WASHINGTON (Dispatches) — Nine people were shot and wounded, including two juveniles, early Wednesday in Washington, D.C., police said.
Shortly before 1 a.m. police responded to a report of a shooting on Meade Street in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. capital, Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons of the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement on Twitter.
Upon their arrival officers discovered multiple shooting victims, including a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old, Parsons said.
A dark colored SUV seen driving through the neighborhood, stopped and then shot at the victims outside enjoying the July Fourth holiday, Parsons said, calling the shooting targeted.
Several victims were transported to local hospitals by D.C. Fire and EMS while others transported themselves. All the victims suffered non-life threatening injuries, Parsons said. None have been identified.
It was not immediately clear if there was more than one shooter in the vehicle and no arrests have been made.
The D.C. shooting is the latest in a string of mass shootings over a violent holiday weekend.
Thirty people were shot, two fatally at a block party in Baltimore early Sunday. Authorities say many of the shooting victims were under 18.
On Monday night, a gunman in a bulletproof vest has opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia, killing five people and wounding two boys, 2 and 13, before he surrendered to responding officers, police.
Three people were killed and eight others injured when several men fired indiscriminately into a crowd of hundreds that had gathered in a Texas neighborhood following a festival in the area, authorities said. The shooting in the Fort Worth neighborhood of Como happened late Monday night, about two hours after the annual ComoFest ended.
Wednesday’s shooting was at least
the 342nd that the United States has seen this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), with at least 21,699 people killed -- including 12,144 suicides -- so far this year.
Mass shootings — in which at least four people are shot, not including the shooter — have more than doubled in the U.S. over the last five years, with 151 mass shootings recorded at the midway point in 2018.
Gun violence is a daily reality across the U.S., but an emerging body of research indicates the most risky day for mass shootings in the nation is the Fourth of July, when Americans celebrate their independence from Britain.
Using data from the Gun Violence Archive, James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, found that there have been 52 mass shootings on the Fourth of July over the past decade, averaging just over five a year, and more than on any other given day.
His analysis, which he implemented for USA Today, underscores how, in a country where Republicans in many states have acted to loosen gun laws, it is routine that the barbecues, block parties and parades held to commemorate the US’s birthday become scenes of bloodshed.
Last year, a gunman opened fire from a rooftop and killed seven people attending an Independence Day parade in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. The violence was part of a string of mass killings that led gun control-wary Republicans in Congress to partner with Democrats and pass legislation that contained modest reforms intended to halt the violence.
The heated political debate surrounding gun violence and gun ownership in America has sparked limited action, despite the large number of mass shootings in America.
Many Republicans have argued the rise in mass shootings is a “mental health problem” not a gun issue. Despite passing the then Democratic-controlled House in July 2022, a proposed assault weapons ban failed to earn enough support in the Senate in November. An assault weapons ban continues to be a point of disagreement between Democrats—who say a ban is necessary in order to reduce the number of mass shootings—and Republicans—who disagree with removing weapons from Americans who they say use them for self-defense.