Kaimel “Kai'Mel” Shyhee Devine Ennals, a 20-year-old Black man from Wilmington, Delaware, was fatally shot during the early afternoon of September 2, 2017. At approximately 1:17 p.m., Wilmington police officers were sent to the 800 block of North Adams Street after the city's ShotSpotter system detected gunfire in the area. When officers arrived, they found Ennals suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper torso.
Emergency personnel treated Ennals at the scene before rushing him to
Christiana Hospital in Newark. He was admitted in critical condition, but the injury proved fatal, and he died at the hospital later that day. Police initially withheld his identity while his relatives were being notified. Authorities subsequently confirmed that the victim was Ennals, a Wilmington resident who was also known to family and friends as “Omelly.”
Ennals had been born on November 24, 1996, at Dorchester General Hospital in Cambridge, Maryland, and was educated in New Castle County. His obituary described him as someone who enjoyed playing basketball and later developed interests in fashion, dancing and skating. His death came only a few months before what would have been his twenty-first birthday.
The shooting was classified as a homicide, and Wilmington police said the investigation was active and ongoing. Publicly available reports do not describe the circumstances that led to the gunfire, identify a motive or indicate whether Ennals had been specifically targeted. They also do not identify a suspected shooter or provide a description of anyone sought in connection with the killing.
No arrest, criminal charge, prosecution or conviction connected to Ennals's death could be found in the available public reporting. There is likewise no publicly identified suspect whose involvement has been established by investigators. The absence of a reported arrest means the case appears to have remained unresolved publicly, with the identity of the person responsible for the lunchtime shooting undisclosed.
