In the fall of 2017, a young man’s life was cut short on a Brooklyn street, setting off a chain of events that would lead to more bloodshed. Shaquill Banks, a 23-year-old male, was fatally shot in front of his grandmother’s apartment building in October of that year. An unidentified gunman opened fire, striking Banks in the chest and torso. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but ultimately succumbed to his injuries.
At the time of the incident, the New York Police Department had not made any arrests and stated that the investigation was ongoing.
The grief and anger following Shaquill Banks's death festered within his family, leading them to seek their own form of justice. They came to suspect that a man named Jamel Horne, who was described as a close friend of Banks, was involved in the killing. This belief, however, was contested by Horne's family, who maintained his innocence. The simmering tensions erupted into violence more than two years later, in December 2019, when Jamel Horne was fatally stabbed.
The investigation into Horne's death quickly led authorities to Shaquill Banks's relatives. Two family members, Edwin Banks and Kareem Waters, were identified as suspects in what police described as a revenge killing. Waters was apprehended shortly after the stabbing, but Edwin Banks fled, prompting a manhunt that ended with his capture in Massachusetts. Both men were subsequently charged with murder and weapons possession in connection with the death of Jamel Horne. While the legal process for Horne's killing moved forward, the original crime that set these tragic events in motion, the murder of Shaquill Banks, remains without a public resolution. To date, there have been no arrests, and no suspects have been officially named in his death.
