Police responded to a report of a shooting on Meade Street in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. capital shortly before 1 a.m. on July 5.J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press
Mass shootings broke out at festivals, block parties and other gatherings in a handful of cities this week as the U.S. celebrated the Fourth of July.
A total of 16 took place across the nation from Friday evening until Wednesday morning, leaving 15 dead and 94 injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as any in which four or more people are wounded or killed, not including the shooter.
In Shreveport, La., at least three people were killed and 10 others wounded late Tuesday night, Shreveport police Sergeant Angie Willhite said. One of the injured was in critical condition Wednesday but the others were expected to survive, she said.
No arrests have been made.
“We are struggling with getting information from those who were present. We’re not getting a lot of co-operation,” Sgt. Willhite said.
Another body was found in the area Wednesday morning, police Chief Wayne Smith said at a news conference.
“Chances are likely that it is a result of what occurred here last night,” Chief Smith said.
The block party where the shooting took place has been held around the July Fourth holiday for at least 10 years, said Shreveport City Councilwoman Tabatha Taylor, who represents the neighbourhood.
Independence Day celebrations in the nation’s capital also turned violent when nine people outside enjoying the festivities were shot and wounded early Wednesday, police said.
Nine people outside enjoying the Independence Day festivities in the nation’s capital were shot and wounded early Wednesday, police said, as a spate of violence marred the holiday.
Officers responding around 1 a.m. to the mass shooting in a neighbourhood about a 20-minute drive east of the White House found a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old among the victims, police said. The victims, who were not publicly identified, were hospitalized with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening,
The gunshots were fired from a dark SUV seen driving through the Deanwood neighbourhood.
Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons said the shootings appeared to be targeted, and called the violence “totally unacceptable.”
It was unclear if there was more than one shooter in the vehicle, and no arrests had been made, said police, who appealed to the public for information to help in their investigation.
“We have too many guns and too many violent people on the street,” said Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser Wednesday afternoon. “We have work to do.”
In Maryland, A 14-year-old boy was killed and six other people were injured in a shooting at a Fourth of July block party on the Eastern Shore early Wednesday, according to the county sheriff’s office.
No arrests have been made, but there was an active investigation, Captain Timothy Robinson said by telephone.
In Florida, gunfire erupted after an altercation between two groups gathered for July Fourth celebrations along a causeway that crosses Tampa Bay, killing a 7-year-old, police said.
Investigators said the boy was sitting in a truck with his grandfather Tuesday when a bullet was fired into the vehicle, hitting the older man in his hand and the boy in the head.
Calvin Johnson, deputy chief of the Tampa Police Department, said Wednesday that no arrests had been made but investigators don’t believe the boy and grandfather were targeted.
The shooting stemmed from an argument over Jet Skis that one group said were coming too close to children playing in the water.
“There was no reason – no excuse that an argument can lead to gunfire, much less an argument over Jet Skis,” Deputy Chief Johnson said at a news conference. “Now we got citizens’ families, folks in our communities, that have to deal with this tragic incident that happened on Fourth of July.”
Even before the holiday, city streets turned deadly in other communities.
On Monday night, a shooter in a bulletproof vest opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia, killing five people and wounding two boys, ages 2 and 13, before surrendering, police said. The accused was arraigned on Wednesday on five counts of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons counts of possession without a licence and carrying firearms in public, prosecutors said.
Three people were killed and eight others were injured when several men fired indiscriminately into a crowd of hundreds that had gathered in a Texas neighbourhood after a festival in the area, authorities said. The shooting in the Fort Worth neighbourhood of Como happened late Monday night, about two hours after the annual ComoFest ended.
Thirty people were shot, two fatally, at a block party in Baltimore early Sunday. Many of those shooting victims were children, authorities said.
– with a file from Reuters