Today makes exactly one month since Darien Banks was arraigned on two counts of attempted murder before Chief Magistrate Margaret Gabb-McKenzie. Today is also the date to which his case was adjourned, and prison officials brought him back to court this morning.
Banks, 30, who has been charged for a number of violent crimes over a period of years, has never been convicted of any of the charges that have been brought against him. He was brought back to court on the attempted murder charges having to do with an October 23 shooting incident on Central American Boulevard in which, Richard Russell and Alex Myers were his alleged two targets, hence, the two charges of attempted murder.
But something dramatic occurred in the courtroom of Chief Magistrate Gabb-McKenzie. Banks, a usually assertive and verbal person, was not his usual self. The alleged gang leader appeared to be a totally different person.
He was babbling all kinds of incoherent, illogical things in the court room. It appeared to the Magistrate that he had lost his mind, and she ordered an immediate psychological evaluation.
At one point, Banks pointed to the floor of the courtroom, saying that there was a big hole there. Then he kept referring to snakes in court. He told the court that he was being tortured in prison.
Although he is a person who is on remand, the prison officials have locked him away in the Maximum Security section of the prison. This was confirmed by none other than John Woods, the Kolbe chairman, who on Monday night called Deserie Banks, Darien Banks’ wife, from the prison after the key to Banks’ cell reportedly could not be found to let Woods into his cell. Woods had wanted Mrs. Banks to speak to her husband, on his (Woods’) cell phone, but because the door could not be opened, the call never happened.
Although the Chief Magistrate ordered that Banks be taken for a psychological evaluation, this afternoon while he was in police custody he was taken to a location in the Lake Independence area in a police search for guns and ammunition. Amandala has learned that two senior police officers were behind this afternoon’s move.
Banks’ mother, Elida Bonnell, claimed something had happened to Banks in the prison.
“Yesterday, I got to know that something was wrong with my son, because of the way he talked to me. He was taking ‘lone craziness.’ He talked about snakes and a sword that keeps coming after him. He said that they held him down in the prison and gave him some kind of injection. They also beat him in his head,” she claimed.
Mrs. Banks said that her husband told her that they were torturing her son in prison. He said that they were giving him things to drink, and they wet him, Banks, with water every night.
But if life is rough for Banks inside the Kolbe prison, life on the outside for his wife is not exactly a bed of roses, either. Mrs. Banks said that almost on a daily basis, police search her. They even search under the pampers that her one-year-old baby girl is wearing, she said.