In the early hours of a Tuesday morning in August 2018, a sense of unease settled over a home on Floyd Street in Portsmouth, Virginia. Kimberly Banks-Reynolds returned from work shortly before 2 a.m. to a scene that would forever alter her life. She discovered her husband, Tommy Lamont Reynolds, a 46-year-old male, lying on the floor, grievously wounded by a gunshot to his torso. Despite her desperate pleas for him to hold on, the look on his face told her he was gone.
When paramedics arrived, they pronounced the Navy veteran dead at the scene.
The initial investigation into the shooting left the Portsmouth police with few immediate leads and no suspects. The community was left to mourn a man described by his family as the 'funniest person you'll meet in your life.' Originally from New Orleans, Tommy had served his country as a cook in the Navy before settling in Portsmouth. He was a beloved husband of 30 years, a father to three children, and a doting grandfather to seven. His family remembered him as a man who loved everybody and was loved in return, a man whose laugh, smile, and comforting ways would be deeply missed.
The uncertainty for the grieving family was assuaged when detectives from the Portsmouth Police Department's Fugitive Apprehension Unit and members of the Street Crimes Unit made an arrest. Twenty-six-year-old Tommie L. Banks of Portsmouth was taken into custody. He was subsequently charged with first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. In a later development, Tommie Banks pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the death of Tommy Reynolds. He was scheduled for sentencing in February of the following year.
