Tennessee sophomore linebacker Jeremy Banks was dismissed from Tennessee’s football team on Friday afternoon by head coach Jeremy Pruitt. In a statement, Pruitt said the decision came after “information I recently received” and implied the choice to remove Banks from the roster wasn’t because of the released body cam video from his arrest a few weeks ago.
Now, it appears the new information has been made public.
According to a report from TMZ, Banks threatened a female student at the University of Tennessee on August 24th. Per the student via TMZ, Banks threatened to “smack” her outside of a party in Knoxville if she refused to let him inside the building. The unidentified student also said Banks had been harassing her for months prior to that incident.
The student claims she called 911, but Banks was not arrested after police officers arrived to the scene.
Later, the student was contacted by University of Tennessee officials who had learned about the incident from the police. The student said she had video of the incident on August 24th, and the video reportedly also showed Banks arguing with security guards.
Banks was issued a temporary no-contact order by school officials while the university investigated the matter. Banks was later found to have violated the student code of conduct at UT.
TMZ was contacted by the UTPD on Friday, October 4th after reaching out multiple times for information on the incident.
“The University of Tennessee Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards handles reports related to violations of the student code of conduct,” the UTPD said to TMZ. “Records of student conduct cases are protected by federal student privacy laws.”
TMZ added that they’ve so far reached out to multiple officials at UT, the Knoxville PD, and Banks himself, but nobody has gotten back to them.
Last month, Banks was arrested during a traffic stop because of a warrant out for his arrest stemming from his failure to attend a court hearing from a previous traffic citation. During the arrest, body cam footage captured Banks harassing the officers on hand. During the arrest, Banks said to one of the officers present that “Where I’m from (west Tennessee), we shoot cops.” The footage also captured a conversation with head coach Jeremy Pruitt and an officer.
Pruitt said the incident with the arrest was handled internally, and Banks’ punishment stemming from that situation had already been doled out. But as the TMZ report indicates, there have reportedly been other incidents with Banks on campus in the recent past. The new information Pruitt received led to his dismissal from the football program.
We will update as more info become available.
