By JAMIE STENGLE
The Associated Press
DALLAS Two men were arrested Friday in a shooting that killed three people and injured eight others as a crowd of hundreds gathered in a Texas neighborhood on the eve of the Fourth of July, police said.
Christopher Redic Jr., 20, and Brandon Williams, 19, were both taken into custody on murder charges related to the shooting late July 3 in the Fort Worth neighborhood of Como, Fort Worth police Chief Neil Noakes said.
Noakes said investigators believe the shooting was gang-related and followed some kind of altercation.
He said there could be additional arrests. Police had previously said several men fired indiscriminately into the crowd.
The shooting erupted about two hours after the end of the Independence Day celebration called ComoFest in the historically Black neighborhood. The celebration had been held in a park several blocks away from the area where the shots were fired.
Police have said the shooting on Horne Street was “separate from and unrelated to ComoFest.” Noakes referred Friday to the gathering where the shooting happened as an “after-party.”
The three people killed were Paul Willis, 18, Cynthia Santos, 22, and Gabriella Navarrete, 18, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office.
It was unclear whether Redic or Williams had attorneys to represent them.
Following the inaugural ComoFest celebration in 2021, eight people were shot and wounded near a car wash in the area.
A rash of shootings in the U.S. over the Fourth of July weekend has spiked fear in communities across the nation.
In Baltimore, 30 people were shot, two fatally, at a block party. In Philadelphia, a heavily armed gunman in a bulletproof vest opened fire on the city’s streets, killing five people and wounding two boys. At least three people were killed and 10 wounded at an annual July Fourth bash in Louisiana. A 7-year-old was shot dead in Tampa after two groups gathered along a causeway for Independence Day started to fight.
