ELKTON — A man remains jailed after investigators confiscated a semi-automatic rifle and nearly 150 baggies containing suspect heroin mixed with fentanyl while raiding a guest room at an Elkton motel, according to Cecil County District Court records.
Elkton Police Department officials identified the suspect as Daquan Hammond, 29, of Elkton, and reported that he has a criminal record marked by violence.
“Hammond had only recently gotten out of jail in Delaware, after serving a five-year prison sentence for shooting and wounding two people in New Castle Delaware in June of 2018,” an EPD spokesperson said.
In this latest criminal case against Hammond, investigators arrested him at approximately 2 p.m. on Thursday after conducting surveillance on Room 309 at the New Eastern Inn in the 200 block of East Pulaski Highway (Route 40) because of information gained during a week-long investigation, police reported.
“During the course of that investigation, it was learned that the suspect, 29-year-old Daquan M. Hammond, was utilizing Room 309 in furtherance of his illicit drug sales,” the spokesperson outlined.
After an undercover officer watched Hammond enter that guest room, members of EPD’s Street Level Crimes Unit and Criminal Investigation Division knocked on Room 309’s door several times and announced their presence in preparation to serve a search warrant, but no one answered, police said.
So officers used a key that had been provided by motel management and opened the door, which is when they were allegedly “immediately met with resistance” from Hammond and another man who was inside Room 309, police added. (That man is identified in the charging document that investigators filed against Hammond, but he was not charged, based on a search of court records.)
During the court-approved search of Room 309, investigators seized 149 baggies holding suspect heroin/fentanyl, a blue backpack containing a “semi-automatic MP5 style rifle,” a digital scale with a white residue on it, “multiple notebooks with gang writing” on them, about three grams of suspect crack cocaine and other drug-related evidence, court records allege.
The serial number on the .22 caliber rifle had been scratched off, according to the charging document. During the follow-up investigation, detectives contacted the Maryland Gun Center and learned that Hammond is prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition “due to him being previously convicted of a crime of violence,” court records allege.
Hammond is facing 11 criminal charges, including possession of a firearm in a drug trafficking crime, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon or a disqualified person, obliterating/removing a firearm serial number and possession of heroin/fentanyl with intent to distribute, court records show.
He remained in the Cecil County Detention Center on no bond Tuesday, four days after his bail review hearing, according to court records, which indicate that Retired Cecil County District Court Judge James C. McKinney presided over that proceeding.
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