Armand “Ard” Scharif Jones was a 35-year-old Black/African American male from Wilmington, Delaware, whose life ended after a shooting on Friday evening, July 26, 2024. Public reports place the violence in the 500 block of South Van Buren Street, where Wilmington police responded shortly after 7:30 p.m. and found him suffering from gunshot wounds.
He was taken from the scene to a nearby hospital, but the efforts to save him were not enough, and he died from his injuries.
Online memorial and obituary information identifies him as Armand Scharif Jones and says he was also known to many as “Poppy.” He was born in Wilmington on November 15, 1988, alongside his twin sister, and his obituary describes him as someone whose roots were deeply tied to the city. He attended schools in the Red Clay and Christina school districts and graduated from Glasgow High School. The memorial record also connects him to Wilmington Head Start and Wilmington Job Corps, suggesting a life that remained closely linked to his hometown, its families, and its community institutions.
The public record of the shooting is spare, leaving the story with more grief than answers. What is known is that a summer evening in Wilmington turned violent, police were called to South Van Buren Street, and Jones was found wounded badly enough that he had to be rushed for emergency care. Within days, police and news reports publicly identified him as the man killed in the shooting, turning what first appeared as another reported act of gun violence into the named loss of a man remembered by relatives and friends.
The investigation was described as ongoing after the shooting. Police asked anyone with information to contact Detective Brandon Mosley at 302-576-3646, signaling that investigators were still seeking help from the public. Available online sources do not show that any arrest has been publicly announced, and they do not identify a suspect or suspects in connection with Jones's death. No publicly available court outcome, trial, conviction, or sentencing information tied to this homicide was found in the accessible online sources reviewed.
As it stands publicly, Jones's case remains defined by the facts of his killing and the absence of a publicly reported resolution. He was remembered online by name, nickname, family ties, schooling, and community connections, while the criminal case appeared to remain open with investigators still looking for the person or people responsible.
