Challenges amid celebration as Wilmington police investigate 3 shootings following MLK Day parade

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — As people celebrated the life, legacy, and messages of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Wilmington police investigated three separate shootings.

All three shootings happened after the MLK Day parade was held in downtown Wilmington.

No one was killed in any of the shootings with 3 victims taken to Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Greg Willett is a lieutenant with the Wilmington police department.

He said its unfortunate but not surprising for shootings to happen on a holiday.

“I think sometimes people in the world are very selfish and sometimes folks have low impulse control and end up doing things like this, regardless of if its a holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr, a very humanitarian holiday,” Willett said. “It still happens.”

Martin Luther King Day is also known as the MLK National Day of Service.

Wilmington Mayor Pro Tem and pastor Clifford Barnett said while Monday’s shootings were sad to hear about, they also show that more needs to be done to further spread King’s messages through other actions than just violence.

“It’s that I have to put my faith into actions, in my shoes,” Barnett said. “So I have to become a better neighbor, I got to become, having these hard conversations around the dinner table, around the picnic pool. I’m just making sure that we let everybody know that there are other ways to handle conflict.”

Lieutenant Willett said there are leads in each shooting and that the shootings are not related.