Start with the number that should make your blood run hot: seventeen.
Not once this weekend. Twice.
Wilmington police handled shooting after shooting across the city — and when the smoke cleared, four young men were in hospital beds. The oldest was twenty. And two of them — two — were seventeen years old. Kids. Legally children. The kind of age where you're supposed to be worrying about a driver's test and a part-time job, not about whether the bleeding is going to stop.
The first call came from the 600 block of West 7th Street, about 10:24 p.m. Officers found an 18-year-old who'd been shot. And then — because this is how it goes now — word came from the hospital that a second victim had arrived there on his own: a 17-year-old, also shot. Two teenagers, hit in the same burst of violence on the same block, and both of them spent the rest of their weekend in a hospital instead of wherever a teenager is supposed to be on a Saturday night. Police listed both in stable condition. Detective Brendan Wham is handling the case, at (302) 576-3661.
Then came Lancaster Avenue. In the 2800 block, at about 6:50 in the evening, police found a 20-year-old man who'd been shot; he was rushed to the hospital. And once again, a second one surfaced at the hospital on his own — another 17-year-old. Seventeen. Again. Detective Douglas Rivell has that case, at (302) 576-3633. Both young men, stable. Both alive.
Let's be blunt about what "stable" hides. Stable means a mother got to keep her son this weekend — and also means that son now gets to learn what recovery from a gunshot wound actually is: the surgeries, the scars, the jumping at loud noises, the bills, the nights it all comes back. Seventeen-year-olds are not built for that. Nobody is, but a kid who's still got homework and a curfew sure as hell isn't.
And through all of it — four young men shot across two scenes — there is not one arrest to report. Not one suspect named. Whoever pulled these triggers went home this weekend. The victims didn't.
So here's the ask, and it's the same ask as always because it's the only one that works: if you know something, say something. Delaware Crime Stoppers: 1-800-TIP-3333, anonymous. And if there's a kid in your life who was anywhere near any of this — who saw it, heard it, can't shake it — Wilmington's Youth Response Unit offers free counseling for children and families exposed to violence and trauma, at (302) 576-3183. Use it. That's what it's there for. The Victim Services Unit is at (302) 576-3622.
We've asked the Wilmington Police Department for any update they can give on either investigation, and we'll add it here the moment they respond.
Four boys and young men. A 20-year-old. An 18-year-old. And two who were seventeen. That's seventy-two years of life between the four of them — barely one grown man's lifetime, already interrupted by gunfire. Every one of them deserved a boring weekend. Every single one.
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