Charles Langston:14-year-old boy dead, 6 wounded in mass shooting at July Fourth block party in Maryland

A teenager was killed and six others were wounded  in a mass shooting at a Fourth of July block party in Maryland overnight, authorities said Wednesday.

Officers responded to the shooting in Salisbury, near Ocean City, just after midnight, the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office said in a post shared to Facebook on Wednesday morning. They arrived to find seven people had been shot, including a 14-year-old boy, identified as Xavier Cordei Maddox, who died from his injuries after being transported to a hospital nearby. None of the other shooting victims suffered life-threatening injuries, the sheriff's office said.

The sheriff's office has not identified any potential suspects connected to the shooting and described their investigation as "very active." Authorities are asking anyone with information about the incident to contact the office's criminal investigation division. 

The overnight shooting in Salisbury happened around the same time nine people, including a 9-year-old child, were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Washington, D.C. 

The U.S. saw a flurry of deadly mass shootings over the holiday weekend. Three people were killed and eight others wounded after gunfire erupted in Fort Worth, Texas on Monday night.

Also on Monday, a heavily armed gunman in a bulletproof vest opened fire in Philadelphia, killing five people and wounding two before surrendering, police said. On Sunday in Baltimore, two people were killed and 28 others wounded in a shooting at a holiday weekend block party.  

In:
• Maryland
• 4th of July
• Mass Shooting
• Crime