A 22-year-old man was killed and two other men were hospitalized in critical condition after a shooting late Tuesday night at West 7th and North Washington Streets in Wilmington, Delaware. Police say the gunfire erupted around 10:50 p.m., leaving a 37-year-old man and a 41-year-old man fighting for their lives alongside the young victim who did not survive.
According to NBC10 Philadelphia, officers are still investigating the motive behind the shooting, and no arrests have been made. The Wilmington Police Department is asking anyone with information to come forward, and Detective Kevin Nolan can be reached at 302-576-3962.
A Corner With a Violent Past
The intersection where Tuesday's shooting happened is not unfamiliar to Wilmington investigators. Just four months ago, in May, an Exit 4 gang member was convicted of First-Degree Murder for an August 2022 shooting at that same corner of West 7th and North Washington Streets that killed one woman and critically injured another victim, according to Eastern Shore Undercover. Under Delaware Code Title 11, Section 4209, that conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of probation, parole, or sentence reduction, per Justia.
The West 7th Street corridor has seen other bursts of multi-victim violence in recent months. Six months earlier, in March, a quadruple shooting took place just blocks away near West 7th and North Adams Streets, killing two men, aged 19 and 21, and critically injuring two others, as reported by FOX 29 Philadelphia.
Part of a Brutal Stretch for Wilmington
Tuesday's shooting lands in the middle of a particularly grim week for the city. Just two days earlier, two teenagers were killed and a 15-year-old was critically injured in two separate shootings occurring within an hour of each other on September 13, as Hoodline reported at the time. That cluster followed a triple shooting in the city's Southbridge neighborhood earlier in the month and an arrest in the Colonial Heights shooting death of Donald Nave, in which New Castle County police used Automated License Plate Reader technology to track a suspect vehicle to Market Street before making an arrest on September 6.
The surge comes just over a week after a major legal development in the state's approach to gun access among young adults. On September 8, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a 4-1 decision reinstating House Bill 451, a law that prohibits most individuals aged 18 to 20 from purchasing, owning, or possessing firearms and ammunition, according to WBOC.
City Points to Falling Crime Numbers
The recent violence stands in contrast to citywide trends touted by officials just months ago. The Wilmington Police Department's 2025 Year-End Report, released in January, recorded a 20% drop in homicides and a 21% reduction in shooting incidents compared to 2024, with the city closing out 2025 with 64 shooting incidents — its lowest annual total since 2003, per the City of Wilmington. Police rely on the CompStat crime analysis system, in place since May 2017, to track near real-time violent crime data and direct resources to active hotspots.
In response to persistent pockets of violence, Wilmington Mayor John Carney created an Office of Community Safety by executive order in March, which the Wilmington City Council then codified into permanent city code the following month to coordinate violence prevention programs across departments, according to Spotlight Delaware. The city has also allocated $1.8 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, running through December, to support community public safety initiatives and Group Violence Intervention efforts aimed at curbing retaliatory gang violence.
No arrests had been announced as of Tuesday night's shooting, and the investigation into what led to the gunfire at West 7th and Washington Streets remains active.
