Dover couple killed in police standoff at Elkton motel

Dozens of police officers had surrounded the Elkton, Maryland, motel calling for a wanted Dover couple to surrender and walk out of their room unarmed.

Instead, a man emerged with a handgun pointed at police. Then he ignored their repeated commands to drop the weapon.

He was met by a hail of gunfire.

Police called for the woman to come out unarmed.

Instead, she did the same as her boyfriend; she walked out with a gun pointed at police and was felled by a barrage of gunfire.

Later, investigators found two replica handguns next to the suspects' bodies. Police believed one is a BB pistol and the other is a compressed air-powered pellet or BB gun.

Minutes before, Maryland State Police had tried to serve a search warrant on behalf of Delaware State Police. The couple was wanted on felony gun and drug charges in Delaware.

The bodies of Brandon Jones and Chelsea Porter, both 25, lay next to each other on the second floor walkway hours after the shooting.

Meanwhile, a crowd grew outside the Olive Garden at the Whitehall Road intersection. Many patrons came outside to watch the scene and try to figure out what caused the commotion.

SWAT teams and more than a dozen police vehicles were parked along Pulaski Highway as the investigation continued. An armored vehicle and a Mobile Crisis Center were also on the scene, along with dozens of officers armed with large guns and thick, Kevlar vests. They remained on scene for hours after the shooting attempting to decipher what happened.

Local residents like Michael Hollade said the motel is well known in the community for drug use and prostitution. He said the heroin problem has worked its way into Elkton and things haven't been the same since.

"It's getting out of hand," he said. "It's getting as bad a Wilmington and Philadelphia. It's the heroin epidemic. This is what it's caused."

The fatal shooting had both directions of Pulaski Highway (U.S. 40) closed between Delaware Avenue (Md. 7) to Augustine Herman Highway.

The shooting will be investigated by Maryland State Police, as is protocol for any officer-involved shooting.

Maryland State Police, assisted by the Cecil County Sheriff's Office and Elkton police, were serving the search warrant at about 10 a.m. at the New Eastern Inn in the 200 block of E. Pulaski Highway Tuesday, said Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley.

Both Jones and Porter were wanted by Delaware State Police in connection with what they described as a "reckless endangering incident" last week on Dinahs Corner Road in Dover. State police said Jones fired a round into the air after threatening to shoot a 44-year-old person.

At the request of Delaware State Police, Maryland agencies responded to the motel Tuesday. When they announced their presence outside the motel room, no one came out, Shipley said. An officer was able to see through a motel window and watched Jones pick up a handgun, Shipley said.

STORY: Dover couple wanted on gun, drug charges, police say

Early reports indicated another person may have been inside the room. This proved to be untrue, Shipley said, but investigators handled the situation as if there was a person barricaded inside.

The bodies of Jones and Porter lay outside the motel room for hours, eventually covered by a sheet, while police attempted to make entrance to the motel room and determine if there was another suspect.

[Editor's note: Sound comes in about 43 seconds into the video below.]

After the Delaware incident involving Jones, detectives with Delaware State Police issued a search warrant on Thursday at his home in the 100 block of Stardust Drive. During the search, they found 2,094 bags or 31.41 grams of heroin, 1,020 grams of marijuana, a .38-caliber revolver, a 6.35-caliber pistol, a .22-caliber rifle and a .357-caliber revolver that was reported stolen back in July 2016 out of Queen Anne's County in Maryland, according to state police.

Detectives also found more than $2,700 in suspected drug proceeds, police said.

Authorities did not say whether additional drugs or weapons were found inside the motel room.

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Contact Brittany Horn at (302) 324-2771 or bhorn@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brittanyhorn.