Police have arrested and charged a man in connection with a shooting earlier this month in the Hillside Morningside neighborhood of Fort Worth.
Officers responded to a 911 report of a shooting at about 10:15 p.m. on November 24 in the 1200 block of East Davis Avenue. The caller, Caspian Swinney, 26, said that he shot a man outside his home and was hiding inside the house with his father, Fox 4 KDFW reported.
The shooting victim, 26-year-old Oscar Umanzor Lopez, was Swinney’s next-door neighbor and the father of two children. When police arrived, they found Lopez lying on the driveway with multiple gunshot wounds. Emergency medical providers pronounced him dead at the scene.
According to the arrest affidavit, the two men had become involved in a verbal and physical altercation, though police did not specify what the dispute was about. Swinney told police that he shot Lopez after the man threatened him and punched him in the face. In the mugshot photo, Swinney appears to have a black eye.
Lopez’s wife and children were at home when he was killed in the driveway of their residence.
In nearby Dallas, 162 homicides have been reported in the city as of November 30, according to the City of Dallas Crime Analytics dashboard. Although the Dallas Police Department has been focused on reducing violent crime, it has been hindered in its efforts by a chronic shortage of police officers and a limited budget. The department currently has about 3,100 officers, far short of the City’s 2015 recommendation of 4,000 officers.
Proposition U, one of the HERO amendments to the City charter passed in the general election last month, mandates that the City maintain a police force of at least 4,000 officers and redirect 50% of excess annual City revenue toward hitting that goal.
The current DPD budget of $710.77 million is far less than that of other high-crime jurisdictions, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.