WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE IN VIDEO
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Tennessee Volunteers have released sophomore linebacker Jeremy Banks from their football team following Banks’ recent arrest and confrontation with police officers.
Banks was arrested in September after he was stopped in a traffic stop in Knoxville and found to have an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation.
While in the police cruiser, Banks, who graduated from Cordova High School, can be heard telling a police trainee to not go into the police force “because where I’m from, we shoot at cops. I’m from Memphis, Tennessee.”
Banks was allowed back on the football team after posting bond and even played in the team’s next game against Florida. Head coach Jeremy Pruitt initially said the team would handle the matter internally.
But on Friday, Pruitt announced Banks had been released from the program.
“I have made the decision to remove Jeremy Banks from our football program,” Pruitt said in the statement. “While I will continue to support Jeremy in the next steps in his life, information I recently received made it clear that this decision is in the best interest of the football program and the university.”
In a separate video, Pruitt can be heard pleading with officers on a phone call to let Banks go without arresting him.
