Smaller cities face high gun violence

WILMINGTON, Del. — When the shots rang out — “pop, pop, pop,” and then a thunder roll of gunfire — Maria Williams hit the floor.

The bullets sprayed through her front door and window, leaving perfectly cylindrical holes in the glass. They blasted across the nursery, where her 2-year-old daughter’s toys were strewn on the carpet. They burrowed into the kitchen cabinetry — and hit her teenage son and daughter.

Amid their screams, “All I could think of was, ‘I’m not losing another child,’ ” Williams said, tears streaming down her cheek.

Her 18-year-old stepson — William Rollins VI, known as Lil Bill — had been gunned down two years before, another victim of Wilmington’s plague of teens shooting teens. His shooter was 17.

Wilmington isn’t Chicago or Los Angeles, Baltimore or Detroit. It is a city of less than 72,000 people. But an Associated Press and USA TODAY Network analysis of Gun Violence Archive data — gathered from media reports and police press releases, and covering a 3½-year period through June of this year — reveals that Wilmington far and away leads the country in its rate of shootings among young people ages 12 to 17.

Of the 10 cities with the highest rates of teen shootings, most had populations of less than 250,000 people. Among them were Savannah, Ga.; Trenton, N.J.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Fort Myers, Fla.; and Richmond, Va.

Poverty and a sense of hopelessness is a common thread.