Fort Worth police are expected Friday to release video of two deadly officer-involved shootings that unfolded hours apart in the same area on May 16, a sequence that left one officer injured and a neighborhood trying to make sense of back-to-back violence. Police Chief Eddie Garcia is set to brief reporters at 11:30 a.m. on the shootings, which happened in the early morning hours after officers responded to reports of gunfire and a suspected armed driver.
The first shooting happened in the 4200 block of Wiman Drive, where officers answering a call about shots fired heard more gunfire as they arrived. Police said they approached a man holding a gun, ordered him to drop it, and shot him after he ignored commands and pointed the weapon at them. No officers were hurt in that incident.
The second shooting came while officers were still working the first scene. Around 4:15 a.m., police said, they saw a white SUV speed past them several times and believed the driver was trying to hit them as they stood near their patrol cars. Officers tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver sped away, leading them on a 15-minute chase that ended off Interstate 820 near Lancaster Avenue. Police said officers approached the SUV with guns drawn, ordered the suspect to comply and opened fire after he grabbed a gun from one of them. The driver was killed and one officer was injured and taken to the hospital.
The two killings happened in the same area on the same morning, and the timing is what gives the case its weight. Police are promising video on Friday, but the accounts already describe two fast-moving confrontations that began with officers responding to chaos and ended with two men dead, one officer wounded and a community waiting to see what the footage shows.
For Carolyn Green, the shootings landed in the middle of a stretch she says has been building for months. She said neighbors had been dealing with block parties, disturbances, loud music and gunfire before the May 16 incidents, and said she had contacted police about the parties at least four or five times. Green called the night of violence “unreal” and said “it’s got to stop,” adding that she would not let “that trash run me out of my house” because she had “been here too long.” She also said a stray bullet struck her microwave during the first shooting.
That is the tension hanging over Friday’s briefing: police will release video of two fatal encounters, but the neighborhood is already describing a wider problem that existed long before the guns were drawn. The footage may answer how each shooting unfolded. It will not answer why the area had become such a volatile place that residents say they were calling police again and again before dawn on May 16.
