On a Sunday afternoon in July 2022, Dequin Garland Ellerbe, a 38-year-old Black man from Timmonsville, South Carolina, was shot and killed on North Commander Street in Florence. It was just after 4:20 p.m.; officers and emergency responders found him lying outside a home and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The Florence County Coroner’s Office identified him and arranged for an autopsy, and the Florence Police Department treated the death as a homicide.

Detectives tied the Commander Street shooting to an earlier assault that same night on Boyd Street. Within a week investigators obtained warrants for Christopher Allen Washington alleging murder, two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and multiple counts of pointing or presenting a firearm. Washington surrendered to police the following day and was held on those charges.

Friends and coworkers remembered Ellerbe for his easy humor and work at local food businesses; online memorials emphasized his role as a father and community member. Does anyone in Florence remember seeing anything on Boyd Street or Commander Street that afternoon or the hours before the shooting?