Surveillance video shows the moment shots were fired into a crowd in Fort Worth Monday night, leaving three dead and eight injured.
The incident occurred just before midnight on July 3 in the Horne Street area of the Como neighborhood, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. Fort Worth Police Department Police Capt. Shawn Murray confirmed reports of the shooting during a news conference.
“We had a shooting. It appears that we had multiple victims that were shot. Probably three of them were transported to Harris Southwest,” said Capt. Murray. “Five more victims were transported to John Peter Smith.”
Murray described the chaotic scene when first responders arrived, as fireworks periodically went off in the background behind him while he spoke.
“A lot of vehicle traffic, a lot of foot traffic. As you can tell, still fireworks were being shot off. Lots of people just trying to flee the area from the multiple gunshots, so it was difficult for [first responders] to navigate quickly into the area,” he said.
Community members said they would not have expected an incident like this.
“Como is like a family. Everybody knows everybody. We don’t just do for ourselves, we do for each other,” said Gladys McBride, a resident, per NBC. “It’s sad. When you’re doing good, you know how people try to make you look bad? We’re not that type of family out here.”
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker spoke with NBC about the violence in her community.
“It’s senseless. You have people come into a family environment with guns and start shooting randomly. We’ve got to be better in [this] community,” she said, per NBC. “We need to disperse people after those fireworks are over at 10 p.m. – this incident happened closer to midnight. Families are trying to go home. And whoever was there was trying to do trouble and trying to wreak havoc on a community that loves one another and is trying to build back, redevelop, and invest in one another.”
Despite the incident, Estrus Tucker of the Lake Como planning committee hopes that one moment does not define the area.
“That event last night was a microcosm of what’s happening around our country,” said Tucker, per NBC. “It happened in Como, but it’s not affiliated with anything of Como.”
Mayor Parker said the city would learn from the incident.
“We owe it to this community to be better in the future and prevent these kind of things from happening, and I think we’ll all get to play quarterback in the next few weeks about how we improve upon this so 2024 looks a lot different,” she said.
In nearby Dallas, violent crime continues unabated. During the first four months of the year, homicides jumped 23% compared to the same period in 2022. City of Dallas crime statistics for May and June are unreliable due to the alleged ransomware attack on the City’s servers in May.
Crime rates are particularly high in the downtown area of Dallas, especially when compared to Downtown Fort Worth, which has dedicated police patrols and private security serving its city center.
In Dallas, a shortage of police officers has hindered efforts to tamp down crime. Ideally, the Dallas Police Department should have about 4,000 officers, but it currently has about 3,100.