Delaware summit highlights progress in Wilmington and Laurel as state and national leaders unite to end community violence

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Violence prevention efforts were front and center at Delaware State University this week as End Community Violence Now hosted its first Community Violence Intervention Summit. The event at the university’s Dover campus gathered state and national leaders to celebrate progress and to share research, lived experiences and strategies to end community violence.

“We believe in a collective impact approach to addressing gun violence, particularly community violence,” said Lauren Footman, executive director of End Community Violence Now. “Our role is to not only coordinate our community violence organizations, but to ensure that they have the financial resources and the capacity-building resources to reduce gun violence across the state of Delaware.”

The summit began with a presentation from the Delaware Division of Public Health, revealing data that underscored both progress and ongoing challenges. Delaware ranked 39th in the nation for firearm deaths in 2023, with 124 deaths reported. The state ranked 28th in homicides, recording 55 deaths that year — a decrease from 64 in 2022. But suicide-related deaths rose: Delaware ranked 42nd nationwide, with 144 suicides in 2023, an increase from 130 in 2022.

“For communities of color … there is disproportionate impact of suicide prevention,” Footman said. “Suicide is one of the leading causes of gun violence in the state of Delaware.”

Despite those numbers, Footman’s group continues to lead coordination efforts on violence prevention across the state, including initiatives tied to the Group Violence Intervention strategy, an approach that’s already producing measurable results, particularly in the town of Laurel.

“In Wilmington, we have seen historic declines to prepandemic levels,” Footman said. “In Laurel, there’s been no reported homicides or shootings in 2025, and that’s where we’ve had targeted intervention and coordination.”

The organization hopes to see the intervention strategy expanded into more parts of the state.

“We are looking forward to when the state of Delaware fully expands GVI to Sussex County because it has been so helpful in the Laurel pilot,” she said.

During the summit, Gregory Jackson, former deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and now president of the Rocket Foundation, reflected on how the national office helped shape local action across the country, including in Delaware.

Jackson and his colleagues helped design a national “playbook” that blended federal policy with local partnerships, stronger data systems and accountability measures. That work, he said, has already led to significant progress.

“Nationwide the last two years, we’ve seen a 31% reduction in homicides, a 20% reduction in mass shootings and the steepest declines have actually happened in cities with over a million residents,” he said.

Although the White House office was closed under the Trump administration earlier this year, Jackson emphasized that the real infrastructure to prevent violence begins at the state and local level.

“When the Biden administration began, there was only one statewide office of gun violence prevention. There were only about 20 at the city level. Now, there’s a whole 130 at the city and local level, and there’s 17 at the state level,” he said. “We proved a proof of concept through the White House office, but we’ve also done a great job as a country of spreading that work into local communities. Delaware is a perfect example.”

Delaware recently signed legislation to create its own Office of Gun Violence Prevention, a step Jackson said reflects the framework his office helped launch — one that depends on collaboration among community leaders, advocates and government officials.

At the forefront of addressing it all is funding, and hopes that legislative leaders offer funding to community organizations that are already doing the job.