In the Petworth neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C., on the evening of December 23, 2014, a young man's life was cut short by gunfire. Daniel Joseph Hinton, a 21-year-old male, was in the 900 block of Delafield Place NW when shots rang out at approximately 6:05 p.m. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department responded to a report of a shooting and found Hinton unconscious and suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Emergency medical personnel arrived at the scene but could find no signs of life.
The initial investigation into Hinton's death led police to search for two suspects. One was described as a tall Black male with dreadlocks, and the other as a tall, light-skinned Black male. A reward of up to $25,000 was offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the homicide case as authorities worked to determine a motive for the shooting. The incident was one of several recent shootings in and around the Petworth area, though it was not immediately clear if they were related.
A break in the case came in early January 2015. On January 7th, police arrested 21-year-old Darren Patterson of Northwest D.C. in connection with the fatal shooting. Patterson was apprehended on a warrant and subsequently charged with first-degree murder while armed for his alleged role in the death of Daniel Joseph Hinton.
