Charles “CJ” Jenkins was a 25-year-old Black/African American man whose life ended after a shooting in Plantation, Florida, on July 18, 2024. The violence unfolded at an apartment complex in the 4000 block of Northwest 10th Court, near Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest 47th Avenue. Plantation police responding to the scene found Jenkins suffering from a gunshot wound to the torso and another person wounded in the thigh.
A nearby resident said she heard about three gunshots and then saw two people who had been hit. Jenkins was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. The other shooting victim underwent surgery and was reported in stable condition.
In the immediate aftermath, Plantation police described their preliminary findings as indicating that the shooting was drug-related, although authorities did not publicly provide a detailed account of what led to the gunfire. That early description left unanswered questions about the circumstances surrounding the confrontation, who had been interacting immediately before the shots were fired, and what specifically triggered the shooting. Later reporting based on the arrest report said much of the document had been redacted, leaving the precise sequence of events and motive unclear despite the earlier police characterization.
The investigation soon centered on Stevell Bankston. While officers were still working the crime scene, Bankston approached a police officer and was subsequently taken to the police station for an interview. Investigators also recovered what the arrest report identified as the gun used in the shooting. The weapon was found concealed inside a red cooler located in the residence connected to the investigation. Detectives continued gathering evidence and ultimately determined that they had probable cause to take Bankston into custody.
Bankston was arrested in connection with both shootings and accused of killing Jenkins while also trying to kill the surviving victim. Authorities charged him with first-degree murder with a firearm in Jenkins’ death and attempted first-degree murder with a firearm for the shooting of the second victim. His arrest represented a significant change from the earliest reports, when Plantation police had announced a fatal shooting investigation without publicly identifying a suspect. By July 24, police had moved from investigating the scene and interviewing those involved to formally accusing Bankston of responsibility for the gunfire.
Although the arrest established the person prosecutors intended to hold responsible, the publicly available reporting left important parts of the case unresolved. The redactions in the arrest report prevented a complete public reconstruction of the events leading up to the shooting, and the accessible reports did not explain what evidence beyond the recovered firearm, Bankston’s interview and the broader investigation led detectives to conclude that he was the shooter. Initial police statements characterized the incident as drug-related, while the later arrest coverage emphasized that the exact motive remained unclear from the public version of the investigative records.
The online sources located document Bankston’s arrest and the filing of the murder and attempted-murder charges, but they do not establish a subsequent trial verdict or conviction in Jenkins’ case. As a result, the last clearly documented legal development in the available reporting is that Bankston was accused and charged, not that his guilt had been determined at trial. The allegations against him therefore remain charges in the sources reviewed, while Jenkins’ death is documented as the fatal outcome of the Plantation shooting and the second wounded person survived the immediate attack after receiving medical treatment.
