Davahne Davis, a 28-year-old Black/African American male, was shot on the afternoon of February 20, 2024, in Wilmington, Delaware. The shooting was reported at about 4:34 p.m. in the 600 block of East 8th Street, in the city’s East Side area. Wilmington police found Davis suffering from gunshot wounds, and he arrived at the hospital in critical condition before later dying from his injuries.
Public reporting identified him as being from Philadelphia, despite the shooting occurring in Wilmington.
In the immediate aftermath, police treated the case as a homicide investigation and asked the public for help. Detective Derek Haines of the Wilmington Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division was assigned to the case. The early public account did not describe a motive or the circumstances that led up to the shooting, but it did establish that Davis had been struck in the 600 block of East 8th Street and that the case moved quickly from a shooting response to a fatal investigation after he succumbed at the hospital.
Investigators later identified 27-year-old Nazier Johnson as the suspect. Police obtained warrants for Johnson’s arrest, and on March 7, 2024, at about 7:00 a.m., officers executed a search warrant in the 900 block of McDowell Avenue in Chester, Pennsylvania. Johnson was taken into custody without incident, and police reported recovering a loaded. 357-caliber handgun during the operation.
Johnson was extradited to Delaware on March 15, 2024. He was charged with first-degree murder, possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and carrying a concealed deadly weapon. After arraignment in Justice of the Peace Court 20, he was committed to the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution on $1,000,000 cash-only bail.
The public record available from online reporting shows an arrest and murder charge in Davis’s death, but it does not show a publicly reported conviction, trial outcome, or sentencing connected to Johnson in the sources located. As reported, the case stands as the killing of Davis in Wilmington on February 20, followed by the identification, arrest, extradition, and charging of Johnson less than a month later.
