Special to the Express
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has released updates on the following cases.
Officers acted within the law in fatal shooting
An officer-involved shooting death of a criminal suspect last year in which another officer was critically wounded involved no criminal wrongdoing by the officers, Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich said on Tuesday. The death of Keyshon Parham, 19, was on Oct. 17, 2018, at an apartment complex near 5420 Meadowlake Drive South in the Fox Meadows area where officers from multiple agencies were seeking to arrest him. Parham was wanted on several warrants, including attempted first-degree murder for shooting at another motorist on I-240, aggravated assaults, motor vehicle thefts, and evading arrest in an automobile.
He jumped from a second-story window to elude arresting officers and, while wading through a small lake, shouted to officers, “I ain’t going back to jail. You’ll have to kill me.”
Parham, who had posed with firearms in social media posts, reached to his waistband several times as if reaching for a weapon, officers said. Then a sheriff’s deputy was shot in the thigh as he and Parham fought over the officer’s pistol. The deputy said Parham twisted the pistol toward the deputy’s head before he was able to eject the magazine. As other officers arrived and tried to subdue Parham, one officer shot him in the thigh and another shot him several times in the right buttocks.
“The facts, the evidence and the law show that they used a reasonable and necessary amount of force to defend their lives and those of fellow officers,” Weirich said.
Customer convicted of killing store employee
A Memphis man has been convicted of second-degree murder in the 2017 shooting death of an employee at a cell phone store in Whitehaven, Weirich said. Defendant Damon Johnson, 24, remains in custody and will be sentenced Dec. 2. He faces up to 25 years in prison without parole.
The incident was on May 15, 2017, when Johnson and companions went to the store at 1722 Winchester to check on a cell phone that was being repaired. They argued with the employee, Rashad Awwad, 24, who told one of the companions to leave the store.
A short time later when Awwad stepped outside, he was confronted by the suspect who’d been told to leave. Witnesses said Johnson pulled a gun and shot Awwad multiple times, killing him.
Man indicted in strangling death of friend
A 37-year-old man was indicted last Thursday on second-degree murder charges related to the strangulation this summer of a friend during an argument at a North Memphis apartment, Weirich said. Defendant Hans Banks is being held on $500,000 bond.
An investigation showed that Banks and his friend, Joseph Hurdle, 59, were at Banks’s apartment on East Cabana Circle near University and Vollintine when an argument turned violent.
Banks said he strangled Hurdle with a string of Christmas lights and left the apartment in Hurdle’s vehicle. He later flagged down police officers and told them there was a dead body in his apartment.
