Wilmington businesses impacted by courthouse shooting

The Christina School District put several schools on lock down.  Traffic was snarled coming into Wilmington and businesses were impacted by the shootings at the New Castle County courthouse. 

One of those store owners was Mohamed Hamed, who has owned Mystic Pizza for 19 years.  Most of his customers come from the courthouse.  He was expecting a different start to his Monday.

“Today this is the most action that happened in front of our store…we have been here since 1994 and we had some light stuff like car accidents but this is the most violence that happened in front of us so far,” said Mohammed as he prepped for daily customers.

Around 8 a.m. Monday, chaos erupted at the New Castle County Courthouse, when an armed man shot mutiple people including police in the lobby. 

All this comes as federal and Delaware leaders push for stricter gun laws, local businesses say they support any action that could prevent violence like this from happening again.  As the local owner watched things unfold before him, the conversation turned to controlling guns.

“We agree on any action that the governor or mayor are taking to stop violence, and actually I see an increase of cops in the town especially at nighttime.  Before it wasn’t like that, but now they’re increasing the cops everywhere and this is a good thing,” added Hamed.

George, the owner of Terra Grille who doesn’t want his last name released, echoed a similar message, even though he would rather see Mayor Dennis Williams take a stronger stand on violence in the city.

“Something got to be done, I don’t know how the person he or she got a gun and walked in like that but hopefully the new mayor will push things and we’ll see what he does,” said George. 

Meanwhile, many of the businesses along King Street are praying that none of their regular customers were hurt.

“My mind went, ‘Oh God, someone we know,’ that’s exactly what we talked about in the car on our way down to work. I hope it’s not somebody that we know. It’s just a sad thing,” added George.

The owners of “Fantasy Braids” a hair shop tell us many of their clients cancelled their appointments due to the gun violence at the courthouse. 

However, Terra Grille are waiting things out.

“We’ll stay open for a couple hours and if nothing is going on we’re going to shut it down and then head home,” said George. 

00:58.11

“Today this is the most action happened in front of our store…we have been here since 1994 and we had some light stuff like car accidents slide inside buildings but this is the most violent that happened in front of us so far”

00:58.27

 

00:58.33

“It’s a traffic area usually we do some breakfast and most of the people around us which is people working in the banks and courts are terrified from when they heard about what’s going on and obviously no body is coming out.”

 00:58.46

 

00:59.58

“We agree on any action that the governor or mayor are taking to stop violence, and actually I see an increase of cops in the town especially at night time before it wasn’t like that but now they’re increasing the cops everywhere and this is a good thing.”

1:00.16

 

“Not going to close, have a lot of orders coming in from distributors…..”

 

George, of Terra Grille

1:05.31

“My mind went…Oh God, someone we  know, that’s exactly what we talked about in the car on our way down to work. I hope it’s not somebody that  we know. It’s just a sad thing.”

1:05.39

 

 “We have a lot of customers from there, we have judges, we have clerks stop in, there are so many people we know who work there. And we know officers.”

 

1:06.16 to 26

“We’ll stay open for a couple hours and if nothing is going on we’re going to shut it down and then head home.”

 

1:06.39 to 57

“Something got to be done, I don’t know how the person he or she got a gun and walked in like that but hopefully the new mayor push things and we’ll see what he does.”