Duwud Fletcher, 37, a Black man from Ridgeland, South Carolina, died on Sunday, June 14, 2015, after violence unfolded in the predawn hours along Oak Hill Road. Reports about the incident place the shooting at around 1 a.m., with investigators treating it as a homicide as they worked to piece together what happened and who was responsible.
As the story hardened into a case file, law enforcement publicly named a suspect: Rashad Battiste.
Deputies sought him on a murder warrant and also tied the case to a weapons allegation—possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime—warning the community that he was considered armed and dangerous while the investigation continued under the State Law Enforcement Division’s involvement.
Later, the case’s public trail pointed toward custody, even if the surrounding details stayed sparse. A Gun Violence Archive entry associated with Fletcher’s death listed Battiste as the suspect and indicated an arrest status, but the readily available public reporting located here did not provide clear, accessible information about a trial, plea, or final court outcome connected to the homicide.
