6-year-old Wilmington girl shot playing outside home

WILMINGTON Armoni Fields was playing outside with her dolls early Monday evening when a bullet ripped through her knee, breaking her lower right leg and shattering her kneecap.

The 6-year-old, best known for wheeling her dolls up and down Bennett Street in a baby stroller, was transported to the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children before her mother, Aerion Deshields, could even get to the corner of Bennett and East Eighth streets, where her daughter was shot. The family has lived in the neighborhood for a while now, Deshields said, but she never thought any of her children, let alone her oldest child, would be shot there.

"Ain't nobody perfect down here, but we ain't doing anything," she said. "It's crazy. That could have been anyone's baby."

Fields was shot at about 6:30 p.m. and rushed to Wilmington Hospital before she was transferred to the children's hospital in stable condition. Her mother said she's been sleeping a lot because of heavy pain medication, but she's still alive and that's what matters.

"She's in lots of pain, but she's stable," Deshields said, rubbing her own knee. "She's stable."

Police have released few details about the circumstances of the shooting, though Wilmington Police Sgt. Andrea Janvier said it is an active investigation. Monday night's shooting marks the 100th shooting in the city so far this year. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call (302) 576-3620.

Many who live in the neighborhood are struggling to figure out how a 6-year-old ended up with a bullet through her leg, especially on the 800 block of Bennett. Some say they didn't hear the shooting Monday night and others don't want to comment at all, choosing to stay inside their homes rather than face the violence on the streets.

But local residents say there aren't shootings there — up and down the street along Bennett, sure, but not on their corner, Deshields said, surrounded by local mothers whose children also play on the sidewalks.

The block was largely quiet Tuesday afternoon, save for the group of women gathered on the sidewalk within eyesight of where Fields was shot. A Wilmington police car rolled by occasionally, but for the most part, the street was empty of parked cars and passers-by.

A friend of Deshields who declined to give her name gestured up East Eighth Street and down Bennett Street, where large crowds gathered on the sidewalk and on street corners, some kneeling on front porch steps. The warm weather and sudden lack of rain seemed to draw people outside, but the women weren't fans of the rowdy crowds.

"It's like the wild, wild West up there," another friend said, gesturing to people walking in the road.

And "up there" is where these women say the shooting would be considered normal.

In the last year, five people have been injured in shootings along East Eighth Street within two blocks of the corner where Fields was shot. The shootings increase down Bennett Street and the surrounding area, with another five shootings within a block of Bennett in the last year.

Monday's shooting marks the 14th child under the age of 18 to be shot on city streets this year.

Deshields' friends acknowledge that the shootings have to end, mentioning the 10-year-old boy who was shot in the head mid-August in Southbridge and the woman found dead behind the BJ's at Hares Corner Tuesday morning. They don't want to feel scared to sit outside and go places in the city, but one woman said she's ready to leave Wilmington for good.

Everyone agreed — the killings must come to an end.

"There's too many kids out here," Deshields said, other women nodding their heads in agreement, "too many babies."

Contact Brittany Horn at (302) 324-2771 or bhorn@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brittanyhorn.