A 22-year-old Philadelphia man is dead after a shooting erupted in a Dover shopping center parking lot Saturday night, just hours after thousands of Delaware State University homecoming attendees were pushed off campus and into the surrounding streets. A 21-year-old man was also shot and remains hospitalized. Police say the investigation is ongoing and they are asking the public for help.
According to the Dover Police Department, the shooting happened at approximately 9:19 p.m. in the parking lot of the Dover Commons Shopping Center, located in the 1200 block of North DuPont Highway. Officers in the area working crowd-control duties reported hearing several gunshots and then observed people running from the parking lot, according to NBC10 Philadelphia. First responders located a 21-year-old man with a gunshot wound to his upper body, and shortly after discovered a second victim, a 22-year-old man who had also been shot.
That second victim was identified by police as Nasir Cox of Philadelphia. Cox later died from his injuries, Dover police said. The 21-year-old man remains hospitalized and was listed as stable as of the police department's Sunday statement.
Why Officers Drove the Victims to the Hospital Themselves
Rather than wait for ambulances, officers transported both men to Bayhealth Kent Campus in police vehicles, a decision the department attributed to traffic congestion in the area that would have delayed standard emergency medical response. The scene unfolded amid a broader wave of disturbances tied to the homecoming crowds: officers in the area had already been responding to multiple fights, disorderly-behavior calls and reports of shots fired at other locations, per the same police statement.
The chaos traced back to an order sending attendees off the Delaware State University campus at approximately 6 p.m., which the department said resulted in large crowds gathering nearby. More than 50 officers from the Dover, New Castle County, Wilmington, Smyrna and Camden police departments, along with Delaware State Police, were already stationed in the area managing crowds and responding to disturbances when the shooting occurred.
A Pattern of Gun Violence Around Dover
Saturday's shooting adds to a string of gun violence in and around Dover this year. Just over a month earlier, on September 4, Dover police investigated a homicide after a shooting in the parking lot of a CAVA restaurant on North DuPont Highway, in which 18-year-old Foster Trader of Dover was found with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Dover Police Department.
Violence has also touched the Delaware State University campus directly this year. A 19-year-old man who was not a DSU student was shot near the Conrad Hall cafeteria on May 4 and suffered a non-life-threatening injury, and a shooting near the Wesley College campus on April 8 left three people with nonfatal injuries, with no arrests made in that case, according to Delaware Online. That same report noted nine people had been shot in Dover so far this year with no fatalities, following a 2025 total of 21 people shot in the city, four of them fatally.
The city has also seen legal consequences from past campus violence. The Delaware Department of Justice announced last September that two Dover men had been convicted in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred at Delaware State University in April of the previous year.
Police Ask Public for Tips
The investigation into Saturday night's shooting remains active, and Dover police have not released information about a suspect or a motive. Anyone with information, photographs or videos from around the time of the shooting is asked to contact the Dover Police Department Criminal Investigations Unit at 302-736-7111. Tips may also be submitted through Delaware Crime Stoppers or the department's online contact form.
