Former Delaware State University student Loyer D. Braden, who faces a murder charge in the death of a fellow DSU student in September, was released from prison Friday night.__________________
Braden, 18, had been jailed since he was arrested several days after the Sept. 21 shootings and was held on a cash bond of $192,000 – that meant he had to put up all of the money to be released.
But on Friday, Superior Court Robert B. Young modified the bail from cash to secured, meaning Braden only need to post a percentage of the $192,000.
The Delaware Attorney General’s Office opposed the modification, department spoke Jason Miller said.
As a condition of his release, Braden must keep daily phone contact with the Delaware Department of Correction until an electronic GPS monitoring device is placed on him.
Braden was initially charged with attempted first-degree murder, but the charge was changed to second-degree murder after one of the shooting victims – 17-year-old Shalita Middleton of Washington, D.C. – died on Oct. 23.
He was also charged in connection with the shooting of Nathaniel Pugh, another 17-year-old Washington, D.C., resident who suffered an ankle wound during the shooting.
Investigators allege that Braden's intended target was James O. Richmond, a freshman with whom he had fought a few days before the shooting. The shots were fired as a group that included Richmond, Middleton and Pugh left a campus cafe where, according to court testimony, Richmond and a group that included Braden had engaged in an argument minutes earlier.
UPDATE: Shalita Middleton, DSU shooting victim, dies.
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Who is the Delaware State University shooter?
Police escort Loyer D. Braden, an 18-year-old man from New Jersey, arrested Monday Sept. 24, 2007, in the shooting of two Delaware State University students, from a Dover, Del., police station to court. Braden of East Orange, N.J., was charged with attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment, as well as a gun charge, according to court documents. (AP Photo/Gary Emeigh)
DOVER, Del. -- Police arrested an 18-year-old man in the shooting of two students at Delaware State University, authorities said Monday. As they led him into a courthouse, he told reporters: "I'm sorry."
Loyer D. Braden, arrested about 3:30 a.m. in his dorm room, was charged with attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment, as well as a gun charge, according to court documents.
A justice of the peace set bail for the East Orange, N.J., teenager at $75,000 and ordered him to stay away from the victims and Delaware State. Braden is a freshman at Delaware State, according to a man at Braden's home in East Orange who identified himself only as a family member.
University offficials, who had assured the campus community over the weekend that the gunman was not on campus, could not explain how or when Braden returned to his dorm room.
"I'm not clear on that matter," Delaware State University Police Chief James Overton said. "I can't get into that."
That's not good.
The shooter is not on campus. No worries. Oops! He was arrested in his dorm room.
That is not good.
Four Dover police officers escorted Braden to the court Monday afternoon with his hands cuffed and his legs shackled.
In response to reporters' questions, he said softly: "I'm sorry." Asked what he was sorry for, he replied only: "She's in the hospital."
One of the wounded students, Shalita Middleton, 17, was being treated for abdominal wounds at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del. University spokesman Carlos Holmes said Middleton had not been questioned and "will not be questioned until we get clearance from the physicians."
The other wounded student has been talking with police, officials said, but that student's mother said the 17-year-old freshman didn't know who the gunman was or what triggered the shooting at the Village Cafe, a campus dining hall that stays open until 3 a.m.
Braden is sorry.
That's good I guess, but sorry isn't good enough. At least it's better than showing no remorse.
...Braden was also accused of firing at a third student, James Richmond, according to the documents describing the reckless endangerment charge.
The shootings followed a fight Tuesday between Braden and one of the victims in a university parking lot, according to an affidavit by Lt. Donald Baynard of the Delaware State University police department. The heavily redacted document said the victim involved was male, but did not say whether he was Pugh or Richmond.
So did Pugh know Braden or not?
...The family member at Braden's New Jersey home said Braden's mother went to Delaware to get more information on the charges. "The whole thing is just not his M.O.," the man said. "It's really puzzling to us."
Not his M.O.?
What an odd way to talk about a family member!
For example, I can't imagine saying, "The whole thing is just not my brother's M.O."
Braden graduated in June from Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair, N.J., where he played basketball and football. "This would be the last thing I'd ever expect of Loyer," football coach Sean Morris said.
In 1998, Braden was among a group of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts who escorted jazz great Lionel Hampton to an East Orange elementary school that had named a concert hall in Hampton's name, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark.
What a waste!
Braden had a lot going for him.
He had opportunities. He was enrolled in college. He threw all of that away.
There's no excuse for such sociopathic behavior.
No one can say that he had no hope for a good life, or that he was trapped in poverty with no chance of realizing the American dream.
Braden made a terrible, terrible choice. Now, he'll pay.
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DSU Press Release
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From The Star-Ledger, September 25, 2007:
Police in Delaware today searched the car and dorm room of an 18-year-old East Orange man charged in the shooting of two students at Delware State University last week, according to a report in the News-Journal of Wilmington.__________________
Investigators also went to the home of a relative of Loyer D. Braden, but have not found the weapon, authorities told the newspaper for a story posted on its Web site.
"The investigation is still going on and they're still trying to figure out where this gun is at," DSU spokesman Carlos Holmes said this afternoon. In addition, police now say they "do not believe that the victims in this case, Shalita Middleton or Nathaniel Pugh, were the intended targets," Holmes told the News-Journal. "They have a strong belief that they were not the intended targets."
Police had said early in the investigation that they did not believe the shootings - which sent both Middleton and Pugh to the hospital - were entirely random, but Holmes said he was unsure whether that has changed, according to the newspaper.
Braden, a Delaware State freshman who graduated from Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair, remained in custody today at Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna, Department of Correction spokesman John Painter told the News-Journal. Braden, who is being held on $75,000 secured bond, is charged with first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, reckless endangering and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
DSU expels Braden.
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