Wilmington neighbors, advocates demand details about police shooting of teen

Why Should Delaware Care?
A recent shooting of a 19-year-old has quickly become one of Wilmington’s highest-profile police use-of-force cases in recent years. With differing accounts from police and community members, a Delaware Department of Justice investigation is expected to be closely watched as residents look for answers.

Days after a Wilmington police officer shot and killed a 19-year-old during a foot chase, calls are growing louder from some elected officials and community advocates for a stronger response from the city, including the release of police body camera footage.

In response, Mayor John Carney and the chief of police said investigators need more time before details can be made public about the fatal shooting of Kadir Skinner. 

The lack of information has fueled frustration, fear and anger in Wilmington, where residents and City Council members say the mayor’s response has been inadequate. The shooting has become one of the city’s most closely scrutinized police use-of-force incidents since the 2015 fatal shooting of Jeremy McDole, a man who used a wheelchair.

“It’s just a continuous ongoing thing, and the people are tired and the people are fed up and we can’t take no more,” community activist Mahkieb Booker said.

The shooting took place in northeast Wilmington, near 24th and Jessup streets. It is currently being investigated by the Wilmington Police Department and the Delaware Department of Justice. 

According to police, officers were monitoring a large crowd in the area prior to the shooting when they observed Skinner leave a home. Police say he then pointed a gun toward the crowd. 

When officers approached Skinner, he began to run, police said, leading to a foot pursuit that ended with one officer shooting Skinner. He later died after being transported to a hospital, according to the public alert from the Wilmington Police Department. 

Police said they recovered a loaded firearm from Skinner.

The police officer who shot Skinner is on administrative leave, according to the Wilmington Police Department. 

In the days since the shooting, many have posted videos to social media of the aftermath of the incident, showing neighbors gathered near the scene as police officers blocked off the street with caution tape.

Some of those videos also included witness accounts that differ from police statements.

In one bystander video recorded at the scene, a woman can be heard claiming that an officer picked up spent shell casings and placed them in his pocket. That allegation has circulated widely on social media. 

Spotlight Delaware also spoke with a woman in the neighborhood on Monday who similarly said she witnessed a police officer picking up shell casings shortly after the shooting. The woman,   Latiya Greene, said the officer picking up the casings was not the shooter. 

“It was a detective, with a bald head and caucasian,” Greene said. “He came and swooped up all the shell casings from off the ground, put them in his pocket.”

 City and police officials have not responded to the specific claim.

Skinner’s family members have also spoken out in recent news articles about the shooting, urging police officials to provide more details about what happened during the altercation. 

“The community is saying something different than what the police officers gave me. Make it make sense to me,” Durell Dollard, Skinner’s father, said in a video on social media, a day after his son’s death. 

Community advocate Jakim Mohammed also told Spotlight Delaware that several area residents have contacted him to express a belief that “this was not only an unjustified shooting and an unnecessary shooting, but definitely too much use of force.”

Elected officials respond

In the days following the shooting, advocates and elected officials expressed disappointment in what they said was the city’s lack of communication. Before Monday evening, Carney had not released a statement beyond a short Facebook post, letting residents know he was aware of the situation.  

In response, City Council President Earnest “Trippi” Congo posted a statement to Facebook on Saturday criticizing the mayor and city police for what he said was an inadequate public response to the situation.

“If an officer had been seriously injured or killed, we would have addressed it immediately,” Congo wrote in his social media post. “Release the Body Cam Footage. Say something.”

By Monday, Carney issued a public statement, expressing his condolences to Skinner’s family, and noting that the investigation remains ongoing, and urging anyone with information about what happened to come forward. 

Carney acknowledged that the community has questions but said “answers must come through a thorough, independent, and transparent investigative process.”

He said neither he nor members of his administration would comment further while the investigations remain active and ongoing. 

Before Carney’s response, City Councilwoman Shané Darby released a statement calling on the city to conduct an independent assessment of the Wilmington Police Department to determine whether its officers are adequate and aligned with the needs of the community.

“The community cannot be expected to place full confidence in a process where police investigate police,” Darby said in the statement.

Zanthia Oliver, who represents the district where Skinner was killed, said she is also hoping for a full and transparent investigation into the shooting and expressed confidence that the investigation will be handled properly. 

“I do think the family deserves answers, but I do also believe in due process for the full investigation,” she told Spotlight Delaware. 

Neighbors respond

Nearly a dozen residents who live in the area around the shooting scene spoke to Spotlight Delaware on Monday. They shared how their community, which is predominantly Black, is both angry and scared following the shooting. 

Joanne Williams, who has lived in the area for several decades, said the surrounding streets have been largely calm in recent days. Some children could be seen playing nearby while she spoke. Elsewhere a group of people sat around a card table on a sidewalk in front of their house. 

Williams said she felt that the neighborhood’s normal chatter had been muted. 

“Something like that happens, it gets quiet out here,” Williams said.  

Several other residents said the much of the reaction among neighbors has been about the lack of information released. 

One resident Jeff Hill contrasted the city’s response to Skinner’s shooting with one that followed a shooting at ChristianaCare’s Wilmington hospital earlier this month. 

“On the 6 o’clock news that evening, they had the mayor, the hospital CEO, [Delaware Attorney General] Kathy Jennings, everybody up there, gathered all them together for this news conference,” Hill said. “Why did they just wait until today to make a statement [for this]?”

On June 30, community advocates and several City Council members will host a town hall to discuss next steps following the shooting and outline the community’s demands for greater transparency and police reform.

Advocates will be joined by City Council members, including Congo and Darby, to hear from residents and discuss potential actions moving forward.

The meeting will be held at Mohammed Mosque in Wilmington at 6 p.m.