Six people were hospitalized after gunfire broke out late Halloween night in Newark, Delaware, just blocks from the University of Delaware. Newark police responded at about 11:15 p.m. Saturday to reports of shots fired in the 100 block of East Main Street.
The scene turned a busy student area into a hospital run. Police said six people were taken to two hospitals, including a 19-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the back who remained in serious condition and a 20-year-old man with a collapsed lung who was also still hospitalized in serious condition. A 21-year-old woman with a graze wound to her leg was treated and released. Three teenagers were still being treated: a 15-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the back in critical condition, another 15-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the foot in serious condition, and a 16-year-old boy with multiple gunshot wounds in serious condition. A 16-year-old victim is also facing charges in connection with the shooting.
Todd Gilardi was near the area when the shots rang out. He said he heard “bang bang bang” and saw police rush past. The sound and the speed of the response fit what students later described: people running, videos showing crowds sprinting up the street, and a Halloween night that changed in seconds.
That is why the shooting landed so hard with students. The University of Delaware sits close enough to East Main Street that the violence hit a place many students know well and visit on weekends. It also came on Halloween, when the area was already crowded and attention was on celebration, not danger.
But the campus alert added another layer of frustration. Students said they received a University of Delaware message on their phones, yet some said it did not say a shooting had occurred, only that police were in the area. One student, Patrick McKenna, described the notification as the subject of “a lot of controversy” because it did not spell out what had happened. Kiani Loweri and Zanajah Hall called the night something that “never happens” and said it ruined Halloween for them.
Video obtained by Action News showed people celebrating before the gunfire and running after it. What led to the shooting near East Main Street remains unclear, and police had not identified the shooter in the information released. For now, the clearest fact is the one students are left with: six people were hurt, a University of Delaware student was among them, and the question of who opened fire is still unanswered.
