2007 Delaware State University shooting

On September 21, 2007, a perpetrator shot two 17-year-old Delaware State University freshmen, Shalita Middleton and Nathaniel Pugh, both from the Washington, D.C. area, on the university's campus. A third student was shot at but not wounded. Middleton died on October 23, 2007, 32 days later, from injuries sustained in the attack, without regaining consciousness.

The university stated it responded within 20 minutes of the shooting, notifying students through web announcements, by physically entering dormitories, and via telecommunications; text messages were not sent at the time of the incident. The campus was placed on "limited access status" from Friday, September 21 through Sunday, September 23, 2007, with classes resuming on Monday, September 24. Following the incident, the university increased security patrols on campus.

On September 24, 2007, police arrested Loyer D. Braden, a Delaware State University freshman from East Orange, New Jersey, in his dorm room and charged him with attempted first-degree murder among other offenses. A university spokesman, Carlos Holmes, publicly questioned Braden's decision to return to campus after the shooting. On September 28, 2007, following Braden's arraignment hearing, his case was transferred to Superior Court for trial, and the judge ordered that if Braden made bail he be barred from visiting the DESU campus or contacting potential witnesses. After Middleton died, a grand jury indicted Braden, upgrading his attempted first-degree murder charge to second-degree murder.

On May 19, 2009, a judge dismissed the charges against Braden, finding that the prosecution had withheld crucial evidence. A witness who had been with Middleton at the time of the shooting stated that two men wearing dreadlocks and white t-shirts had shot the students, contradicting the case against Braden. As of 2024, no further arrests had been made in connection with the shooting since the dismissal of Braden's charges.

This case remains unresolved, with the originally charged individual's case dismissed and no subsequent identification or prosecution of a perpetrator publicly reported.