Wilmington, Del. — Neighbors Organized for Credibility and Accountability in Policing (“NOCAP Delaware”) and Tide Shift Justice Project (“TSJP”) are saddened by the most recent killing of 19 year-old Kadir Skinner at the hands of the Wilmington Police Department (“WPD”). We are also outraged by the lack of real public accountability and stand with the Skinner/Dollard family in demanding the immediate release of all body-worn camera (“BWC”) footage related to the death of Kadir. When someone is killed at the hands of our government, the public, but especially their loved ones, deserves a complete picture of what happened. History is repeating itself:

• In September 2015, Jeremy McDole was killed by Wilmington Police as he sat in his wheelchair. The incident was captured on video at close range. Despite never displaying a gun, let alone firing one, all four officers were exonerated in killing McDole.

• In February 2019, WPD Officer James MacColl shot Yahim Harris four times as he ran away from a stolen car. MacColl was eventually convicted, but not for shooting Harris, who miraculously survived, but rather for subsequently lying to investigators.

• In April 2020, a WPD officer shot Jabri Hunter three times while he was sleeping in his car. The Attorney General’s Office found that the shooting was “justified” in large part because the officer heard his partner banging on the vehicle and mistook the sound with gunfire. 

• In January 2021, Lymond Moses was startled awake by New Castle County Police in the city of Wilmington. Officers shone bright lights inside his car and tried to open the doors. Dazed and confused, Moses tried to slowly pull the car away. The officers fired a volley of shots into his car executing him. All the officers were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.

• In March 2023, multiple unmarked police vehicles ambushed Andrew Edelmann as he was pulling away from a parking spot at a convenience store on Maryland Ave. Not recognizing the situation, Edelmann did not immediately stop. Undercover police fired into his vehicle, killing him and injuring his passenger. All the officers involved were cleared.

• In a similar incident, in January of 2025, a man was ambushed by a group of undercover drug agents in unmarked vehicles at 10th and Kirkwood Streets. in Wilmington’s Eastside. With no way to understand the situation, he reasonably tried to flee. An officer fired into his vehicle. Fortunately the man survived.

This violent history was repeated yet again last week, when Wilmington police, claiming they saw a gun brandished at a crowd, chased Kadir Skinner and shot him in the back near 24th and Jessup Streets. Reports from witnesses call into question many of the polices’ procedures on scene.

NOCAP Delaware and TSJP are appalled by yet another act of police violence, of which there is a long history and no accountability. Our state mandated body-worn cameras for law enforcement officers in order to increase transparency, accountability, and trust of law enforcement in our communities. These cameras cannot serve their purpose if their footage is kept secret for months, or even years, after an incident occurs. In other jurisdictions around the country, body-worn camera footage is routinely released when there is officer-involved violence. Delaware has precedent for doing the same– New Castle County released BWC video after police killed Lymond Moses in 2021. If Mayor Carney is serious about his belief that “public safety can only be achieved through community trust” then we ask that he build that trust by  releasing the BWC footage from Kadir’s death. Without it, all we have are eyewitness accounts that Kadir was actually running from a loose dog, and police were seen collecting spent brass casings from the ground and putting them in their pockets. 

This all said, we know that even when the public is able to review the video from that day, we’ll likely be told to reject what we see. We’ll be told, in a terse post on a state agency website, that the killing of Kadir as he ran away was actually perfectly fine. Just as we’ve been told every other time that law enforcement has investigated themselves, we expect we’ll be told that the police acted in accordance with their “training and expertise,” that they “feared for their and other officers’ safety.” Ultimately, law enforcement violence needs to be addressed at the institutional and policy level.

Therefore, we also urge elected officials to rethink any state laws that stand in the way of true transparency and accountability. Specifically, we are pleading for reforms like:

1. Making police disciplinary records fully accessible to the public;
2. Strengthening independent civilian oversight by granting police accountability committees investigatory and subpoena powers;
3. Empowering the Office of the Inspector General to independently investigate police disciplinary matters;
4. Establishing a clear process for members of the public to access body-worn camera footage through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

In closing, we’d like to leave you with a quote from Delaware’s own faith leader, Rev. Patrick Burke, Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew (SsAM):

 “The killing of our neighbors, friends, and family members by police is a moral failing of our society, and we won’t stand idly by and watch history continue to violently repeat itself.”

Sincerely,

NOCAP Delaware  Tide Shift Justice Project 913 Alliance ACLU of Delaware  Black Mothers In Power   Civil Studios  Delaware Center for Justice  Delaware Democratic Socialists of America Link of Love Support Group for Families & Friends LJ’s Playpen  Partnership in Reentry Coalition of Delawa

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