MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The brother of Martavious Banks, the man who was shot by a Memphis Police officer in September, and activists said they were outraged by charges filed against Banks by the Shelby County district attorney.
Martavious Banks is facing charges in the case, but the officer who shot him will not. Two other officers involved won’t face charges either, even though all three violated policy.
Activists and the family called the whole situation unfair and unjust. His brother in particular demanded answers from prosecutors.
“If the DA found a way to indict my brother, I feel like these officers should be charged as well,” he said. “They not only broke police policy, they shot into an occupied dwelling.”
There are still a lot of questions surrounding what happened. MPD admitted some officers either turned off or didn’t ever activate their body cameras during the incident, including during the moment Banks was shot.
For that reason and others, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation looked into the case and turned its report over to Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich.
Weirich said the report showed no evidence of criminal conduct on the officers’ parts, but she won’t release the report or any of the body camera footage because of pending prosecution.
The incident started when Banks was pulled over last year. He sped off and led police on a chase, but the officers involved didn’t notify dispatch and instead communicated with each other by car-to-car radio.
The officer who made the stop also lied about why he did it.
The chase ended at a house in South Memphis, where Banks was shot.
Banks is charged with evading arrest and unlawful possession of a weapon.
WREG will keep asking for the TBI report as we push for more answers for this story.