‘It happened so fast’: Family of 2 boys shot dead in Fort Worth hoping for answers
Tijuana West was upstairs on Sunday afternoon when she heard what sounded like fireworks. When she rushed down the stairs, she saw chaos.
Her 17-year-old son and 5-year-old nephew had been shot in a barrage of gunfire aimed at their Steel Dust Drive home in northwest Fort Worth. Witnesses say they heard at least 15 shots.
“It happened so fast,” West told the Star-Telegram. “I was just trying to figure out where my babies were.”
It was a moment of horrific violence unleashed on a quiet subdivision street, where kids often play outside and families hold their own neighborhood festivals. Both boys were pronounced dead at the hospital, the latest victims of shootings that have killed at least 18 children and teens in Tarrant County so far this year.
According to police, the gunfire came from a car that pulled up to the house at 2:15 p.m. while teenager Jamarrien Monroe and his little cousin Rayshard Scott were outside. Multiple cartridge casings were found on the street, and bullet holes were visible in the front door and the garage.
As of Thursday, police had not reported making any arrests or revealed any leads in the investigation.
West said she and her family are still processing what happened, but she wants people to know who her son was and dispel rumors circulating on social media.
“I would appreciate it if people would be mindful of what people say and post before they say and post it,“ she said. “My son is not in a gang or a drug dealer... . He was like any other 17-year-old who was trying to figure it out.”
Her family is tight-knit, West said. She and her sister — the mother of 5-year-old Rayshard — live together in the home, along with their other children. Jamarrien had an 18-month-old son who was also injured in the shooting but is doing well. The toddler did not live at the home but visited often, West said.
The family had regular game nights and movie nights together, West said, and had been living in the house since the neighborhood was built a few years ago. They were preparing to move into two separate apartments since the kids had gotten bigger and needed space of their own, she said.
‘These are our babies’
Jamarrien liked to sing and play basketball, West said. He played with the kids often and cracked jokes with them. In a video West shared with the Star-Telegram, Jamarrien shows the younger kids how to shoot hoops on a Fisher Price basketball hoop.
“These are our babies,” she said. “They are so much more than what people have seen or read.”
Jamarrien liked to take videos of his son and take goofy pictures together. If Jamarrien was singing, West said, his son would try to sing along with him.
One of West’s most treasured memories is the last outing they had together on Aug. 12, when she, Jamarrien and Jamarrien’s son went to Chuck E. Cheese.
“It was amazing,” she said. “We had a lot of fun.”
Jamarrien was quiet as a young kid but became more social as he got older, West said. The 17-year-old and his friends like to play with water guns. His favorite movies were action and comedy, and he had just enrolled in a new school in Haltom City.
He did not get a chance to go.
“To know my son, to really see him and know him was to love him,” West said.
Rayshard has just started his first year of school in August at Bryson Elementary in the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school district. He seemed to like school, West said, because he was social and liked to talk with other kids. His older brother and cousins were teaching him how to play Wii, and his favorite movie by far, West said, was “Sonic the Hedgehog.”
West said Fort Worth police had not told them about any leads in the case.
“It won’t be helpful until somebody can tell me who and why,” she said.
Someone started a GoFundMe for the family to help with costs. The fundraiser had raised about $1,400 as of Thursday.
West hopes anyone “who does know something will be caring and loving enough to say something.”
In regards to the shooter or shooters, West said, “targeting unsuspecting people is not what counts as being a man or being bold or anything like that.”
“Being able to say whatever issue you have, and being able to talk about whatever issue you have, is who you are,” she said. “And defines who you are at your core.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2022 at 6:19 PM.
