NEWARK, Delaware — Six people were shot late on Halloween night, Saturday, October 31, on East Main Street in downtown Newark, beside the University of Delaware campus, Newark police have now confirmed in an updated statement. The shots were fired at about 11:13 p.m. on the south sidewalk of East Main Street, directly across from Choate Street, and all six victims were transported to local hospitals for treatment, police said.

Source: Newark Police Department update, via Associated Press

What police have now confirmed

Newark police Lt. Greg D'Elia told the Associated Press that six people were shot shortly after 11:10 p.m. Saturday near the University of Delaware campus and that all six were transported to hospitals. Video shared on social media showed people running for safety from the scene, and one stretch of the city's Main Street was closed for several hours after the shooting. In their updated statement, police gave the precise location: “The shooting occurred on the south sidewalk of East Main Street, directly across from Choate Street. Six victims were shot during the incident. All six victims were transported to local hospitals for medical treatment.”

Source: Associated Press — Lt. Greg D'Elia, Newark police, via KCAU 9 / Bleacher Report AP alert

The University of Delaware's student newspaper, The Review, reported a heavy police presence at the scene from Newark police, the University of Delaware Police Department and Delaware State Police, with officers examining debris in the area. As of 1 a.m. Sunday, a Newark police spokesperson said no information on victims or suspects was available beyond the confirmed count, and noted there were no reports of fatalities. Police have still not released the six victims' conditions, any suspect description, or any arrest.

Source: The Review (University of Delaware), Nov. 1, 2026

A packed Halloween street, then gunfire

Witnesses told local reporters the street was packed with people in Halloween costumes when the shots were fired. Dozens of Halloween-goers in costume crowded the downtown strip on Saturday night, The Review reported. The university's emergency alert system notified the campus community of police activity at 11:29 p.m. on Saturday — sixteen minutes after the shooting — and sent a further update on the ongoing investigation at 1:41 a.m. on Sunday. Main Street was closed between Library Avenue and Academy Street while detectives worked, a closure reports put at about five hours, with the road reopening in the early hours of Sunday.

Rick Deadwyler, the University of Delaware's Vice President for Public Affairs, said in a statement to The Review: “We are deeply concerned about the shooting on Main Street Saturday night, which has impacted our entire community. We are grateful to the Newark Police Department, which is leading the investigation. We will continue to communicate confirmed information, which will be shared on a dedicated alerts page and updated as we learn more.” Newark police, for their part, said in their first release that, based on the information available, there did not appear to be an ongoing threat to public safety — an assessment they have not changed in the update that confirmed the six victims.

Source: The Review (University of Delaware), Nov. 1, 2026

Police want photos and video — here is where to send them

Investigators are asking anyone who witnessed the shooting, or who has photographs or video from East Main Street on Halloween night, to come forward. Information can be provided to Detective Paige Klein at 302-366-7100, extension 3480, or submitted through the Newark Police Department's evidence portal. Students who live near the affected area and need help returning home can contact the University of Delaware Police Department at 302-831-2222, the university advised in its alerts.

Background: Main Street is the campus front porch

Newark is a small Delaware city whose life is organised around the University of Delaware, the state's flagship public university, whose main campus sits directly against the Main Street blocks where the shooting happened. East Main Street is the town's commercial spine — restaurants, bars, coffee shops and student housing — and on Halloween night it holds one of the biggest crowds of the college year: students in costume, visiting friends and families from surrounding neighbourhoods. That is why a shooting at 11:13 p.m., at the peak of the crowd, triggered a campus alert inside sixteen minutes and a multi-agency police response, and why the early information vacuum filled so quickly with social-media claims — claims that ranged, our first report noted, from two people shot to six. Police have now settled that question at six.

Why this matters to our readers

Delaware's Punjabi and wider South Asian community is smaller than California's or New Jersey's, but it is concentrated exactly here: Indian and Punjabi students at the University of Delaware, families in Newark, Wilmington and the I-95 corridor towns, and truckers and travellers who pass through this stretch of Delaware between New Jersey and Maryland. For a parent in Punjab or Brampton with a child studying in Newark, the confirmed picture matters: six people shot and hospitalised on the street their child walks, no fatalities reported so far, no suspect yet announced, and a police assessment of no ongoing threat. Those are the verified facts, and they replace the rumours of Halloween night.

What happens next

The next facts must come from the Newark Police Department: the conditions of the six victims, whether any of them are University of Delaware students, whether a suspect is being sought, and what led to the gunfire. The university will keep posting confirmed information on its dedicated alerts page. Until police release conditions and suspect information, the record stands at this: six people shot at 11:13 p.m. on Saturday on East Main Street at Choate Street, all six in hospital, no deaths reported, an active investigation, and a detective's phone number — 302-366-7100, extension 3480 — waiting for the video that may explain it.