HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Two Mississippi police officers were shot to death during a Saturday evening traffic stop that turned violent, a state law enforcement spokesman said Sunday. Four suspects were in custody, including two who are charged with capital murder.
The deaths of officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate stunned Hattiesburg, a small city in southern Mississippi. They were the first Hattiesburg police officers to die in the line of duty in more than 30 years.
On Sunday morning, bloodstains still marked the street where the two were shot, and a steady stream of people visited the site to leave flowers or balloons. In the nearby New Hope Baptist Church, worshippers prayed for the fallen officers and their families.
"This should remind us to thank all law enforcement for their unwavering service to protect and serve," Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said in a statement. "May God keep them all in the hollow of his hand."
Marvin Banks, 29, and Joanie Calloway, 22, were each charged with two counts of capital murder, said Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. Banks also was charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and with grand theft for fleeing in the police cruiser after the shooting, Strain said.
"He absconded with a Hattiesburg police cruiser. He didn't get very far, three or four blocks, and then he ditched that vehicle," Strain said.
Banks' 26-year-old brother, Curtis Banks, was charged with two counts of accessory after the fact of capital murder.
A spokesman for the Hattiesburg Police Department, Lt. Jon Traxler, said that the brothers are residents of Hattiesburg and that each had been previously arrested on drug and weapons charges.
The fourth person, 28-year-old Cornelius Clark, was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice, Strain added. Officials said Clark had been a passenger in the vehicle at the time of the shooting.
All four are expected to make their initial court appearances today at the Forest County Justice Court, Strain said.
A preliminary investigation indicated Deen had pulled over a gold Cadillac Escalade on suspicion of speeding and then called for backup, which is when Tate arrived.
They put a call out for more help just before shots were fired from the stopped vehicle, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree said.
Calloway was in the driver's seat and Marvin Banks was a passenger in the vehicle, Strain said.
The suspects fled after the shooting, Strain said -- Calloway in the Escalade and Marvin Banks in one of the police cruisers.
Strain said it was too early to say who shot the officers or how many shots were fired.
The officers were shot about 8 p.m. Saturday, the police said. They later died at a local hospital.
Community shocked
For many in the community, the first death of an officer in three decades while on duty was a shock. The pain hit particularly close to home for Erica Sherrill Owens, whose mother, Sgt. Jackie Dole Sherrill, was killed in 1984 while trying to serve a warrant on a suspect.
When Owens heard that two officers had been killed, she said she hoped it wasn't someone she knew.
"Then when I heard one of the names, my heart just sank because I went to high school with him," said Owens, who had gone to Sumrall High School with Deen and graduated a year after him in 1999.
Deen, 34, a decorated K9 officer, had been named Hattiesburg Police Officer of the Year in 2012, the Jackson, Miss., Clarion Ledger reported.
His family said part of the reason he won the award was for rescuing a man from a burning home.
Deen, known as B.J., was a family man who married his high school sweetheart, Robin, a family spokesman said. The couple had a 12-year-old daughter, Melah, and a 9-year-old son, Walker, the spokesman said. Deen was proud of his Cherokee and Blackfoot heritage and had an extensive arrowhead collection.
"He loved to hunt and fish, and living and being outdoors," said the spokesman, a Deen family friend who spoke with the family's permission, but on the condition that he not be identified.
"The two things that really summed him up as far as a person, he didn't go anywhere without his family, ever," the family spokesman said. "The day before he went on shift and passed away, he had just been out with his son -- they were out target shooting with each other -- he was boasting, he was proud of his son."
The second thing was, "He was honestly a friend to everyone he met. He loved serving his community, he loved being a cop," the spokesman said.
Tate, 25, grew up in Starkville, 150 miles north of Hattiesburg. Strain said he was a 2014 graduate of the law enforcement academy.
His father, Ronald Tate of Atlanta, described him as a passive, laid-back young man who never got into fights.
Tate worked a series of jobs at fast-food stores and at automotive supply shops before deciding he wanted to become a police officer like the ones who went into his stores, Ronald Tate said.
Less than a year ago, Liquori Tate had announced how thankful he was to start his career in law enforcement.
"I graduated the Police Academy today. I am now a Police Officer," Tate wrote on June 11, 2014. "I would like to thank God, the Police Academy, the Police Department, my family, friends, and love[d] ones."
"He was a traffic cop; he didn't want to do anything else. He just loved sitting and watching them roll through a stop sign and go stop them and give them a warning ticket. He wasn't about tickets; he was about warning tickets," Ronald Tate said. "They would cuss him out; he would laugh about it."
He added, "I'm so scared I'm going to find my son was killed over nothing much."
Jarvis Thompson, who knew Tate from childhood, said he wanted to be a policeman to make a difference in the black community.
"He wanted to become an officer because we've seen so much of our peers get killed or end up in jail," said Thompson, 24, of Starkville. "He was talking all the time about how he wanted to do better and make the place better."
Residents find officers
Calloway was arrested at a convenience store near the site of the shooting, and Marvin Banks was taken into custody about 1:15 a.m. Sunday at a motel in the area, officials said. Curtis Banks was arrested about 3 a.m. Sunday at an apartment in Hattiesburg. Clark was arrested later Sunday.
A car found at the motel, a Hyundai sedan with retired Army license plates, was impounded for processing as evidence, Strain said.
Hattiesburg residents Tamika Mills and Pearnell Roberts discovered the two fatally wounded officers and called 911, the Jackson, Miss., Clarion Ledger reported.
"Never in my life have I experienced or seen anything like this except on TV, and to be in the midst of it, it's shocking and heartbreaking," Mills said. "As we were coming down Fourth Street, we noticed a bunch of lights. As we came on through, [Roberts] told me to turn around because she saw somebody laying on the ground.
"So I backed up. That's when we noticed the officer was down. We just saw that one, but in the course of me being on the phone with 911, I turned and I saw another officer across the street rolling on the ground. [Roberts] ran across the street to check on him. He wasn't all the way alert but he asked her, 'Am I dying? I know I'm dying. Just hand me my walkie-talkie.'"
At a news conference, DuPree, the mayor, asked the community to pull together.
"We want to ask everybody to pray for these families. We want everybody to pray for police officers not only here but around the United States," DuPree said.
A vigil for the officers was planned in Hattiesburg for 1 p.m. today, and the families are expected to attend, city spokesman Chinika Hughes said.
Tony Mozingo, a local judge, left red roses near the scene of the shooting.
"We all just are heartbroken because we know and work with these officers every day," said Mozingo, accompanied by his wife and two daughters.
At the nearby New Hope Baptist Church, the congregation prayed both for the slain officers and their relatives during services Sunday morning -- Mother's Day.
"It's sad. It's just a tragedy, going from one mother to another," said Dorothy Thompson, wife of the pastor. "Every day is a bad day [for violence], but especially on a day like today."
It was the second time that two Hattiesburg police officers were killed together.
On March 9, 1952, Hattiesburg officers James Everett and M.W. Vinson Jr. were both gunned down as they chased suspects in a burglary at the Ace Weathers Motor Co., according to police records. They were the first two Hattiesburg officers killed in the line of duty, records show.
Information for this article was contributed by Rebecca Santana, Rogelio Solis, Jay Reeves, Janet McConnaughey, Bill Cormier, Jeff Martin and Adriana Mark of The Associated Press; by Matthew Teague, Matt Pearce, Lauren Raab and Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times; and by Ashley Southall, Alan Blinder and Liam Stack of The New York Times.
A Section on 05/11/2015