Ebony C. Smith, a 25-year-old Black woman, was killed during a domestic-violence shooting inside an apartment at the Georgetown Manor complex in New Castle, Delaware. The crisis began on the evening of Sunday, July 17, 2016, when New Castle County police were sent to the apartment complex on Christiana Road to conduct a welfare check. What initially appeared to be a request to check on someone's well-being quickly turned into a dangerous barricade situation after responding officers heard a
gunshot from inside the residence.
Police evacuated nearby apartments and restricted access to the surrounding area while attempting to determine what was happening inside. Officers established telephone contact with a man in the apartment, and trained negotiators spent several hours speaking with him. The prolonged response continued through the night as police tried to persuade him to leave the residence peacefully. During the negotiations, officers heard what sounded like another gunshot, deepening concerns that someone inside had been injured or killed.
When officers eventually entered the apartment on July 18, they found Smith and 27-year-old Braheem Queen dead from apparent gunshot wounds. Investigators determined that Smith and Queen had been involved in a relationship and characterized the deaths as a domestic-violence murder-suicide. According to the police findings reported after the incident, Queen shot Smith and then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Smith's death was therefore investigated as a homicide, while Queen's death was ruled a suicide.
The shooting brought an hours-long police response to a tragic conclusion. Residents had been displaced or ordered to remain away from the immediate area while negotiators and tactical officers worked to resolve the standoff. Police initially described Queen as the suspected shooter and announced that they were not searching for anyone else after the bodies were discovered. The evidence gathered inside the apartment led investigators to conclude that no additional person had participated in the violence.
Because Queen died at the scene, no arrest was made and no criminal charges were filed in Smith's killing. There was consequently no trial, conviction, or sentence. The investigation was considered resolved through the murder-suicide determination, with Queen identified as the person responsible for Smith's death. What began as a welfare check ended with Smith's loved ones learning that she had been killed in an act of intimate-partner violence, leaving no opportunity for the case to proceed through the courts or for her alleged killer to be held accountable in a criminal prosecution.
