Brickbats: July 2026

Providence, Rhode Island, Police Chief Oscar Perez defended officers who arrested four people while responding to a noise complaint at a July 4 house party in 2025, calling their actions “justified” after party-goers refused to comply with orders. He later backtracked after body camera video showed officers punching people and throwing them to the ground. Prosecutors dropped the charges, and the officers were disciplined.

On July 4, 2020, amid protests against police brutality, a Portland, Oregon, police officer shot Dexter Pearce in the back of the leg with an impact munition as he walked away. According to a lawsuit Pearce filed against the city, the officer never attempted to arrest him or accuse him of any criminal activity and merely targeted him “in retaliation for protesting the police.” The city settled the lawsuit for $25,000; in total, it paid out more than $3 million related to police activity during protests that summer.

Scott Mathews, an officer with the Colorado Department of Corrections, yelled at neighbors whose kids were setting off fireworks in their apartment complex on July 4, 2019. Mathews was taking his dogs out, but they were too upset by the noise to do their business. When Shamira Cotton stepped forward to defend her kids, Mathews pointed a gun at her and, after putting it away, headbutted her in the face, drawing blood. Jaharie Wheeler, Cotton’s fiancé, then punched Mathews, who fatally shot him while stumbling back. A jury convicted Mathews of second-degree murder, and a judge sentenced him to 37 years in prison. Mathews’ girlfriend, a fellow corrections employee, also drew her gun during the fight but said she did not point it at anyone.

Responding to a call on the South Side of Chicago on July 4, 2012, police found off-duty Northwestern University police officer Wesley Jackson firing a gun in the air toward Lake Michigan. Jackson admitted being intoxicated when police confronted him but added, “It’s the 4th of July.” Jackson was arrested and held on a $50,000 bond. Northwestern officials did not specify if the gun was Jackson’s service weapon, but the university placed him on administrative leave.

In 2025, cities in Orange County, California, began using drones to patrol for people illegally setting off fireworks on July 4. The town of Stanton alone issued nearly $1 million in fines—$1,000 for each explosion, according to Mayor David Shawver. Officials said one man received a $300,000 fine after they recorded 300 detonations on his property, although he said he “wasn’t even home.”

In 2012, as Andrew Rausa and his friends celebrated July 4 on the stoop in front of a Brooklyn brownstone, police officers cited them for drinking in public. Rausa, a law student at the time, pulled up the city code on his phone and showed them that since they were drinking on private property, it didn’t violate the law. “I don’t care what the law says,” the officer replied. “You’re getting a summons.”

Ahead of the July 4 holiday in 2021, the Los Angeles Police Department disposed of its cache of confiscated illegal fireworks by detonating the entire stockpile at once. The resulting blast destroyed a police vehicle; injured 17 people, including 10 law enforcement officers; and damaged several homes in the surrounding neighborhood, displacing dozens of residents. A police inspector general later found that Detective Damien Levesque, who supervised the detonation, ignored warnings from the bomb squad before setting it off. He was later reassigned but not fired. The city eventually paid $21 million to settle the lawsuits of residents who were still living in hotels three years after the blast.

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