Dazhmier Brooks, a 19-year-old Black / African American male from Dover, Delaware, was killed on the night of April 12, 2021, after gunfire drew police to the 400 block of Sussex Avenue. Dover officers were called at about 9:16 p.m. and found Brooks unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the chest. Officers tried to save him at the scene until emergency medical personnel arrived and transported him to Bayhealth Kent General Hospital, but Brooks later died from his injury.
The shooting became one of Dover’s early homicides of 2021, and police initially asked the public for information as detectives worked to identify who was responsible. Brooks’ obituary identified him as Dazhmier Kyair Brooks, also known as “Mier” and “TayK,” and described him as a Dover High School graduate who had been a two-sport athlete, playing football and participating in track and field.
Within weeks, investigators named 22-year-old Riley Braswell as the suspect in Brooks’ killing. On May 3, 2021, Braswell was apprehended in Brooklyn, New York, by the U.S. Marshals Service 1st State Fugitive Task Force with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service Eastern District. Police said he was arrested without incident and was in possession of a 9mm handgun at the time.
Braswell was held in New York pending extradition to Delaware. Dover police announced that he faced charges of first-degree murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, two counts of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, and tampering with evidence. Local reporting repeated those charges and described Braswell as the man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of Brooks.
The case also surfaced in later coverage about illegal firearm straw purchases in Delaware. WHYY reported that Dover police detectives found a Ruger semiautomatic pistol at the scene of Brooks’ murder and that investigators traced the gun to Paige Morris, who allegedly admitted she bought it for her boyfriend, Riley Braswell, described in that reporting as a three-time convicted felon. Morris was later named among defendants charged in a broader straw-purchase investigation involving more than 60 firearms.
In that later firearm-related reporting, Braswell was described as charged with first-degree murder and awaiting trial. The online sources reviewed showed his arrest, the charges filed against him, the alleged firearm connection, and the extradition-related updates, but did not provide a final trial verdict or sentencing outcome in Brooks’ homicide case.
