Donte M. Hammond, a 21-year-old Black man from Newark, Delaware, was killed during a burst of gunfire inside the Red Roof Inn at 1119 South College Avenue during the early morning of August 18, 2019. At approximately 12:56 a.m., the Newark Police Department began receiving multiple reports of shots being fired at the hotel. Officers arrived amid what witnesses and news accounts described as a chaotic scene and were directed to the building's second floor.
Inside a second-floor room,
officers found Hammond suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. They immediately began lifesaving efforts, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but his injuries were too severe. He was pronounced dead at the hotel, turning what had begun as a response to reports of gunfire into a homicide investigation.
While police were still working at the Red Roof Inn, investigators learned that another person wounded in the same shooting had been taken to an area hospital in a privately owned vehicle. That victim was from Wilmington and had suffered a gunshot wound, but authorities said the injury was not considered life-threatening. No other hotel guests were reported injured. The presence of two shooting victims established that the violence was a double shooting, although police did not publicly explain what led to the gunfire, whether Hammond had been specifically targeted, or what relationship, if any, existed between the victims and the shooter.
The following day, the Delaware Division of Forensic Science formally determined that Hammond died from gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide. Newark police identified him publicly after his relatives had been notified. The department's Criminal Investigations Division continued examining the hotel room, speaking with potential witnesses and attempting to reconstruct the moments before the shooting.
Investigators did not release a description of the gunman or identify any person of interest. Police also did not disclose whether a weapon, shell casings, surveillance recordings or other physical evidence had been recovered. Although several people may have been in or around the hotel when the shots were fired, the information publicly released by authorities did not identify anyone who saw the shooter or provided a detailed account of the confrontation.
One year after the killing, Newark police renewed their appeal for help from the public. In an August 18, 2020, announcement, the department said the investigation remained active but unsolved and that detectives needed additional information. The appeal indicated that investigators had not obtained enough evidence to identify and charge the person responsible.
No publicly reported arrest has been connected to Hammond's killing, and no suspect has been officially named. Consequently, there have been no publicly documented murder charges, trial proceedings, guilty pleas or convictions arising from the case. Other arrests made at the same hotel or elsewhere along South College Avenue were separate incidents and were not identified by police as being related to the homicide.
The surviving shooting victim may have been an important witness, but authorities have never publicly described what he told investigators or whether he was able to identify the shooter. Police have likewise withheld any possible motive, leaving unanswered whether the gunfire followed an argument, involved a planned attack or arose from some other dispute inside the room.
Hammond's death remains a case defined by the violence of that early morning and by the silence that followed it. Officers reached him quickly and tried to save his life, but he died before he could be taken from the scene. Despite the second victim, the hotel setting and the likelihood that other people were nearby, the publicly available record contains no indication that investigators have secured the evidence needed to hold anyone accountable.
