Californian charged in July with fourth stabbing in which two people died and three were injured

A man who prosecutors say stabbed five people, two of them fatally, in a July 4 attack on a California beach town has been charged with murder, authorities said Tuesday.

Logan Christopher Kelley, 26, was also charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and battery on a police officer, prosecutors said in a news release. He was charged under a provision known as “special circumstances of multiple murder,” which carries the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The attack occurred shortly after 11 p.m. after Kelley approached a group of people watching fireworks in Huntington Beach, a community southeast of Los Angeles. He was drunk and had taken hallucinogenic drugs, prosecutors said, and began stabbing people with a knife.

Eric Hodges, 42, and William Collins, 47, were killed. Two 35-year-old men and one of their fathers, 68, were injured in the stabbing but are expected to survive, prosecutors said.

Kelley, of the nearby city of Redondo Beach, reportedly did not know anyone in the group, prosecutors said. Several people helped detain him until police arrived, including a 16-year-old boy. Kelley was also accused of assaulting the boy, spitting at a police officer and using a racial slur during his arrest, prosecutors said.

The attack was part of a wave of violence across the United States that has left at least 33 people dead, including 11 in Chicago. July 4 is historically one of the deadliest days of the year.

“A day that would have celebrated America and all the freedoms we all enjoy turned into deadly chaos at the hands of a stranger,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.