Fort Worth mayor says safety in West 7th district is necessary for the area to thrive
Fort Worth’s entertainment districts, including the West 7th area, need to be safe if they’re going to thrive, Mayor Mattie Parker told the Star-Telegram in a statement Tuesday.
Parker’s statement comes after a man was shot and killed in front of a business in the 2900 block of Crockett Street shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday. Bryson Rodgers, 29, died after he was shot by a man he knew following an argument, according to police.
Fort Worth police identified Karlove Palmer, also 29, as the murder suspect they say fired the gun and killed Rodgers.
The shooting came after Palmer and Rodgers argued over the suspect’s relationship with a friend of the victim, according to an arrest warrant affidavit for Palmer. It appears from witness statements and video that Rodgers tried to avoid a fight, telling Palmer at one point that it wasn’t “that serious,” before Rodgers took off his shoes and handed his phone to a friend. Palmer shot him five times from several feet away, police allege.
The shooting, at least the third in the neighborhood in as many years, has reignited concerns and discussions about safety in the West 7th entertainment district, which includes the Artisan Circle development where the shooting happened.
Fort Worth police routinely patrol the West 7th area at night. The City of Fort Worth boosted police presence in the entertainment district last fall after a shooting that killed TCU student Wes Smith outside a bar on Bledsoe Street in September. Police arrested 21-year-old Matthew Purdy, who they say admitted to shooting Smith, a stranger to him, without providing any clear reason why.
In 2022, a shooting outside Varsity Tavern (now Maya Tequila Ranch) sent two people to the hospital. The man police said fired into the crowd that night was later killed in a quadruple homicide, in which investigators said four people in the same car shot each other after a drug deal went wrong.
Fort Worth’s safety and crime reduction efforts
Parker said that police focus resources in the West 7th district in efforts to keep people safe.
“For our city and entertainment districts to thrive, we must prioritize safety,” Parker wrote in the statement sent to the Star-Telegram via text. “Our FWPD words tirelessly in every zip code of this city, including a concentrated effort in West 7th to root out crime and help the area be successful, and our city council continues to support ensuring FWPD has the resources they need in that work.”
She noted that the city is still working to implement new tactics for improving safety in the West 7th district, including adding ambassadors to the area, and is working to assess public safety in all entertainment districts.
The ambassador program, which has been utilized in Downtown Fort Worth for years, would introduce people to the streets of the entertainment district whose job it is to answer questions, direct people in need to social services and report any suspicious or violent activity to police in the area, effectively increasing the awareness police have about what’s going on in the city.
The ambassadors, working under a program with a $325,000 annual budget, will document interactions and statistics, according to information from the mayor’s office. The program will also allow the city to monitor trends, collect data about the services provided and identify problem areas where more resources should be allocated.
The city is also paying $50,000 for a consultant to analyze safety in the West 7th, Stockyards, Downtown and Near Southside entertainment districts and offer advice on ways prevent crime through environmental design, according to Parker’s office.
Environmental design could include things like traffic bollards to close streets at certain times without pulling police off patrol, a measure the city has already decided to spend $140,000 to implement in the West 7th area, Parker’s office told the Star-Telegram in an email.
The district already has a dedicated unit of 25 officers who patrol the area and are joined by additional officers and Friday and Saturday nights, according to the city. Many West 7th bars and clubs also hire off-duty officers to work security, and the police department has 26 cameras in the area that allow its Real Time Crime Unit to monitor what’s happening and catch potentially violent situations and direct officers to them.
The city is also requiring new bars in the area to go through a longer process to get approval to open, according to Parker’s office. The requirement “encourages thoughtful planning of future large bars in the city,” the mayor’s office told the Star-Telegram in an email.