WASHINGTON — 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 neighborhood about a 20-minute drive east of the White House found a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old among the victims, Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons said. The victims, who were not publicly identified, were hospitalized with injuries that weren't considered life-threatening, police said.
The gunshots were fired from a dark SUV seen driving through the Deanwood neighborhood, Parsons said, calling the shooting targeted. 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.
The Washington shooting was the latest in a string of mass shootings over a violent July Fourth weekend.
Three people were killed and six others were wounded late Tuesday night in a mass shooting at a Fourth of July celebration in Shreveport, Louisiana, according to multiple media reports.
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 said.
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.
And in Florida, a 7-year-old child was killed in a shooting during an altercation between two groups gathered for July 4th celebrations along a causeway that crosses Tampa Bay, police said. A man was also hit with gunfire, but was expected to survive, the Tampa Police Department said in a news release. The child was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, the statement said.