CNN
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Nine people were injured – including a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old – in a shooting early Wednesday that happened as the victims were celebrating the Fourth of July in the nation’s capital, police said.
All nine had non-life-threatening injuries after the shooting near Meade Street in the Northeast quadrant of Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons said.
The shots were fired from a dark-colored SUV that had been going down Meade Street, Parsons said in a video statement on Twitter.
“As it drove through the street, it stopped,” and at least one person from the vehicle “fired shots in the direction of some of our residents that were outside just celebrating the Fourth of July,” Parsons said. “It appears that the shooting was targeted towards those residents and victims that were struck.”
Police were alerted to the shooting shortly before 1 a.m., Parsons said. While Parsons said people were shot, he didn’t say whether all nine of the injured suffered gunshot wounds.
Several victims taken to hospitals by first responders, and others went to hospitals on their own, he said.
The shooting happened just blocks from the Maryland state line and roughly 5 miles from the US Capitol, police said.
Police were looking for the SUV, Parsons said. Details about whether investigators had identified any suspects weren’t immediately available.
At least 350 mass shootings have been reported in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.
The shooting in Washington came during a Fourth of July holiday period marked by gun violence in other parts of the country.
In Philadelphia, a shooting Monday night left five people dead and two boys wounded. On the same night in Fort Worth, Texas, a shooting killed three people and wounded eight others.
Early Sunday, two people were killed and 28 were injured in a shooting in Baltimore, authorities said.
