In the early morning hours of August 2, 2014, a dispute outside a Baldwin, New York nightclub tragically escalated, ending the life of 22-year-old Daquan Gaskins. A male, Gaskins was a recent graduate of Hempstead High School and was working as a corrections officer in Baltimore, Maryland, at the time of his death. He was a resident of Baltimore but was originally from Hempstead.
The fatal encounter occurred around 3:40 a.m.
following a physical altercation outside the Love Jones Café on Grand Avenue. The fight involved Gaskins and his cousin against another group of men. After the initial scuffle, one of the men, Dashawn Wade, retrieved a. 38-caliber revolver from a vehicle parked nearby. Wade returned to the scene and shot Gaskins once in the chest. A second man, aged 39, was also shot in the leg but survived his injuries. Gaskins was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Following the shooting, Wade, a 22-year-old from Far Rockaway, Queens, fled the scene with a co-defendant, Lyreil Moore. An investigation involving numerous tips from the public led authorities to Wade a month later. On September 4, 2014, he was apprehended in Hempstead with the assistance of federal marshals and charged with second-degree murder. Moore was later arrested and pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution.
In October 2016, Dashawn Wade pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter. At his sentencing in December of that year, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison. During the emotional court proceedings, Gaskins' mother confronted her son's killer, expressing her profound grief over the loss of her hardworking and outgoing son, whose life was cut short in a senseless act of violence.
