William “BJ” Parker Jr., a 28-year-old Black male from Wilmington, Delaware, was killed in the early morning hours of Tuesday, January 14, 2020, after gunfire broke the quiet around the 300 block of West 6th Street. Wilmington police said the shooting happened at about 1:31 a.m., and when officers arrived, they found Parker suffering from a gunshot wound.
He was still alive when he was taken to a local hospital, but the wound proved fatal, and he later died from his injuries.
The first public details released by Wilmington police described the case as an active fatal shooting investigation. Authorities did not initially release a suspect description, motive, or circumstances explaining what led up to the gunfire. The police notice was brief but urgent, asking anyone with information to contact Detective Matthew Reiss, which indicated investigators were still trying to piece together who shot Parker and why.
Parker was also remembered publicly as William “BJ” Parker Jr. His obituary said he was from Wilmington, attended William Penn High School, and worked as a laborer and in warehouse work. Away from the violence that ended his life, he was described as someone who enjoyed basketball, boxing, and wrestling, and as a person who wanted to help family and friends. Those details gave a fuller picture of a man whose life was reduced in early police reports to a time, a block, and a fatal wound.
Available public information does not show that an arrest was announced in connection with Parker's killing. No suspect, charges, trial, or conviction were identified in the sources reviewed. The case appears to have remained under investigation after the initial police alert, with Wilmington police continuing to ask the public for information about what happened on West 6th Street that morning.
