Murder trial set for man accused of accidentally shooting boy

As of Friday, January 20, 2012
© Copyright 2013 Gwinnett Daily Post

LAWRENCEVILLE -- A murder trial is scheduled next week for a Lawrenceville man accused of accidentally but fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy who was looking out his bedroom window.

Jury selection for felony murder suspect Joshua Banks, 27, is expected to begin Monday, said Assistant District Attorney Maggie Benson. Superior Court Judge William Ray will preside.

The boy, Tre Shambry, was peering out his second-story bedroom window at the Holland Park apartments in Lawrenceville when about six shots rang out the night of Jan. 18, 2010. One bullet struck Shambry in the chest, killing him.

Nine months later, Gwinnett police charged Banks in the killing. Investigators said he'd been intoxicated with a group of carousing men in a parking lot outside the boy's window. Banks was reportedly playing with a friend's .40-caliber pistol, racking it several times before firing shots into the air for no reason.

Police said the other rounds went over the apartment building.

Detectives needed look no further than the Gwinnett County Jail for Banks, who'd been in jail about two months on unrelated burglary and theft charges.

Records show Banks had been booked about a dozen times since 2002. He's remained jailed without bond since July 2010.

In an earlier hearing, a defense attorney suggested that Shambry's fatal shooting fit the charge of involuntary manslaughter more than felony murder, in that it was an accident, by all accounts.

Shambry had recently enrolled in eighth grade at Lawrenceville's Creekland Middle School. Though new to the area, he'd made friends and begun weight-training to join the Collins Hill High School freshman football team, friends said at the time.

Banks faces life in prison.

Gwinnett Daily Post