Rajohn Hardaway, a 28-year-old Black male, was shot and killed on June 2, 2021, in the Belvedere-area community of Cedar Heights in New Castle County, Delaware. The violence unfolded in the late afternoon, around 4:00 p.m., when New Castle County Division of Police officers were sent to the 300 block of Cedar Avenue after a report of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found Hardaway suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper body.
Police tried to render first aid at the scene, but Hardaway had already succumbed to his injuries. New Castle County Paramedics were still brought in, and after consulting with a doctor at Christiana Hospital, Hardaway was pronounced dead at the scene. What began as an emergency call quickly became a homicide investigation, with detectives from the New Castle County Division of Police Criminal Investigations Unit taking over.
Investigators later said they believed numerous eyewitnesses were present when the shooting occurred. Despite that, police publicly indicated that witnesses were not coming forward with the information needed to identify and apprehend the person or people responsible. The police chief issued a pointed appeal after the killing, saying the suspect or suspects had to be identified and apprehended and emphasizing that Hardaway’s family deserved to know what happened and who was responsible.
Available online reports do not identify any named suspect, arrest, charges, trial, or conviction connected to Hardaway’s killing. Police described the case as an active homicide investigation and asked anyone with information or video from the area to contact Detective DiNardo or the New Castle County Division of Police. The public appeals suggest investigators believed the case could be solved with witness cooperation, but the online record available does not show that an arrest was made.
Hardaway’s death was remembered publicly through memorial and obituary pages after his passing. Those pages identify him by name and connect his death to the June 2, 2021, shooting in Belvedere, Delaware. The case remains defined in the available reports by a sudden afternoon shooting, a scene where officers and paramedics could not save him, and a police investigation that depended heavily on witnesses who were believed to have seen what happened.
