Early on Thursday, May 16, 2024, Travaris Keundre Banks Sr., 41, was shot and killed at the Brookhaven Apartments on James I. Harrison Parkway in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. First responders found two people with gunshot wounds; Banks was pronounced dead at the scene and a second male victim was hospitalized with serious injuries but was expected to survive.

The Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit processed the scene, interviewed witnesses, and identified a suspect by that afternoon. With assistance from U.S. Marshals, police arrested 37-year-old Aaron Reshad Smith and said they found clear evidence linking him to the shooting. Smith was charged with one count of murder for Banks’s death and one count of attempted murder for the other victim’s injuries and was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail.

Banks’s death was the 14th homicide the Violent Crimes Unit handled in Tuscaloosa in 2024. Funeral services were scheduled for Saturday, May 25, 2024, at Bailey Tabernacle CME Church, with a public viewing the day before.

If anyone knew Travaris Banks or has information about what happened that night, please come forward to investigators.