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Ice cream truck driver shot and killed

Slain ice cream man known as fixture in neighborhood
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By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer Updated 8:07 PM Wednesday, July 13, 2011

DAYTON — Police are looking for a young black man in Tuesday evening’s fatal shooting of a well-known ice cream truck driver on Midway Avenue.

Carl Banks, 60, was shot moments after he sold ice cream to kids outside the Whitmore Arms Apartments in the 4600 block of Midway around 6:15 p.m., according to police.

Police originally thought it was an accident when someone called 911 to report the ice cream truck struck a house at 4416 Midway Avenue. When emergency crews arrived, they found Banks dead at the wheel, Dayton Sgt. John Sullivan said.

Sgt. Dan Mauch, head of the homicide unit, said detectives theorize that Banks — with is truck, something of a fixture on west Dayton streets — was the target of a robbery attempt gone bad.

Witnesses told police they heard two or three shots and saw slightly built young man, possibly as young as 15, wearing red pants with a sweater pulled over his face, fleeing the scene.

“Many of the witnesses didn’t realize what they were seeing because he (Banks) pulled away from the scene at a normal rate of speed,” Mauch said. Banks, fatally injured, was able to guide his truck down Midway two blocks before veering off the road at the intersection of Geneva and hitting the house.

“He comes through the neighborhood every day,” said Pattrice Ingram, who lives in the Residence Park neighborhood. “He was a nice guy, pretty much a fixture around here.”

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