U.S. News

At Least Six People Were Killed Across the Country During Fourth of July Celebrations

By Mike Harper · July 6, 2026

A man in a black ski mask opened fire on a family barbecue in Brooklyn on the Fourth of July. Eight people were hit, including four children. The youngest victim was a child. The gunman ran.

Fourth of July celebrations across the country were marked by violence that killed at least six people and injured dozens more in shootings and explosions spanning multiple cities and states. The weekend produced mass shootings in New York, Florida, Indiana, California, and Ohio — a geographic spread that made the violence impossible to attribute to any single city or circumstance.

In Coney Island, the Saturday night shooting erupted at a neighborhood barbecue. A gunman wearing a black ski mask fired into the gathering, wounding eight people — four of them children under 15. A 21-year-old woman remained in critical condition after being shot in the chest. NYPD recovered a firearm at the scene but as of Monday morning no suspect has been arrested.

In Gary, Indiana, a 10-year-old boy was killed. Police responded to two separate shootings within 15 minutes of each other early Sunday morning. Six people were wounded in the first incident. In the second, the boy and a 50-year-old man were shot. The boy died at the hospital.

In Pensacola, Florida, what police described as a “teen takeover” — hundreds of unaccompanied young people flooding downtown — ended with a 19-year-old shot dead and six others wounded shortly after 1 AM. Police Chief Eric Winstrom said children as young as middle school age were in the crowd. “She deserves justice, and she deserves answers,” he said of the victim’s mother.

In Chino, California, a fireworks explosion killed a woman in her 20s and hospitalized three others with severe injuries. Police arrested 28-year-old Derion Tradon James Jr. on an involuntary manslaughter charge after determining a large quantity of ignited consumer fireworks caused the blast.

In Compton, two people were killed and three injured — including a juvenile — at an apartment complex party around 11:30 PM Saturday. In Dayton, Ohio, four people were shot in the Oregon District. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, one woman was killed and eight others were wounded after 3 AM Sunday.

Chicago recorded 3 killed and 21 shot over the holiday weekend, including two police officers injured during a foot pursuit. The numbers were down significantly from last year’s Fourth, when 9 were killed and 44 shot — but the violence still reached into neighborhoods across the city.

The pattern is annual. The CPSC reports that approximately 10,000 Americans are treated in emergency rooms for firework injuries every Fourth of July. The gun violence overlay is separate and less documented — there is no single federal database that tracks holiday-weekend shootings nationally. The count comes from local police departments, one city at a time.

Six dead. Dozens wounded. Four children shot at a barbecue. A 10-year-old killed in Indiana. America celebrated its 250th birthday the way it celebrates most things — with joy and violence in the same weekend.