MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Family and friends filed into Serenity Funeral Home with fond memories of 29-year-old Luis Soto and also with a desire to know how he ended up shot to death by an off-duty police officer Sunday night.
One of the people who knows, Officer Marshall Smith himself, apparently isn’t doing much talking, at least to the media. Our knocks on the door of his home went unanswered.
Neighbors said they haven’t seen him since all of this happened, something they never expected.
“He was a very nice person. I was kinda shocked by what happened,” neighbor Brandon Finnie said.
“Good guy, straight-up about stuff. I am surprised he shot anybody. He was just one of those guys that try to talk through stuff,” another neighbor, Jesse Agee, said.
WREG got a look at Smith’s personnel file. He first joined Memphis Police in 2008 but was tossed out as a recruit after he failed the academic tests.
In 2009 he came back, reapplied and passed the test, becoming a police officer.
Smith’s Internal Affairs files show his overnight shift working in the South Main Precinct near Beale Street was where he ran into at least two citizens complaints, two men saying he used excessive force during arrests and struck them while they were handcuffed.
In both cases, Internal Affairs said the accusations were not sustained.
“My brother didn’t know him or anything. We want to know what happened and why,” Sandy Soto, Luis Soto’s sister, told WREG Monday.
We know Smith is engaged to Soto’s ex-wife, Karen Salinas. They even have a guest registry online saying they will be married May 29 in Southaven.
No word if any of those plans will now change.
Those who knew Soto said he, too, was a nice guy who loved his family.
The TBI is continuing to search for what put the two men on a collision course with deadly results.
