17-year-old Poly High student stabbed, shot in attack at Texaco near campus
Two young suspects stabbed and shot a 17-year-old Polytechnic High School student a little before noon Thursday outside of a Texaco convenience store across the street from campus, leaving him with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
There were several other students outside of the store who scattered after at least three gunshots were fired, according to Officer Buddy Calzada, a Fort Worth police spokesman.
The victim is an 11th-grader at the Fort Worth high school who was on his lunch break off-campus at the time of the assault, school officials confirmed. He was taken to a local hospital.
Calzada said detectives are looking for two people of interest they believe to be high school-aged boys, though they couldn’t immediately say if they’re Polytechnic students. One of them is suspected of stabbing the victim, he said, and the other is suspected of shooting him. The victim had multiple stab wounds and one gunshot wound, authorities said.
Calzada said during a press conference outside of the convenience store that one of these individuals was in a fight with the victim that began on one side of the store and moved to the other side, where there’s a small field of grass. There was a struggle in which the stabbing occurred, he said, and then the attacker appeared to call over someone else to help. The second person used a handgun to shoot the victim.
Police aren’t sure what the fight was about but are investigating it as a gang-related incident, Calzada said.
Video of the incident that multiple people shared on social media shows a crowd watching the fight as one young man appears to stab another several times before they both fall to the ground, struggling. A third young man holding a handgun then walks over and shots are heard.
“There were a lot of people around when this first went off,” Calzada said. “It was a very busy scene prior to this fight.”
A man who was working behind the counter of the Texaco on East Rosedale Street when the attack happened told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he heard two or three gunshots outside. He then looked out the window and saw crowds of teens running. He saw the victim limping.
“Immediately when I saw it, I saw some tension,” the store clerk said. “I looked outside the windows and I saw there were several students running in this direction.“
The man, who didn’t want to be identified, said he showed security video to police officers. This type of incident has never occurred at the store before to his knowledge, he said.
Police responded around 11:50 a.m. to the store, in the 2700 block of East Rosedale Street, across the street from Polytechnic High School.
The assault led to a lockdown at the school, and the Fort Worth Independent School District asked parents to wait until police had cleared the scene to release students.
“An 11th grade Poly HS student was injured in a violent altercation during lunch hour today off campus,” the district said on Twitter.
In a later statement, the school district said, “The Fort Worth ISD takes the safety of all students, employees and visitors on all our campuses, and in even in the neighborhoods where our schools are located, very seriously and such behavior is completely unacceptable.”
Officers who were already stationed at the school responded to the scene within seconds after the shooting, Calzada said.
Several patrol cars remained on the scene Thursday afternoon. A handful of officers were looking carefully through the grass field on the side of the store.
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 12:50 PM.
