Shooter in ski mask wounds 4 kids, 4 adults at Coney Island Fourth of July barbecue

Eight people were shot and wounded, four of them children, by a gunman in a ski mask at a Coney Island family barbecue as the city grappled with a wave of overnight Fourth of July gun violence, police said Sunday.

A crowd was gathered for the cookout in an apartment tower courtyard on W. 30th St. near Surf Ave. when shots rang out as fireworks boomed in the air above about 10:35 p.m. Saturday, cops said.

“Everybody was in line … My moms was making everybody plates,” said Dejahn Williams, 22, who is the brother of the critically injured woman and who is related to all but one of the victims.

The shooter opened fire after approaching the fence line of the courtyard, which is just a block from the Brooklyn neighborhood’s famed boardwalk and beach, cops said.

“Everybody just got down. We see blood going everywhere. People got hit,” Williams said.

“At that moment I’m not worried about my life. I’m just worried about all the little ones. I see the kids. Everybody on the ground.”

“I just felt rage,” he added. “I can’t explain it. My family just got shot. I never experienced this.”

Williams’ 21-year-old sister was shot in the chest and hospitalized in critical condition, police said.

“She’s in a coma. They hooked her up (to life support),” the victim’s grandmother said. “She died but they brung her back … We’re trying to find out if she’s gonna make it.”

Seven other victims are expected to recover: a  6-year-old boy shot in the stomach, a 7-year-old boy shot in both legs, a 12-year-old boy shot in the leg, a 14-year-old boy shot in the thigh, a 25-year-old woman shot in the leg, a 33-year-old man shot in the chest, and a 37-year-old man shot in the shoulder.

“The little baby, he might lose his legs,” the grandmother said of one of the child victims. “We was just having a party for the kids for the Fourth of July. I didn’t know somebody was going to do that … When I came downstairs all my grans got shot. I’m just going crazy right now.”

“People were shooting kids,” she added. “Come on!”

“I was trying to check on everybody,” Williams said. “(The victims were) saying, ‘I’m shot, I’m hurt!’ Screaming and crying. My baby cousin, screaming and crying, all that.”

“Everybody’s in the hospital. No update right now,” he added. “We’re just waiting.”

The shooter who fled was dressed in all black, including a black ski mask, cops said. Police recovered a TEC-9 gun from the scene but have made no arrests.

The mother of the victim in critical condition also witnessed the shooting.

“I had my back turned,” said the mother, who gave her name only as Tiffany. “It was a family barbecue with just family. I was serving food to the kids and next thing you know, gunshots just came out of nowhere. We didn’t even know it was gunshots because it’s the Fourth of July … The next thing you know we see people falling on the ground and running.”

The shooting happened just two blocks away from where drill rapper Truron Roach-Martin, 24, who performed under the name Briscoe, was fatally shot in the face and chest Wednesday. Tisch referred to his killing as gang-related and said investigators are looking into whether it’s connected to Sunday’s violence.

The family who threw the barbecue Saturday does not think there is a connection and has no idea why they were targeted.

“Last week a rapper got killed over here but that don’t have nothing to do with us,” Williams said.

The shooting was one of a half dozen across the city Saturday night into Sunday morning, coming just two days after the the NYPD announced that the city had seen the fewest shootings and murders in the first half of 2026 in recorded history.

“You’ve got to separate out two things: the data and then the actual human side of the incident,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “The data in New York City this year in terms of gun violence is historic. It is record-breaking. But clearly the police department has more work to do.”

So far, none of the shootings Saturday night into Sunday morning have turned fatal.

About an hour before the Coney Island shooting, one man was shot and a 19-year-old man was slashed in the face at 89th St. and 150th Ave. in Jamaica, according to police. The shot man, whose age was not immediately known, was in critical but stable condition at Jamaica Hospital Sunday morning.

Then just before 10:40 p.m. Saturday, a 32-year-old man made his way to Lincoln Hospital by private means with a gunshot wound to his leg, police said. Cops determined he was shot near East 149 St. and Morris Ave. in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

Three hours later, a 34-year-old man walked into the same hospital with a gunshot wound to the groin. Police are still looking into how he was shot and at what location.

At 11:15 p.m. Saturday in East Harlem, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the chest and thigh outside NYCHA’s Lehman Village Houses on Madison Ave. at E. 108th St., cops said.

About 4:10 a.m. Sunday, NYPD Det. Robert Karroll was shot in his ballistic vest by an 18-year-old gunman who approached the officer’s unmarked vehicle in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, cops said. Karrol is expected to make a full recovery and the teen is in custody, Tisch said.