A masked gunman opened fire on a group celebrating a Fourth of July family barbecue in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, shooting eight people, including four children, without warning, police officials said.
NYPD detectives are working to identify the suspect, who fled the scene on foot and remains at large, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference on Sunday.
“There is no place for this kind of violence in our city. We will not tolerate it. We will fight it with every single tool at our disposal,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at the news conference.
“As we mourn alongside those whose loved ones have been hurt, let us also recommit ourselves to the work of building a city where every celebration is safe and every holiday is joyful,” Mamdani added.
Tisch said the victims included a 37-year-old man, a 33-year-old man, a 21-year-old woman, a 25-year-old woman and four children, ages 6, 7, 12 and 14.
The commissioner said seven of the victims suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, but the 21-year-old victim was shot in the chest and is hospitalized in critical condition.
The shooting occurred around 10:37 p.m. on Saturday in the courtyard of a residence at West 30th and Surf Avenue, less than two blocks from Coney Island’s famed Riegelmann Boardwalk, police said.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that a family barbecue was taking place in the courtyard when an unknown male dressed in all black and wearing a black ski mask approached the fence line along Surf Avenue and fired multiple rounds into the courtyard,” Tisch said.
Detectives have so far found no indication that an argument or altercation involving the suspect occurred at the barbecue before the shooting, the commissioner added.
Detectives recovered a TEC-9-style firearm equipped with an extended magazine at the scene, along with 10 discharged shell casings, Tisch said.
The commissioner said detectives are investigating whether the shooting is connected to a gang-related homicide that occurred earlier this week on the same block as Saturday night’s shooting.
“We are looking into whether there is a nexus between the two incidents,” Tisch said.
The Coney Island shooting comes amid a 25.6% drop in homicides and a 3.3 decline in shooting incidents across New York City compared to the first six months of 2025, according to NYPD crime statistics.
“The data in New York City this year in terms of gun violence is historic. It is record-breaking,” Tisch said. “But clearly, the police department has more work to do, we all have more work to do, when we see four children shot in one incident celebrating the July Fourth holiday.”
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