On October 10, 2022, the jury found Defendant Marquis Banks guilty of felony shooting from a vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic firearm causing great bodily injury and felon in possession of a firearm, and all other enhancements.
In the early morning hours of April 22, 2022, Marquis Banks shot at the head of a 19-year-old young woman. He was trying to convince her to prostitute for him as she was driving him home on the I-580 freeway. When she declined, he blasted through her front windshield in anger, grazing her forehead. After he shot at her, his first gun jammed, and the frantic young woman pulled off the freeway. She grabbed her car keys and began to run away, as did her two juvenile friends who had been in the car with her. The defendant shot her once through her buttock before she could escape. The defendant then grabbed another girl who had been inside the vehicle, and dragged that girl away at gunpoint with a second semiautomatic handgun.
The young woman who was shot though the buttock called Oakland Police who came to the scene and found a loaded Glock 40 caliber magazine in the back seat of the car where the defendant had been seated. While on scene, police found two more guns thrown down a storm drain near the car. The defendant was arrested that same night after crashing his car into a tree. Police came to scene found a Glock 40 caliber gun missing its magazine within arm’s reach of the defendant. The young woman was hospitalized for her injuries for three days.
The young woman and her friend who had been kidnapped testified at trail. The defendant took the stand and claimed that the actual shooter had been the young woman’s male friend who the defendant said had attempted to rob him in the car before the defendant wrested the gun from him.
DDA Maggie Calonge prosecuted the case, with Inspector Rich Niven and Victim-Witness Advocate Kendra Tran.