Syncere Friends, a 25-year-old Black/African American male from Dover, Delaware, was shot in the early morning hours of Sunday, April 14, 2024, on the 100 block of West Loockerman Street in Dover. Police said the shooting happened around 1:26 a.m. near Irish Mike’s, after officers were called to the area for reports that two people had been shot.
When officers arrived, they found Friends suffering from a gunshot wound to his chest. A second victim, a 30-year-old woman from Magnolia, had also been shot in the lower body. Both victims were taken to Bayhealth Kent Campus for treatment, but Friends died at the hospital from his injuries. Later reporting citing court documents described Friends as having been shot multiple times in the chest and once in the right leg, while the surviving woman was struck in the upper right thigh and suffered a fractured femur.
The investigation moved quickly.
Police said detectives identified 23-year-old Sadique Ingram of Dover as the person responsible for the shooting. Court-document reporting said surveillance footage showed a male wearing a white T-shirt, faded jeans, white sneakers, and carrying a black hoodie firing the shots, then running toward a city parking lot on North Street and getting into a silver sedan. Investigators reportedly reviewed earlier surveillance showing the sedan arriving hours before the shooting, with four people getting out and walking toward Irish Mike’s; one of them matched the clothing description and was later identified as Ingram.
Later that Sunday morning, officers took Ingram into custody during a traffic stop in Milford, Delaware. He was transported to the Dover Police Department, processed, and arraigned. Police said he was committed to Sussex Correctional Institution on $1,000,000 cash bail.
Ingram was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The assault charge was connected to the surviving woman who was wounded in the same shooting. Available online source information showed an arrest and charges in the case, but did not show a conviction or final trial outcome. Ingram was reported by police as presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The killing of Friends was also described in later reporting as connected to violence that unfolded elsewhere in Dover later that same day. Court-document reporting said the death of a 15-year-old boy in a separate shooting around 8:30 p.m. near South Governors Avenue was believed to be retaliatory for the earlier shooting that killed Friends, even though a suspect had already been arrested in Friends’ case.
