13 years later, another murder at Wilmington’s Eden Park during youth sports event
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Another murder during kids’ sports event at Eden Park
In 2012, three people were killed at Eden Park during a youth soccer tournament. A masked gunman fired several shots on Sept. 21 at 36-year-old Lamar Massas, who was watching his son play for the New Castle Jaguars against a club from Upland, Pennsylvania. The shooter escaped as hundreds of horrified spectators and players raced for cover. The city of 72,000 people has been plagued by rampant gun violence since the mid-1990s. This year 61 people have been shot and 11 killed in Wilmington, but figures are on a pace to be the lowest in several years.“It makes me sick but in the city, we’ve been dealing with violence’ for decades, Zierre McManus says.
Zierre McManus was an adolescent in 2012 when gunfire erupted during a youth soccer tournament at the Wilmington park next to his home.
That burst of violence at Eden Park, which saw spectators return fire against two shooters, left three people dead — the event organizer, the getaway driver and a 14-year-old player caught in the crossfire.
So when McManus, now 26, heard another murder had occurred at Eden’s new football stadium this month, he couldn’t believe such carnage had struck once again at the park that’s considered an oasis in the city’s impoverished Southbridge section.
Besides the lighted turf football stadium that some high schools use, the 17-acre park that underwent a $2.4 million overhaul in 2019 also has a new swimming pool, basketball court and playground.
“It makes me sick but in the city, we’ve been dealing with violence” for decades, McManus said last week while visiting Eden Park with his father. “But to be at a football game, it’s just crazy. It’s just like the whole world has become crazy.”
In the latest Eden Park shooting, a masked gunman fired several shots on Sept. 21 at 36-year-old Lamar Massas, who was watching his son play for the New Castle Jaguars against a club from Upland, Pennsylvania. The shooter escaped as hundreds of horrified spectators and players raced for cover. Massas was rushed to the hospital, where he died.
City police have not yet caught the killer, identified a suspect or revealed a possible motive.
In the aftermath of the latest bloodshed at Eden Park, one high school canceled a junior varsity game that had been scheduled at the field last week.
The city of 72,000 people has been plagued by rampant gun violence since the mid-1990s, and this year 61 people have been shot and 11 killed in Wilmington.
While those figures are on a pace to be the lowest in several years, the latest Eden Park murder — in broad daylight at a crowded sports event on a Sunday afternoon — has Wilmington politicians and community leaders stunned, angered and wondering what can be done to stop the mayhem.
“It’s just beyond what’s anywhere close to acceptable,’’ Mayor John Carney told WHYY News in an interview. “Particularly with the young people involved and their families and just to have that trauma that’s going to live with those young kids for a long time.”
Carney lamented the impact on the city’s psyche.
“It really affects it in a negative way,’’ he said. “And arguably they are incidents which you could say are isolated and they don’t affect you, they’re not in your neighborhood, but it just makes everybody feel a little less safe. And that’s really sad.”
Source: https://whyy.org/articles/wilmington-delaware-eden-park-murder-youth-sports/