Dwight C. Wells

Dwight C. Wells was a Miami community activist and small business owner best known as the founder of the anti violence movement often reported as "Wheels Up, Guns Down" and as the owner of a Liberty City restaurant called Winning And Won Turkey Legs. He was 40 years old when he was shot outside his restaurant in October 2025, a killing that shocked the Liberty City neighborhood where he had spent his life and built his reputation as a peacemaker.

Wells grew up in Liberty City and was a 2004 graduate of Miami Northwestern Senior High School. Over the following two decades he became a visible and trusted figure in the neighborhood, running his restaurant on Northwest 17th Avenue and organizing community rides and events meant to steer young people away from gun violence. Friends and neighbors knew him by the nickname "Screamer," and he was widely described in local coverage as a "Liberty City pioneer" whose work went beyond any single event or organization.

His death came on the night of October 10, 2025. According to Miami police, Wells was playing dominoes with two other people outside his restaurant, Winning And Won Turkey Legs, at 5090 Northwest 17th Avenue, when a man approached and shot him before fleeing on foot. Miami Fire Rescue paramedics took him to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he died of his injuries. The shooting happened shortly after 9:20 p.m. and prompted an immediate investigation by City of Miami police.

The killing of a man known throughout Liberty City for trying to reduce violence struck many in the community as a bitter irony, and it drew an outpouring of grief. In the days after his death, residents gathered at his restaurant, and a mobile billboard carrying photographs and memories of Wells circulated through the neighborhood. Children who took part in the bike rides he organized rode to the site where he was killed to remember him. For months afterward his family publicly pressed for information, saying they were still seeking answers in the case.

More than a year after the shooting, Miami police announced an arrest. On October 15, 2026, authorities said 39 year old Jamar Lionel Jenkins had been taken into custody in connection with Wells's killing. The announcement came after a prolonged investigation and gave the Liberty City community a measure of resolution, though many questions about the circumstances of the shooting, including a possible motive, had not been publicly detailed as of the arrest.

Wells is remembered in Miami as someone who used his own neighborhood credibility and a small restaurant as platforms for community organizing, trying to pull young people toward bikes and away from guns in a part of the city that has long struggled with gun violence. His death, and the length of time it took to bring charges, became its own local story about the risks faced by community activists and the difficulty of solving neighborhood shootings even when the victim is widely known and admired.