‘It was a senseless crime,’ says aunt of Fort Worth man shot to death outside of party
Tommy Wallace and his longtime friend Angel Hernandez stood in a front yard early Sunday as a family party continued inside of a home on Topsail Drive in Fort Worth.
While the men were outside, two teens walked down the street and began “mouthing off,” an aunt of Hernandez said Wednesday.
The teens, who both were armed with handguns and had their weapons tucked in their waistbands, had just arrived in the neighborhood after attending a party in Keller, according to a warrant. They heard arguing down the street and walked down to see what was going on.
Within minutes after the teens walked down, Fort Worth police said, there was a verbal argument between the 17-year-olds and Hernandez, 31, and Wallace, 27.
At some point, it turned physical and seconds later it escalated into a shooting that left Wallace and Hernandez dead, police said. A woman also was shot at the scene, but she survived.
“They were unarmed,” said Heather Williams-McKiddy of Fort Worth, one of Hernandez’s aunts, in a telephone interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Wednesday, referring to her nephew and his friend. “These two (teens) were not innocent kids walking down the street. They both were armed.”
Noah DeLa Cruz and Johnathan Loyola, both 17 and from Fort Worth, were arrested Sunday shortly after the shooting.
Both face charges of murder and aggravated assault in the case, according to jail and court records. The two remained in the Tarrant County Jail on Wednesday on $100,000 bond each.
The shooting occurred just before 2 a.m. Sunday in the 6200 block of Topsail Drive in northwest Fort Worth.
The warrant written by Detective K.M. Bickley gave this account of the shooting:
A witness told detectives there was a verbal altercation inside the home on Topsail Drive during the party and two girls were told to leave.
The argument continued in the street.
The parents of Noah DeLa Cruz told the Star-Telegram their son and his friend, Loyola, were driven home, which was near the party, by an Uber driver.
The teens never entered DeLa Cruz’s home, but instead, they heard the argument down the street.
Initially, Loyola told detectives he wasn’t armed when he and DeLa Cruz walked down to see what the argument was about. At first, he stated that they got into an argument with two men and it escalated.
Loyola told police one of the men had pulled a gun, but Loyola took it away from him and shot him, according to the warrant. He said he dropped the gun and ran to a nearby home.
But DeLa Cruz later told detectives he and Loyola were armed. He had bought his Glock within the last week for $200 from a friend of a friend, he told police.
Hernandez and Wallace were taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, where they died shortly after the shooting.
“It was not self-defense,” Williams-McKiddy said.
The aunt talked to other family members who were at the party early Sunday, but those relatives declined to talk to the Star-Telegram.
Hernandez and Wallace, who had been friends since they were children, had been at the party for about three hours with their common-law wives. Hernandez was the father of a 7-year-old.
After the shooting, DeLa Cruz ran back to his home, placed his handgun on a couch, woke up his mother and told her to call police because there had been a shooting.
DeLa Cruz told detectives he was in fear because he was young and the men who assaulted them were older, according to the warrant.
DeLa Cruz said he fired the first shot.
“It was a senseless crime,” Williams-McKiddy said.
