Fort Worth man dies in hospital after ‘random shooting’ outside his workplace, police say
A Fort Worth man died in the hospital this week after he was shot in what police believe was a random attack while he walking to his car outside his workplace.
Lee Douglas, 36, had been hospitalized since the shooting on May 30. He died Tuesday at John Peter Smith Hospital.
A suspect, 18-year-old Decan Medeiros, of Kettle Falls, Washington, was initially arrested May 31 on four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Medeiros was booked Thursday on a murder charge after Douglas’ death, according to Fort Worth City Jail records.
“This appears to be a random shooting from a person not from Texas who was just passing through,” a Fort Worth police spokesperson said in an email Thursday.
Douglas, who worked as an electrician at Refresco Beverages at 15200 Trinity Blvd., was walking to his car when he was shot about 2:30 a.m. He was shot first in the back then again in the face after he fell to the ground, according to his family and an autopsy. The shooting left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Police initially said they believed his injuries weren’t life threatening, but he died of complications from the gunshot wounds, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
A complaint filed by Tarrant County prosecutors on the assault charges lists three additional victims in the case. The other victims were shot at by Decan Medeiros but not injured, investigators allege in an arrest warrant.
While he was walking toward his car after clocking out for a break, Douglas noticed Medeiros but assumed he might have been another employee, his family wrote on a GoFundMe page. As Douglas walked past, the gunman shot him in the back, the family said. When he fell, Douglas turned over and put his hands up, and the suspect shot him a second time in the mouth, where a bullet became lodged, the family wrote.
“Lee is a father to a total of 5 children: 3 girls and 2 boys,” the family wrote. “His oldest daughter just graduated high school and is heading off to the Navy soon. He also has a 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son who are in school, and a 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.”
The GoFundMe, initially started for medical expenses, is now raising donations for funeral expenses.
Douglas, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, moved to Fort Worth to find a better life for his kids, his sister Aushalay Meadows told the Star-Telegram on Thursday. A mechanic, Douglas loved to work with his hands and he was in the process of starting a business with his family. Now, his loved ones are experiencing a difficult time coping with their loss.
“We’ve got a lot of things to figure out right now,” Meadows said.
The victim’s sister told the Star-Telegram that the family began investigating on their own because police have not provided them with more information.
Although Fort Worth police say they are not investigating the shooting as a hate crime, Meadows and her family believe that’s what Douglas’ death reflected.
“We definitely want to get down to the bottom of it,” Meadows said. “I wanna know what the motive is. Like I just don’t understand how you just walk up to somebody and shoot them.”
An immediate family member of Medeiros told Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV that the shooting suspect doesn’t have any ties to North Texas and he was only in the area because he had a layover at DFW Airport the night of May 29, a few hours before the shooting.
The suspect’s family told WFAA that he was supposed to fly back to Washington after a work trip, and they had filed a missing persons report on the teen before they learned he had been arrested on a murder charge.
A police report also lists the Presbyterian Night Shelter, at 2400 Cypress St. in Fort Worth, as an address for the suspect, but shelter officials said they had no record of him staying there.
Medeiros’ family is also shocked and confused. Now both families say they want answers.
“It’s hard, ‘cause I didn’t think four days after I graduated I would’ve lost my dad forever,” Douglas’ 18-year-old daughter Nevaeh told WFAA. “... I don’t know what he (Medeiros) had going on at home, but you didn’t have to take my dad away from me.”
Meadows said police should look into whether the suspect has ties to shootings or other crimes in other states, considering investigators said he was passing through the Fort Worth area from Washington.
“You just go to another state and just shoot people,” Meadows said. “That’s crazy work to do.”
This story was originally published June 13, 2024 at 12:30 PM.
