In the early morning hours of Sunday, December 10, 2023, a verbal argument inside Mel’s Lounge on Richard Arrington Junior Boulevard North in Birmingham escalated into a fatal shooting. Thirty-two-year-old Quantez Banks, a Black man from Center Point, was found inside the lounge unresponsive with an apparent gunshot wound. Birmingham Fire and Rescue pronounced him dead at the scene.

Officers from the South Precinct arrived about 2:45 a.m. after a report of a person shot. Patrol officers located and took an adult male suspect into custody near the lounge and he was transported to Birmingham Police Department Headquarters for questioning by homicide detectives. The suspect was later booked into Birmingham City Jail on a 48-hour felony extension for murder, and authorities obtained an arrest warrant in connection with Banks’s killing.

If anyone who knew Quantez or witnessed what happened that night has information, please share tips with Birmingham homicide detectives.