The July 4 shooting death of 7-year-old Amari Brown, who was killed in the Humboldt Park area of Chicago, garnered national headlines in the aftermath of a bloody holiday weekend. But Brown’s story isn’t unique: Bullets, drive-by shootings, and unintentional discharges resulted in the death or injury of at least 19 children aged 12 and under in the first week of July.
According to the Center for Disease Control’s WISQARS injury database, 223 children ages 12 and under were killed and 604 were injured by firearms in 2013, the last year for which such information was available.
Here’s a breakdown of this week’s incidents
July 1: A 9-year-old boy was shot in the face by his 11-year-old brother as they played with a .45-caliber pistol they found in their home in Plant City, Florida. Their mother said she was keeping the gun for a friend behind a padlocked bedroom door. The boys removed the lock to get to the gun.
July 1: A 4-year-old girl was wounded by a stray bullet while playing outside an apartment complex in Phoenix, Arizona.
July 2: Four-year-old Chris L. Palmer fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a home in Hampton, Virginia. Palmer’s stepfather, 26-year-old Lashawn D. Stephenson, was charged with with felony child neglect.
July 2: An 11-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet fired during a disagreement between two men as he played in his grandmother’s yard on the east side of El Dorado, Arkansas.
July 3: Emontae Johnson, 7, was wounded in the hand during a drive-by shooting while in the driveway of his home on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio.
July 4: A 2-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl were shot and wounded on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. The girl is paralyzed from the waist down. Their uncle, 30-year-old Lindsey Curry, has been arrested.
July 4: Ella Smith, 9, was hit in the back by a stray bullet fired into the air in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. She and her parents were visiting from Mississippi.
July 4: A 10-year-old boy was shot and wounded during a fireworks display at a Fourth of July party in Merced, California. Police suspect celebratory gunfire.
July 4: Amari Brown, 7, was shot and killed in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. Brown, who was with his father at the time, had just come from a Fourth of July celebration at his grandmother’s house.
July 5: A 3-year-old boy died after shooting himself in the face with his grandfather’s gun, which was in or on a nightstand, in the bedroom of a home in Spring, Texas.
July 5: China Kinebrew, 6, lost her left eye to a gunshot while riding her bike with her sister in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Kinebrew also suffered a collapsed lung. The target of the shooting was Kinebrew’s 26-year-old stepfather, who was also shot.
July 5: An 8-year-old boy was shot and wounded by a 16-year-old boy during a fight between two groups of people in Charleston, South Carolina.
July 5: A 12-year-old boy was shot in the leg while playing in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Old East Dallas, Texas. The gunfire was sparked by an argument at a corner store.
July 5: A 12-year-old boy shot himself in the finger and in the side of his body while playing with a gun at a home in West Price Hill, Ohio.
July 6: An 11-year-old girl was shot and wounded at a duplex in Overland Park, Kansas. A woman in her 30s was killed during the same incident. Police said someone opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle before driving away. There were seven other children inside at the time.
July 6: A 9-year-old girl was shot in the leg near a fish market in Compton, California. Two men were shot nearby at the same time.
July 6: A 6-year-old boy was shot in the foot while playing basketball with friends and family in the Grays Ferry neighborhood of Philadelphia.
July 6: A 5-year-old girl was critically injured in a drive-by shooting in Topeka, Kansas.
