Knollwood  mass shooting leaves two people dead

This is the second mass shooting in the state in just two weeks.

By Edward Era Barbacena

At least a half-dozen officers were scrambled in the community of Knollwood Thursday morning where the night before, four people were shot, two fatally – marking the state's second mass shooting in two weeks.

New Castle County Police investigators focused their attention on a silver minivan, which had its hood popped open. Police picked up what looked like a shell casing from the ground near the car located on Balfour Avenue.

Blood remained on the grass and street Thursday and several neighbors, all of whom said they did not want to be identified due to fear of retaliation, said they initially thought the shooting Wednesday night was fireworks.

That belief changed when they saw one man slumped over the wheel of a car, and another lying dead in a grassy area between the sidewalk and the street.

Police were called to the first block of Balfour Avenue at about 9:40 p.m. Wednesday after receiving reports of the shooting. 

Arriving officers found a 27-year-old man, a 16-year-old boy and a 19-year-old woman wounded by gunfire. Police and paramedics performed first aid, but the man and teen were pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Later in the night, an 18-year-old man who had also been shot in the incident showed up to a local hospital in a private car. He and the woman were both listed in critical condition, police said.

As investigators went over the scene Thursday, four residents who live in a nearby home watched, frowning.

The woman whose car was shot said the bullet went through the front grill and into the radiator. She added that her transmission and radiator are ruined.

One man, who asked not to be identified, has lived in the community for more than 60 years and was sitting on his front porch with his son when shots rang out.

"My son said, 'Man, that sounded like gunshots,' " he said. "I was like 'nah,' because it sounded like somebody took a pack of firecrackers and threw them out."

He said he heard "pop, pop, pop, pop, pop" in rapid sequence. Then there was a slight pause before it started up again.

Someone walked by his house shortly after and told him there was a man dead in the street. When he walked up to where the shooting occurred, he saw a man in a parked car, slumped toward the front passenger seat.

"He was all bloody," the neighbor said.

This is the second time in three months gunfire has left people wounded in Knollwood, a small, three-street loop tucked out of sight from Philadelphia Pike just before the Delaware-Pennsylvania state line. The Claymont community once served as a settlement to mill workers at nearby Worth Steel Co. and their families.

In late April, police were called to the first block of Denham Ave. midday for a shooting. A 31-year-old man was airlifted to the hospital in that incident.

Wednesday's gun violence is the fourth mass shooting in Delaware so far this year. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun incident trends, defines mass shootings as incidents with four or more injured or killed in a single incident.

Prior to the Knollwood incident, there was a mass shooting in Wilmington and two in Dover. Those four incidents have resulted in 16 people being shot, three fatally.

TYSEAN NELSON: Playing football, expecting a son — he was 'one of the lucky few' until he was gunned down

Among those killed in Delaware's mass shootings so far this year was 19-year-old Tysean Nelson, who was shot dead on June 30 on South New Street in Dover.