guest instructors for one-day personal safety workshops. A typical session covers awareness skills, verbal de-escalation, and physical techniques for breaking free from grabs and holds. These workshops sell out at $40 to $75 per person.
Running Groups Rewrite the Rules
Memphis has a tight-knit running community. The Fletcher case shook it hard.
Before September, many Memphis runners trained alone in the pre-dawn hours. The city’s heat and humidity make early morning the most tolerable time to log miles, especially during the summer and early fall. Fletcher was following a route near the University of Memphis that many local runners recognized as a common training path.
After September, running groups across the city rewrote their protocols. The Memphis Runners Track Club, one of the oldest and largest groups in the area, issued a safety advisory encouraging members to run with a partner, carry a charged phone, share their route with someone before heading out, and avoid running before sunrise in areas without consistent foot traffic.
Several new groups have formed specifically around safety in numbers. A women’s running group that launched on Facebook in mid-September now has more than 800 members organizing group runs in Overton Park, along the Wolf River Greenway, and through the streets of Cooper-Young and Central Gardens.
“We don’t run alone anymore,” said Kendra Simmons, one of the group’s organizers. “Period. If someone posts that they need a running partner for 5 AM Tuesday, someone shows up. That’s the rule.”
The Memphis Flyer reported in October that Shelby Farms Park, already the most popular outdoor recreation spot in the metro area, has seen a visible shift toward larger groups during early morning hours. Park officials confirmed that they’ve increased ranger presence during the 5 AM to 7 AM window in response to the changed patterns.
Home Security Is Booming Too
The personal safety wave extends beyond wearable products and classes. Residential security camera and doorbell camera installations have surged across Memphis since September.
Ring, owned by Amazon, and Arlo are the two most common brands appearing on Memphis front porches. A Ring Video Doorbell retails for $100 to $250 depending on the model, and installation takes about 20 minutes for a homeowner comfortable with basic tools. Full camera systems covering front and back doors, driveways, and side yards run $300 to $800 for DIY setups.
Professional installation companies are busier than expected. Memphis-area home security firms, including local dealers for ADT, Vivint, and SimpliSafe, report installation backlogs of two to four weeks.
“Our September was double a normal September,” said James Collier, who runs a residential security installation company in East Memphis. “October was the same. November is on pace to beat both. People want cameras on their house yesterday. They want motion-activated lights in the driveway. They want someone to come out and do a security audit of their property.”
The trend is most visible in the neighborhoods closest to where Fletcher was abducted. Normal Station, Highland Heights, University District, and parts of Midtown have seen the highest concentration of new installations according to Collier and two other security installers I spoke with.
What’s Selling and What It Costs
Here’s a snapshot of the personal safety products moving in Memphis right now, with typical price ranges at local retailers:
Pepper spray: $10 to $30 for personal-carry units. SABRE Red and Mace are the most common brands at local stores. Tennessee law permits carrying pepper spray without a permit.
Personal alarm keychains: $10 to $25. Small devices that produce a 120-130 decibel alarm. Popular brands include She’s Birdie and KOSIN.
Stun guns: $20 to $80. Legal in Tennessee without a permit for people 18 and older.
GPS trackers: $29 for Apple AirTags, $200 to $400 for dedicated safety GPS devices like Garmin inReach.
Safety apps: Free to $15/month depending on features. Life360, Noonlight, and bSafe are the most downloaded in the Memphis market.
Doorbell cameras: $100 to $250 for standalone units. Full home camera systems run $300 to $800 for DIY, $500 to $2,000 professionally installed.
Self-defense classes: $40 to $75 for single workshops, $100 to $200/month for ongoing programs at dedicated studios.
Concealed carry classes: $75 to $150 for the required Tennessee permit course.
A Market That Didn’t Exist Three Months Ago
The personal safety products market in Memphis right now is being driven by fear, and that’s an honest assessment. What happened to Eliza Fletcher forced thousands of people, particularly women, to reconsider how they move through the city. That reconsideration turned into spending.
Retailers and service providers say the demand hasn’t slowed as the weeks have passed. October was as strong as September. November is matching October. The approaching holiday season is driving an additional wave as people buy safety products as gifts for family members.
Some of this demand will fade. Markets driven by a single event typically level off over time. What the security and safety industry professionals I’ve talked to expect is that the baseline shifts permanently. Pre-Fletcher Memphis had a certain level of personal safety product adoption. Post-Fletcher Memphis has a higher floor.
“People who buy a Ring camera don’t take it down,” said Collier, the security installer. “People who start sharing their location with family members don’t stop. The Fletcher case changed the default for a lot of Memphis residents. They’ll keep spending on safety because going back to how things were feels like it isn’t an option.”
The money flowing into personal safety products and services in Memphis right now represents individuals making their own choices about protection. That’s a reasonable response in a city where 290 homicides have been recorded so far this year and the Fletcher case remains an open wound. The products won’t solve Memphis’s deeper safety problems. They give people a small piece of control in a city where that feeling has been hard to find.