JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – An 18-year-old man was shot by an officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff‘s Office on Monday morning after he was accused of threatening the mother of a 13-year-old girl he was inappropriately texting, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
After the shooting, JSO closed S McDuff Avenue, from Interstate 10 to Phyllis Street due to heavy police activity around 8 a.m. It wasn’t clear when it would reopen. Drivers are asked to avoid the area and seek an alternate route.
JSO said the incident started when the mother posed as the 13-year-old and set up a meeting at 7 a.m. at the Popeyes restaurant on McDuff.
When the mother showed up with the girl and her 11-year-old son to confront the suspect, later identified as 18-year-old Cerry Banks, JSO said he showed a gun and told the mother, “When you hear the shots tonight, you’ll know what’s up.”
JSO said after the threat, the family went into Popeyes and Banks ran around back.
About 30 minutes later, a JSO officer showed up and confronted Banks.
Banks did not follow orders to show his hands and eventually ran off, JSO said.
The officer ran after him and during the chase, the JSO officer said he saw Banks pull a gun from his waistband and shot him multiple times after telling him to drop it. Banks continued to run away and dropped the gun, which was later recovered.
JSO said he was later found with the help of a K9 unit hiding in a drainage pipe.
He was then arrested and taken to a local hospital.
Banks was hit multiple times but was in stable condition, JSO said.
JSO said the incident was the seventh officer-involved shooting this year.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters asked parents not to confront potential suspects in these kinds of situations but added that he doesn’t blame them for protecting their kids.
“Absolutely we’d like for parents to let us handle these situations, but it’s, listen, it’s protective in nature, and moms and dads are going to do what they feel they need to do to protect their kids, we can’t really blame them for doing that, but we do ask to allow us to make sure we take care of situations like this,” Waters said.
