The Albemarle County man already sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting and injuring the mother of his children, got another five years behind bars after a contentious hearing in Charlottesville Circuit Court.
Walter Lawrence Banks received the second sentence Dec. 5 because he perpetrated the shooting eight months after agreeing to a no-jail deal after injuriously strangling the same woman.
"This is something we always worry about," said prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony, the deputy commonwealth’s attorney, whose office agreed to the earlier deal.
Court records show that in the autumn of 2022, Banks was allowed to make the deal that would free him from jail time so long as he followed the rules set by a probation officer. However, he broke those rules on June 23, 2023, when the mother of his children visited a residence near North Berkshire Road to confer with a family member about child care.
According to a police report, witnesses said that Banks pushed the then-22-year-old woman, Tynaisha Felton, to the ground and then shot her twice. Struck by bullets in her chest and arm, Felton recovered and told authorities that Banks appeared to have aimed for her head.
In the courtroom Dec. 5, Banks’ lawyer, public defender Lauren Reese, attempted to explain the incident.
"I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, but it’s a lot more complicated than it seems at first glance," Reese said. "It’s hard to view this case in black-and-white terms."
Judge Claude Worrell disagreed.
"It sounds like intimate partner violence and not some great tragedy," said Worrell.
Reese blamed depression for her client’s actions, but again Worrell pushed back.
"We’ve got depressed people in the courtroom today," said Worrell, "and none of them are shooting anyone."
Reese said that because Felton arrived as a passenger in a vehicle driven by her new boyfriend, a man with a criminal record, Banks was understandably angry, particularly after the new boyfriend hit him with the vehicle.
"We have a mentally fragile individual, and we have a threatening and violent individual who struck him with a car," said Reese.
The judge then pointed out that Banks was not hit by the car until after Banks threatened the driver with a gun. Worrell also pointed out that Banks shot the woman, not the man.
"Why doesn’t he shoot him?" asked Worrell. "Why does he arm himself?"
Reese didn’t answer those questions but instead returned to her allegation about the vehicle’s impact, literally. She said the collision with Banks cracked the windshield and dented the hood.
"Why isn’t that all just textbook intimate partner violence?" asked Worrell, who noted a correlation between prior nonfatal strangulation and a woman’s risk of getting killed by a domestic partner.
More than a decade ago, a witness in a high-profile Charlottesville murder trial alleged that University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely V was pried away from squeezing the neck of ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love less than three months before Huguely would beat her to death.
Given his own chance to speak, Banks stood.
"It ain’t like I intentionally shot her on purpose," Banks said. "She got shot on accident."
After the hearing, Banks’ father, attending with two other family members, rued the fact that his son was given the earlier no-jail deal.
"My son’s no angel, and he has a lot of wrong in this," Garret Banks told The Daily Progress. "But mental disability is not a joke."
The elder Banks said his son should have received medication after his first instance of violence.
"You’re told to trust the system," said the father. "But the systems that are in place are not really geared to helping people so that this kind of thing could have been avoided."
The father confirmed something previously aired in court: a pair of post-shooting suicide attempts.
"He almost blew his brains out after he did what he did," said the elder Banks. "I had to be the one to disarm him."
"He needs help bad," the father continued. "I don’t think sane people do that."
Also in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Thursday, longtime North Garden resident Jonathan Travis Walker Jr. pleaded guilty to the injurious strangulation of the mother of his child. He brought his employer and his grandmother to vouch for his work ethic and security as he sought presentencing release from jail, but Worrell declined that request and set the sentencing date for Feb. 11.
The victim in Walker’s case told the arresting officer that she thought she was going to die during the Aug. 31 attack.
"This is the last breath you’re going to take," the 31-year-old auto mechanic told the victim as he grasped her throat in his right hand and her mouth in his left, according to his arrest report.
Walker has two prior assault and battery convictions and was the subject of a multiple protective orders filed in Albemarle County by another woman.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com