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Mississippi Police Shooting: Four Suspects Charged After Two Cops Fatally Shot

Officer Benjamin Deen, left, and Officer Liquori Tate.
Officer Benjamin Deen, left, and Officer Liquori Tate.

Three men and a woman have been charged in the fatal shoot­ing of two police offi­cers dur­ing a traf­fic stop in the south­ern Mississippi city of Hattiesburg, author­i­ties said Sunday. The offi­cers, Benjamin J. Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 25, were gunned down Saturday night after Deen pulled over a Hyundai for a speed­ing vio­la­tion and called for back up, offi­cials said.

Four sus­pects, includ­ing two broth­ers, were arrest­ed in dif­fer­ent loca­tions after a man­hunt that last­ed into the ear­ly hours of Sunday morn­ing. Marvin Banks, 29, was charged with two counts of cap­i­tal mur­der, and counts of grand theft auto and being a felon in pos­ses­sion of a firearm. Joanie Calloway, 22, was charged with two counts of cap­i­tal mur­der, while Curtis Banks, 26, was charged with acces­so­ry after the fact of cap­i­tal mur­der. Cornelius Clark was arrest­ed lat­er and faces obstruc­tion charges, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree told NBC News. Clark, 28, was alleged­ly a pas­sen­ger in the vehi­cle at the time of the shoot­ing. The sus­pects fled, with Marvin Banks alleged to have escaped in one of the offi­cers’ vehi­cles, said Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.

DuPree said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Sunday that the shoot­ing occurred after Tate arrived to pro­vide back­up for Deen, who was first on the scene. Other details about how the shoot­ing inci­dent unfold­ed remained vague Sunday. “We’re piec­ing all that togeth­er at this point. There’s still a good bit of inves­ti­gat­ing to do — there are sev­er­al pieces of the puz­zle that we need to bring togeth­er to bring clar­i­ty to what has hap­pened here,” Strain said. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has tak­en con­trol of the inves­ti­ga­tion, DuPree said. Deen and Tate were the first Hattiesburg cops to die in the line of duty in three decades. Deen was a K9 han­dler, while Tate had been on the force for less than a year.

DuPree said the loss of Tate, who had an “infec­tious smile” and Deen, who was a mar­ried father of two, was “a tragedy for all Americans.” Tate’s moth­er, Yolanda Ross, told NBC sta­tion WDAM of Laurel that the last words her son spoke to here were “I love you, too, Mama.” “It’s not an easy thing to deal with,” Ross said. “He was a won­der­ful son. A moth­er could­n’t ask for any­one bet­ter.” DuPree told MSNBC’s Alex Witt on Sunday after­noon that he still could­n’t spec­u­late on the motive of the sus­pects. “I wish we could get into the head of peo­ple who do these kind of things,” DuPree said. “It was a traf­fic stop, and some­thing hap­pened to make the offi­cer believe he need­ed to call for back­up, which he did.” Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said in a state­ment that he was “mourn­ing” the loss of the offi­cers. “This should remind us to thank all law enforce­ment for their unwa­ver­ing ser­vice to pro­tect and serve,” he wrote.nbc​news​.com