Neighbors say shooting that killed 2 teens outside west Fort Worth home isn’t first in area

Neighbors said the house outside which two teens were killed and another person injured Wednesday night has been the location of other shootings and the focus of other police responses in recent months.

One of the teens has been identified on a GoFundMe website as 14-year-old Adrian Daniels. The family is hoping to raise $8,000 for funeral expenses for Daniels, described in the fundraiser as a sweet, smart, funny, family-oriented boy who loved playing football.

Police have said a 17-year-old victim died at a hospital, and a third wounded teen was treated for his injuries and released. The other victims have not been publicly identified.

Police have not announced any arrests or a motive for the killings, which occurred just before 8 p.m. Wednesday in a residential neighborhood in the 700 block of Panay Way Drive, in west Fort Worth.

Daniels’ grandmother Shannon Johnson wrote on the GoFundMe page that he was killed “for no apparent reason.”

Johnson told WFAA-TV that her grandson was visiting the house on Panay Way Drive to get a ride from someone when gunfire broke out. Daniels was a freshman on the honor roll at Brewer High School in the White Settlement school district and the oldest of her daughter’s four children, Johnson said.

“This could happen to anybody, and it’s sad,” Johnson told WFAA. “I don’t want everyone to remember Adrian Daniels and think, ‘Another young Black man got shot, must be gangs and drugs’… It wasn’t that.”

Daniels sent Johnson a text message hours before he was killed, saying “Love grandma,” she said.

“Telling me that he loved me out of the blue for no reason, because that’s who he is… was,” Johnson told WFAA. “He’s going to be missed.”

The shooting follows a drive-by shooting that targeted the same house a few months ago, according to residents. Nobody was killed or injured in that shooting, neighbors said.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for information on other responses to the location at which the shooting occurred Wednesday night. According to online Fort Worth Police Department reports, between seven and 10 shots were heard on the block around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 15, and a drive-by shooting was reported around 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 21. Another report of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon was taken in the area earlier in November but the details aren’t available online.

Tim Arredondo, a resident in the neighborhood, said he arrived at home minutes after Wednesday’s shooting after going out for dinner with his family. When he pulled into his driveway, he said, he could see two people lying in the street.

He and his wife got the kids safely inside, doing their best to keep them from seeing the crime scene, then Arredondo rushed over to the victims and began trying to perform CPR on the older of the two, he said. Another neighbor, who Arredondo said is retired law enforcement, also ran over to help attempt life-saving measures until police responded.

When police arrived with guns drawn, Arredondo backed away while his neighbor continued performing CPR until officers took over, he said.

Arredondo said this isn’t the first time a shooting has happened near the same house, but it is the first time someone has been killed, as far as he knows. In a previous drive-by shooting incident, Arredondo said, some of the gunshots hit his house.

He and several other neighbors said they weren’t surprised by the shooting but were heartbroken to find out two teenagers were killed.

“They were just kids,” Arredondo said. “They do a lot of the same things my kids do, like they play basketball and sports. ... It’s tragic that something like this has happened.”

Other neighbors said they don’t feel safe in the area anymore.

One man, who declined to share his name with the Star-Telegram, said people are leaving that part of the neighborhood because of what goes on at the house where the shooting happened. He worries for the safety of his children and says it hurts every time he has to tell them they can’t go and play in the front yard for fear that they could be hurt or killed in a shooting because of their proximity to that house.

On Wednesday night, that neighbor said he heard shouting and arguing outside before the first gunshot. There was a pause, then he heard five or six more shots. He and his wife hurried their children to a room where they hoped they’d be safe and waited for police to arrive. Another neighbor a little farther down the street said he also heard one shot, then a pause followed by five or six more.

Neighbors said problems started in earnest sometime last year, but that they’ve gotten used to seeing police at the house since some of the residents moved in about two years ago. No one answered the door at the home Thursday afternoon.