‘Como is a family community.’ Residents say recent shootings don’t define neighborhood
Lake Como residents and community leaders say recent shootings do not define their neighborhood and point to programs that are making a positive impact.
“Our community is a great community,” said Carol Brown, executive director at Como Lion’s Heart. “Yes we’ve had some incidents, but that doesn’t define who we are. Como is not those incidents, Como is a family community.”
Early Monday morning, a gunman opened fire on a group of people in the in the 5600 block of Shiloh Drive, killing one and injuring three others before he was stoned to death, authorities said.
Hours later, officers responded to a shooting 5300 block of Fernander Drive — the ninth reported in the neighborhood this year. The victim, a 34-year-old man, had been driven to a hospital before police arrived.
Lual Gang, who said he’s been in Como for three years, lives on Chariot Drive and has heard about violence in the neighborhood, including a stabbing across the street. He wants more police to prevent the violence and drug dealing.
“Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not so good,” he said. “We want the area to be clean.”
Council member Michael Crain, whose District 3 includes the Como neighborhood, said violent crime is up across the city, and Como is not immune to that statistic.
“Last night’s incident could have happened anywhere in the city, it just happened in Como,” he said on Monday morning. “Just as the July Fourth incident could have happened anywhere else in the city. Crime is increasing across the board.”
Eight people were wounded in a July 4 shooting near a car wash on Horne Street, a few hours after hundreds attended a festival. Crain said he keeps in constant contact with neighborhood leaders, with Police Chief Neil Noakes and with the Neighborhood police officer for Como to talk about trends and how to address them.
He has similar conversations about neighborhoods across his district, he said.
“Como has one of the strongest, if not the strongest neighborhoods in District 3,” Crain said. “This is something bigger that’s happening across the city.”
Leaders suggested that post-COVID lockdown gatherings and parties have created an environment where things can escalate.
Samuel Cox said the violence hasn’t made him think about leaving the neighborhood. But he doesn’t understand why people resort to guns.
“People are mad, I don’t know about what, and they probably don’t know either,” he said. “I just stay clear of it.”
Ella Burton, president of Lake Como Neighborhood Advisory Council, said the recent shootings seem to be isolated incidents. But she said gun violence is more common throughout Fort Worth and “you can’t just put your finger on it being Lake Como.”
Hurley Tarver is the communications director with LEGACY, which provides resources to Lake Como residents that focus on youth development, healthy lifestyles, economic development and educational growth.
“I think the last couple of occurrences were situational and not something that’s an ongoing violence,” he said. “It doesn’t appear to be an ongoing cycle of violence to be worried about.”
Moving forward
The Lake Como Neighborhood Advisory Council is holding a symposium Saturday for leaders to discuss issues and decide how to move forward. The workshop was already planned before Monday’s shootings.
“We can only do what we can do, which is come together as neighbors, communicate and congregate,” Burton said.
There are plans to form a neighborhood crime task force and there is an effort to engage the new neighbors, Burton said.
“We’ve had several new families move here to this community who don’t know the history or embrace the pride that we have,” she said. “We’re working to engage more of our neighbors to understand what we’re all about.”
She hopes to come up with solutions to stop the violence and encourage community members to be a voice, a presence and “an eye” in the community.
“We don’t let anything like that go on without having a say or trying to do something to make things better,” Burton said. “We want safety and peace — the same things that people want in other neighborhoods — and we’re always strategizing to make things better here.”
Focusing on the youth
Community leaders are focusing on the youth in their efforts to curb the violence.
“Our focus is starting from the ground root, trying to get a hold of the youth so that we can be a resource to them,” Tarver said, adding, “Our approach is changing the narrative by taking our youth and showing them ways to be successful so that if they are successful, they can come back and contribute to the growth of the community as a whole.”
Brown, the executive director at Como Lion’s Heart, said summer camps, vacation Bible school and the Como Lions football program are positive influences. Recent festivities helped celebrate the neighborhood’s rich history, she said.
Burton, the advisory council president, said sometimes people don’t pay attention to the powerful and positive things that are taking place.
“Everything that we do in the community comes out wonderful,” Brown said. “We had a Juneteenth march and Como fest. These are isolated incidents that people should not look at our community as ‘Oh they’re just violent.’ No. We have so many different things going on.”
LEGACY helped make the Como Day Parade happen to “add value to the community and revamp the culture, revamp a lot of the rich history of Como,” Tarver said.
“When you have a functioning, unified community that understands its history and how rich it is and initiatives going forward, then you have a more protective community,” Tarver said. “That will rule out the bulk of the negatives, which are very small at this point.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 5:56 PM.
