At least eight people, including four children, were shot and wounded on Saturday during the Fourth of July holiday in New York City’s Coney Island section, according to police.
The shooting happened at about 10.35pm on the Brooklyn neighborhood’s West 30th Street – not far from a boardwalk where a fireworks display had been set less than an hour earlier.
Those injured include a 33-year-old man and 21-year-old woman shot in the chest; a 25-year-old woman; and a 37-year-old man struck in the shoulder. A six-year-old boy was struck in the stomach; a seven-year-old boy was shot in the legs or thigh; a six-year-old boy was struck in the stomach; and two other boys, ages 12 and 14, were also wounded.
All of the victims were taken to hospitals, with seven listed in stable condition. The 21-year-old woman was said to be in critical condition.
Police said they recovered a pistol with an extended magazine along with 10 shell casings but had not made any arrests.
The New York police department (NYPD) commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said at a press briefing on Sunday that the victims were found in a courtyard where a family barbecue was being held.
“An unknown male dressed in all-black and wearing a black ski-mask approached the fence line and fired multiple rounds into the courtyard and then fled on foot,” Tisch said. “There is no indication at this time that there was any argument or altercation at the barbecue before the shooting occurred.”
Tisch noted that a gang-related homicide had recently occurred on the same block – and that police are looking into whether there is nexus between the two cases.
Zohran Mamdani, the New York mayor, said at the briefing on Sunday that there is “no place in our city for this kind of violence”.
“We will not tolerate it,” Mamdani said. “And we will fight it with every tool at our disposal.”
As of Sunday morning, there had been at least 215 mass shootings across the US so far for the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonpartisan resource defines mass shootings as cases in which four or more victims are wounded or killed.
There had been at least six mass shootings across the US on Saturday, when the nation celebrated its semiquincentennial, according to the archive. At least two more had been reported on Sunday morning.
One of the mass shootings early on Sunday was at about 1.20am in downtown Pensacola, Florida, authorities told local media.
A 19-year-old man was killed, and six other victims between the ages of 16 and 26 were wounded, police said. Eric Winstrom, the Pensacola police chief, said investigators believed the shooting was “targeted” but had not immediately arrested any suspects.
Winstrom said the shooting happened as hundreds of young people had gone into downtown Pensacola, including some who purportedly engaged in fighting and throwing fireworks, the local news outlet WKRG reported.
The US perennially has high numbers of mass shootings, prompting pleas to Congress for more substantial gun control. But Congress over the years has not implemented such restrictions.
Saturday night’s Coney Island mass shooting came hours before an NYPD officer from the sex offender monitoring unit was shot in his ballistic vest while in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in what appeared to be a targeted attack.
Officers deployed stun guns on an 18-year-old suspect and arrested him, Tisch said. The targeted officer’s injuries were described as minor.
Tisch noted that the early Sunday attack occurred on the ninth anniversary of the murder of NYPD detective Miosotis Familia, who was ambushed in a marked agency vehicle.
The shootings in Brooklyn also came two days after Tisch announced that the NYPD reported the fewest shootings, shooting victims, and murders for the first half of a year in recorded history.
There were 322 shooting incidents, beating the previous low of 337 set in 2018 and in 2025. There were 381 shooting victims, beating the previous low of 397 set in 2025. And there were 122 murders, beating the previous low of 136 set in 2017.
The NYPD also said major crime was down 5.8% citywide.
