Shootings disrupt holiday weekend

After leaving his mother’s car to retrieve a phone charger from his aunt’s house in Washington, D.C., 11-year-old Davon McNeal was shot and killed on the Fourth of July. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. In Chicago, shootings over the weekend injured 70 people and killed 17, including two children. A shooting in Atlanta near the Wendy’s restaurant where a police officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks last month left an 8-year-old girl dead.

How are officials reacting? “We cannot grow numb to this,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted after the death of a 7-year-old girl. “We are making progress in slowing shooters, but we have to do better.” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms compared the gun violence to the deaths by police that have sparked recent protests: “We are doing each other more harm than any police officer on this force.”

Dig deeper: Read Rachel Lynn Aldrich’s report in Compassion about how the coronavirus-related shutdowns led to a rise in juvenile crime in some states.