Allen Melton, a 28-year-old Black man from Wilmington, Delaware, was fatally shot on the afternoon of September 7, 2017, after stepping into a confrontation involving his girlfriend. Wilmington police responded after the ShotSpotter system recorded gunfire; officers found Melton collapsed near Cedar and Anchorage Streets with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso and legs. New Castle County paramedics transported him to Christiana Hospital, where he died later that day.

The sequence began when Melton’s girlfriend, Danielle Curl, asked a stranger if she could buy a cigarette, which escalated into a fight between Curl and a woman later identified as Latesha Favors. Witnesses said Melton tried to separate the women, and Sandy Lashley of Queens, New York, drew a firearm and shot him. Lashley fled to New York and was arrested in Brooklyn on February 14, 2018; a grand jury indicted him on first-degree murder and firearms charges. In May 2019 he pleaded guilty to reduced second-degree murder and a firearms count and was sentenced in August 2019 to 23 years in prison plus two years probation. Prosecutors described Favors as an accomplice who fled with Lashley; reports do not show she was accused of firing the fatal shots or that she was later arrested or convicted in this case.

Does anyone have information about the confrontation on Cedar Street or remembered seeing Melton that afternoon?