Wilmington reporter Brianna Hill joins “Beyond the Headlines” to discuss the community’s response to a recent increase in violence in Wilmington, though an increase that is happening in the midst of an overall decrease of violent crime in Delaware’s biggest city.
She gives insight into her process reporting on this issue, how the death of Kadir Skinner connects to the community tension around police activity, and a new city office that aims to assist residents with safety-related concerns.
The podcast was hosted by Director of Community Engagement David Stradley.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s begin by recognizing that in September there were three deaths in Wilmington caused by shootings. Two of those deaths were teens. There has already been another death in October. You quote John Cook, the city’s Director of Community Safety, as saying, “One shooting is way too many,” and I think that is something we can all agree on.
Our hearts go out to the recent victims of violence in the city. We’re going to be talking about your reporting process surrounding these shootings, and I don’t want to appear callous by talking about process and theory in the midst of these life and death issues.
All that said, your article, Wilmington residents frustrated with spike in violence, despite broader public safety improvements, really centers on a meeting that occurred in late September, which in some ways introduced this new Wilmington Office of Community Safety to residents.
Some outlets reported on that meeting the very next day. As Spotlight tends to do, you took your time. Why didn’t you just write an article the very next day?
The meeting happened as a result of the spike in shootings and violence in the city, and the city’s goal, in addition to some dialogue between residents and city officials, was to lay out their strategies for dealing with crime and public safety during this time.
The meeting kind of got derailed in a few ways, but I think that it was clear at the end of the meeting that there were still questions that needed to be answered about what the city was doing. It mostly sounded like the strategies that the city was already doing before the spike in violence were staying the same.
So I think after that, we kind of had the question of, okay, so is there something else that they’re doing or are they implementing any new strategies? And let’s kind of try to talk to them [city officials] after this meeting to figure out what exactly they are doing, because a lot of residents did have concerns.
I think it would have been maybe a little bit different if most of the residents didn’t have concerns or were relatively calm or happy with the way things were going in the city. But a lot of them did express issues.
We had the goal after the meeting to do, in a way, some service journalism to kind of tell people, “Okay, here’s what they’re doing, and here’s who you can reach out to.” Just to kind of get to the meat of actually what the city’s doing.
Because your sense when that meeting ended was that people came there with a lot of questions and weren’t really leaving with a lot of answers.
Yes. That was definitely my impression of the meeting, in particular with the new Office of Community Safety.
Again, there was a moment early in the meeting, the father of Kadir Skinner actually came in to voice his frustrations about his son’s case and the lack of transparency that he felt was happening between his family and police officers.
I’m sure most listeners are probably aware of Kadir Skinner, but can you just briefly remind people.
Kadir Skinner was a 19-year-old resident who was shot by WPD [and later died] back in June. Near 24th and Jessup. Since that shooting, there has been an internal investigation that’s ongoing by WPD as well as the Attorney General’s office.
So since then there have been many protests, and we are currently waiting for the result of that investigation to come out. He was running away from officers while he was shot, so that has become a big point of contention in the city.
So yes, his father attended the meeting. He was voicing his frustrations while public officials were talking, and John Cook, the new director of the Office of Community Safety, kind of took the initiative to talk to him and not only calm him down, but to show him, in public in front of everyone, that he was acknowledging his grief and apologize to him.
We kind of got to see a little bit of John Cook’s personality, but we didn’t really get to get to, “What is his office going to do?”
So I thought that was important to get out to readers because he scheduled the meeting. Even after that moment that he and Dullard had, the community members were still voicing frustrations about things that they had experienced in the city. The public didn’t get the answers to them.
Spotlight Delaware aspires to be a community responsive newsroom, so you were getting the sense that the community wasn’t getting the answers they needed. So you took the time, instead of just writing a 500-word article, this meeting happened, this emotional thing happened, to say, “Hey, let’s go out there, and find out what the community really is wanting to know.” You detailed what the WPD is doing, what this new office is supposed to do, and took the time to figure that out.
Yeah. That was the goal.
So you figured that stuff out, you put it in the article. You came to an editorial meeting and said, “I think this article’s done, everyone.” And, your editors said, “Maybe not quite.” What did they say was still missing?
They wanted the voices of residents.
Mind you, we had a few from the meeting because there were plenty of people who spoke., But, I think they wanted everyday folks that maybe weren’t at the meeting and getting their perspective. Also, the meeting happened about a month ago, so it was a good idea, they thought, to get some updated, some fresher responses from people about how they felt about public safety in the city.
Where did you go to try to get those voices?
The weather was not so great that day, and I was coming from another press conference, but I did end up going to downtown Wilmington, Market Street.
I wanted to get some diverse perspectives. I didn’t really want to go to one particular neighborhood. I’m assuming if I, you know, maybe go to somewhere like Hilltop, I would get a different response as going to Little Italy. It would just be different.
I wanted to get a diverse response. So I went to Market Street, spoke in total to maybe, like, 20-ish people, but 10 people on the record. I was able to get some good perspectives.
How did what you hear shift or influence the reporting?
There has been a slight decline in crime [in recent weeks], so getting the perspective from residents that people were still afraid and people were still concerned about public safety and violent crime in the city was important to still understand where people’s heads were at, and they haven’t changed much since the meeting.
That was an interesting perspective to get. All of them essentially said, “We believe that crime has worsened.”
I think that I was maybe pleasantly surprised by the optimism that people had with the new Office of Community Safety. Cook’s job is essentially to direct people to resources that already exist. So I think when some people hear that, there could be some skepticism there. I did see that in talking to people.
But I also saw some optimism in terms of people saying, “Well, why don’t we try it? We won’t know if it works unless we try it.” There was one young woman who said, like, “At least he wants to help.”
So I thought that was a nice perspective to have, just knowing that people were open to the idea and seeing what results it may bring.
One of those voices also talked about, “If this office is really out to help us, there should be signs on every store letting us know about it.”
That was definitely an important perspective to get. People want people to know that the resource is out there. This office is being created to direct people to resources, but if people don’t know about the office, then it’s not doing much of its goal.
I hope that that maybe resonates a little bit.
Overall, there has been a great reduction in violent crime in Wilmington, over the last six years or so. You noted that, in 2025, Wilmington recorded its lowest number of shooting incidents and victims in 20 years.
The clearance rate for murder was 100%. I was like, “Really? 100%? They solved every murder in the city in 2025?”
But, as you were finding on the street and from people in the community, the community’s not necessarily feeling that decrease. And in September and October, of course, there has been an uptick.
As you were talking to people or doing your reporting on this, where is your sense of where that disconnect is happening?
I think that a lot of it comes from the timing because we are in October now, but the uptick happened last month. There were 10 shootings in September. There were three deaths in September, and even late August we kind of saw shootings picking up.
In your reporting you noted that was a 75% increase from the year before of that time period.
Yeah. So, I think that people are still kind of coming down from that or, or maybe it hasn’t been that long since the uptick, I guess.
People’s perception of the city not being safe is still there, and I think that it shows that city officials are going to have to do a lot in order to change that perception because of the history with crime in Wilmington.
There have been upticks.There have been years of upticks and at one point the city was known as Murder Town USA. I think that people are not gonna kind of get over that perception as easily as others would like to, but I think that it is important to acknowledge the changes that have been made and the huge decrease in crime that has happened over the years because that plays into the strategies that we’re seeing now.
According to city officials, they say that upticks like this during this time of year are normal. If we’re just having a moment, then we kind of have to see that play out in the city and see what the statistics look like down the line into winter.
But if not, then there are still things that then need to be addressed.
And someone who has just lost a loved one doesn’t want to hear from the city official that this is normal.
Right.
Earlier you talked about the death of Kadir Skinner. I have to imagine that is in the atmosphere of these responses as well. There was so much tension early in the summer from Wilmington residents talking about their lack of trust with police. Now all this increased violence happens – what are the police doing to help with this?
Have you heard people connecting those two things? The tension over the Skinner shooting and the community’s response to this recent uptick in violence?
I haven’t heard any particular person reference it directly into what’s happening currently.
I think that it is important to note that during the meeting when Skinner’s father was speaking and voicing his frustrations, the crowd did at one point start saying, “Justice for Kadir.”
So it’s definitely still fresh on people’s minds, and I think it definitely plays into the tension that we’re kind of seeing now because there are residents who are saying that there is mistrust and that there is a lack of transparency between police officers and residents. So there’s a lot of work that needs to be done with that.
I think obviously there’s a difference in terms of what we’re talking about. Skinner was a police-involved shooting, while the other things that are happening could be related to gang violence or just individuals. But I think that there is also a connection in terms of the types of victims that we’re seeing.
They’re very young. One of the, most recent shootings that happened, there was a 15-year-old victim.
People are still concerned obviously with youth programming, and that’s one of the things we mentioned in the story because it came up so much. People are worried about teenagers and young kids and trying to figure out what else is there for them to do. We don’t want them to think that being in the streets is cool, and things like that.
So I think that Skinner’s death and how it happened plays into what we’re seeing now, and there is definitely some work to do when it comes to trust and some community building between residents and police officers, despite the kind of rundown of what we know that police officers or WPD in particular is doing with residents and staying in their neighborhoods and going to community meetings.
Obviously, there’s still more work that needs to be done.
You noted that if you had written this article right after this meeting back in September introducing the Community Safety Office, that it probably would’ve entirely focused on Durrell Dollard, Kadir Skinner’s father, appearing. Not entirely focused, but that it was the most noteworthy thing about the meeting.
As a reporter, what do you do when something like that happens? It wasn’t what you were there to report, but it is this thing that you can’t ignore. How do you balance all of that?
I think it could have been a story on its own. But honestly, there were so many different ways to go with this story, and the problem that I had with this story in reporting it was that there were so many layers.
This meeting is happening. There’s an uptick in violence. That’s why the meeting is happening. At the end of the meeting, we still don’t really know what city officials are doing about this current spike in violence. There’s a new office that hosted the meeting. What does that office actually do?
We didn’t really get those answers during the meeting. What do residents think?
So it was kind of like this story lasagna, and I was trying to figure out how to layer everything in.
And I definitely think that I’m glad that we were able to put Dollard’s experience in the story because I do think it was important to put in there.
And honestly, it did show a little bit of Cook’s personality because this was essentially his introduction to the community with this big meeting, that they say they’re supposed to have more of. It was an interesting moment to see and also kind of like a callback to, “Hey, that shooting investigation is still going on and we don’t know what’s happening with it right now.”
Let’s finish up talking a little bit about John Cook, the new director of community safety for the city of Wilmington. The language you quote him as using in the article is very different from kind of city official language.
At one point you reference him talking about “love, reciprocity, peace, and joy” is what the youth are missing.
That’s very different from how some bureaucratic officers are talking about the issue.
You also shared with me – this didn’t make it into your article – but that just visually Mr.Cook appeared differently at the meeting from city officials.
He did. He was wearing a tracksuit, and he had a Wilmington pin on his chest, and I thought it was very different from his peers who were all wearing suits or something maybe a little bit more of a business attire.
Again, I don’t know what would have happened if Dollard did not come in the room. But I think that he has a very different personality from what we’re used to seeing from public officials. And I think in a way it may be one that’s easier for residents to resonate with.
There were times during the meeting where he did get a little preachy, but people were very receptive to it. Talking about his personal experiences and kind of in a way showing emotion to the audience is not something that we’re used to seeing public officials do.
I think that it was interesting to kind of see how this new person of this new office that is supposed to have a really important role in how residents connect to resources is going to act.
His job, again, is to connect residents to already existing resources. So if people have issues with housing or housing insecurity, or domestic violence, or utility problems, or they’re concerned about things that are going on in the neighborhood with public safety or anything, they’re supposed to call him and he’s supposed to direct them to where they need to go.
So seeing that John Cook carries himself in a way a little bit different than other public servants in Wilmington, as you continue reporting on safety issues in the city of Wilmington, what will you be looking for from his office and how it interacts with the community?
Essentially this office is going to be very centered around community. So I think just keeping track, keeping an eye out for how many meetings they do, how many meetings or listening sessions occur, how familiar people get with him would be important. If he’s supposed to be someone that residents are directly getting in touch with, I think it’s very important to know if residents begin to actually know who he is because outreach is gonna be a very important part of his role.
In addition, one of the other things he does is assess scenes of violent crimes and figure out what resources that already exist need to be deployed to those scenes. So they could be social services to talk to people in the area, or if an area is too dark and a crime happened there, maybe he would suggest more lighting come in.
At the end of the day, this is supposed to help reduce crime. So if he’s being active in the community, that’s something I’m going to pay attention to – but [ultimately] looking at the statistics that come out over time to see if there’s actually been a reduction and what those stats look like.
Thank you, Brianna, for joining us today, and thank you for your thorough reporting as the people of Wilmington work to make it a safer place.
Of course. Thank you for having me.