Community members react to neighborhood shooting
Police are searching for a suspect in Dover after multiple shots were fired near Wesley College overnight, leaving one person injured. It happened on Fulton Street, east of North New Street.
Lillian Tyler-Bridges says, “I heard pop pop pop pop. I said lord they’re at it again.”
Tyler-Bridges lives at the corner of Fulton and North New Streets. When she heard the shots overnight, she says she immediately dropped to the floor and climbed under the bed inside her home.
Outside her home, a 32-year-old man had been shot in the leg. Tyler-Bridges says in the twelve years she’s lived here, crime has not improved.
She continues, “They need to have somebody down there manning this area all the time.”
Tyler-Bridges says she would like to see a patrol car parked on her corner. 47 ABC spoke with Dover PD about the suggestion. They like it. However, they say right now it’s not feasible because they just don’t have enough officers for it; but they do patrol the downtown area.
Gene Green also lives in the area. She didn’t just hear the gunfire; she felt it in her house.
Green says, “It came through this window and it hit a picture. I have lots of pictures of my great-grandchildren.”
Green’s husband was sleeping in that room. She says this is the second time in five days their home has been hit by stray bullets. She thinks the crimes are being committed by people who don’t live in the neighborhood.
She goes on, “They’re coming and going. That’s exactly what’s going on.”
Dover Police say they are investigating the possibility that the shooting was drug-related. However, Green thinks her fellow neighbors are just as important as police. She believes they need to be vigilant about reporting suspicious activity before it erupts into something worse like gunfire.
She continues, “That needs to be done desperately.”
Tyler-Bridges says, “We’re innocent people. We don’t deserve this. Our children don’t deserve it and if this is our future lord help us.”
Although the neighbors 47 ABC spoke with did have solutions, some others we spoke with say until the people change, the neighborhood won’t change.
