19-year-old National Guard soldier Chrys Carvajal was among the 14 killed in Chicago over the July 4 weekend
US streets were bathed in blood over Independence Day weekend with 142 killed in 379 separate shootings, with Chicago and Philadelphia among the locations worst-hit.
Chicago suffered the greatest bloodshed, with at least 92 shootings over the long weekend. That saw 16 killed and 76 injured.
National Guard soldier Chrys Carvajal, 19, is the only victim so-far named. He was shot while attending a house party after coming home to visit his family for the Independence Day celebrations.
‘My brother. He was all of life. He had a bright future in front of him,’ Carvajal’s sister Jennifer Ramirez told ABC 7.
Ramirez told ABC 7 that her brother was gunned down in a drive-by shooting when he went outside to grab something. A motive is unclear.
Others who survived shootings in the Windy City included children as young as five and six, with others shot in the 12 to 30 age bracket, the Chicago Sun Times, reported.
Two cops were among the city’s shooting victims. The unidentified officers were shot in the early hours of Monday while trying to disperse a crowd in the city’s Washington Park.
They were rushed to hospital, and are expected to survive their injuries.
Philadelphia saw a total of 17 people shot over the weekend, with 21 injured, and seven killed.
Eleven people were shot, four died and another was stabbed during a six hour orgy of violence in Philadelphia during July 4 celebrations.
Six of those 11 shot were teenagers aged between 15 and 19.
The grim toll included a double murder where more than 100 shots rang out.
Shortly after 10:30pm on Sunday, more than 100 bullets ripped through a West Philadelphia barbeque, hitting 22-year-old Sincarr Johnson Jr. in the head, a 23-year-old man multiple times in the torso and a 16-year-old girl in the butt and leg.
Johnson Jr. and the 23-year-old, who hasn’t been identified, died. The teenager is in stable condition, police said.
On Saturday, three people were fatally shot, including a six-year-old boy in the Northeast section of the city.
Chicago Police are filmed on the beat Sunday night, after the Windy City saw 92 people struck by bullets during the long weekend
Hundreds of teenagers descended on Chicago’s downtown Loop area on Sunday night. Two of the city’s cops were shot while trying to disperse young people from another area
One of the victims was Sincarr Johnson Jr, 23, pictured here. He died after more than 100 bullets ripped through a West Philly barbecue on Sunday
Loved-ones console each other after Sincarr Johnson, 23, became one of seven people shot dead in Philadelphia over the July 4 weekend
Johnson was shot dead in this Philadelphia street, with the city plagued by shootings over the long weekend
This was one of 100 bullets found in a West Philadelphia shooting that left two dead and one injured
This map shows the locations of all 379 shootings known to have hit the United States over the July 4 weekend
Two teenagers are dead, and three bystanders were wounded in a late-night July 4 shooting in Cincinnati’s Smale Riverfront Park
There’s no motive for the attack. Officials believe there were at least three shooters.
They also killed an unnamed 18-year-old, who was shot 13 times in the West Oak Lane section of the city, as well as a 21-year-old, who was shot multiple times in the abdomen and thigh in West Philadelphia.
Gunshot victims seemed to come from all over the city, with a 19-year-old being dropped off at a hospital by an unknown person with gunshot wounds to his groin and and lower back and a 20-year-old walking into the hospital as his own with a bullet wound in his leg.
Police didn’t say if any of the shootings were connected.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney released a statement on the weekend violence, saying, ‘This weekend’s horrific violence is a stark reminder that COVID-19 isn’t the only crisis plaguing our city.’
‘Gun violence continues to traumatize our communities and cut Philadelphians lives tragically short,’ Kenney said. ‘My heart breaks for their loved ones and I extend my deepest sympathies as they process this unimaginable loss.’
Police in Dallas, Texas, investigate a shooting that saw eight people struck by bullets
Two teenagers are dead, and three bystanders were wounded in a late-night July 4 shooting in downtown Cincinnati
Dexter Wright Jr, 19, was identified as one of the victims who lost their lives in Cincinnati
Chicago Alderman Anthony Napolitano called the city a ‘war zone’ and ripped the city’s leaders, particularly Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for the surge in crime.
Lightfoot – who last week claimed 99% of criticism of her is based on her gender or race – has blamed joblessness, poverty and out-of-state gun smuggling for the ongoing violence spiral gripping the city she runs.
But Napolitano told Fox that Lightfoot’s arguments are ‘pure nonsense.’
‘We have the strongest and the strictest gun laws in the state, if not the country,’ he said, adding neighboring towns have ‘nowhere near the amount of crime we do.’
Lightfoot deflected blame, telling WTTV, a PBS station, that the violence is the result of ‘decades-long problems’ where there are a lack of jobs and investments in neighborhoods.
‘We know that federally licensed gun dealers are selling to criminals and straw purchasers,’ she told WTTV. ‘We know that because of our proximity to states like Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan that … you can go across the border into these states, and if you’ve got the cash, you can buy literally military-grade weapons of any quantity and bring them back to Chicago.’
Chicago is ‘surrounded by’ suburbs and states ‘that have very lax gun laws,’ Lightfoot continued.
Gun violence plagued other major cities this weekend, including Cincinnati, New York, Dallas and Denver.
At least 10 people were shot and three were killed in Dallas Sunday
During a fireworks display in downtown Cincinnati, five people were shot and two died. They were identified as 16-year-old Milo Watson and 19-year-old Dexter Wright Jr.
At least 26 people people were shot in New York City on Saturday and Sunday. Two men shot in the Bronx in separate incidents on Sunday died. A 19 year-old woman is fighting for her life after being shot in the chest by a man dressed in black while she and her boyfriend walked through Harlem on Sunday night.
And in the Dallas Forth Worth area, 29 people were shot on July 4, with five of those gunshot victims later succumbing to their injuries.
Three of those victims died while celebrating July 4 at the city’s Hamilton Park on Sunday night. Joseph Berry, 61, was shot while walking down Dallas’ gould Street on Sunday evening. A third, unnamed victim, was shot and killed in Fort Worth on July 4.
Denver also saw five people shot and injured in less than three hours on Sunday morning.
Spiraling crime across the US has been blamed on a number of factors. The COVID-19 pandemic saw millions of Americans lose their jobs, with many turning to illegal means to support themselves.
The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 shone a harsh light on police brutality, with police departments struggling to attract new recruits, and being besieged with departures from officers who want out.
Mayors in liberal cities including New York City leader Bill de Blasio have also been accused of worsening the problem with soft anti-crime laws critics say emboldens offenders, and discourages police from trying to apprehend them.