NEWARK, Delaware — Two teenagers have been arrested and indicted over the Halloween-night shooting on East Main Street in Newark that wounded seven people, Newark police announced on Monday, November 9 — the first arrests of alleged shooters in a case that has shaken the University of Delaware town since October 31.

Police said detectives determined that two people fired weapons that night: a 17-year-old male from North East, Maryland, and an 18-year-old male from Wilmington, Delaware. Neither is being named in this report — the younger defendant is a minor, and Newark police have not released either name. Both have been indicted by a New Castle County grand jury, police said. The charges are allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

Source: Newark Police Department, Update #5 (Nov. 9, 2026)

The charges, in full

According to the Newark Police Department, each defendant faces seven counts of attempted murder in the first degree, eight counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and one count each of first-degree conspiracy, first-degree reckless endangering and carrying a concealed deadly weapon. The 17-year-old faces one additional charge: possession of a firearm by a person under the age of 21.

Source: Newark Police Department, Update #5 (Nov. 9, 2026)

How investigators found them

The department's Criminal Investigations Unit reviewed footage from the Newark Public Safety Camera System, which police said captured the suspects' movements before and immediately after the shooting. Using that footage together with automated license plate recognition technology, investigators identified a vehicle associated with the suspects, and further work led detectives to conclude that the two teenagers were the people who discharged firearms, police said.

Source: Newark Police Department, Update #5 (Nov. 9, 2026)

The arrests came in two stages, in two states. With help from the Cecil County Sheriff's Office, officers took the 17-year-old into custody on Friday, November 6, in Cecil County, Maryland; he remains in a juvenile detention facility in Maryland awaiting extradition to Delaware as an out-of-state fugitive. On the morning of Monday, November 9, the U.S. Marshals Service apprehended the 18-year-old in Wilmington, Delaware; he is in Newark police custody awaiting arraignment before a Justice of the Peace Court judge, police said. NBC10 Philadelphia, reporting from Monday's police news conference, carried the same arrest timeline.

Source: NBC10 Philadelphia (Nov. 9, 2026)

What happened on Halloween night — the earlier development

This arrest story follows the shooting itself, which Awaaz Punjab reported when it happened. At about 11:11 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, gunfire broke out on East Main Street near Choate Street, on the south sidewalk across from a popular bar and restaurant area, as thousands of costumed University of Delaware students and local residents filled the downtown bar district for Halloween. Seven people were ultimately confirmed wounded — the count rose as investigators identified a seventh victim, a 17-year-old with a graze wound, in the days that followed. It was, by victim count, the worst mass shooting in Delaware in seven years, according to Gun Violence Archive data cited by Spotlight Delaware.

Source: Spotlight Delaware (Nov. 1, 2026)

In the first days after the shooting, police charged a wounded 16-year-old boy found with a loaded firearm with weapons offences and set his cash bail at $60,100 while he remained hospitalised in police custody; that teenager is separate from the two defendants indicted this week. The University of Delaware suspended classes for Monday, November 2, and offered counselling to students and staff. Delaware Governor Matt Meyer said after the shooting: 'No family should have to receive the call that someone they love has been shot. Today, people in Newark and Ellendale are facing pain and fear that no one should have to endure. This is not normal. We must never accept gun violence as a part of life in Delaware.'

Source: The Bull Post / FOX local reporting (Nov. 9, 2026)

What happens next

The 18-year-old defendant's next step is arraignment before a Justice of the Peace Court judge in Delaware. The 17-year-old's next step is extradition from Maryland to Delaware. Beyond the court dates, the central open question is motive: police say detectives are still working to determine what precipitated the shooting, the full sequence of events that night, and whether any additional people were involved. Police said they had received no information before the Halloween shooting of any legitimate threat that night. Until those questions are answered, the indictments mark the end of the identification phase of the case — not the end of the investigation.

Newark sits on the Interstate 95 corridor in northern Delaware, a few miles from the Maryland line — which is why one arrest was made across the state line in Cecil County and why a federal agency, the U.S. Marshals Service, made the second. For families in the university town, and for the many Punjabi and South Asian students and families connected to the University of Delaware and the wider Philadelphia–Wilmington area, the arrests close nine days of uncertainty about whether the Halloween shooters would be found at all.