Fort Worth school offers counseling, cancels football game after student dies in shooting
Southwest High School in Fort Worth is offering crisis counseling and has canceled its Thursday football scrimmage after a student was killed Sunday.
Tavion Swindell was killed after an argument over video games with an adult in Crowley on Sunday afternoon, according to police.
In a warrant to arrest 35-year-old Deeven Letroy Jones on a murder charge, investigators said Jones pulled a gun and shot Swindell in the chest over “smack talk” about a video game. Police described it as a domestic-violence killing but did not specify the relationship between the victim and the suspect.
Swindell was a student at Southwest High School and played on the football team. A police report gave his age as 15, while the Tarrant County medical examiner’s website said he was 16.
The Fort Worth school district told parents in a letter that crisis counselors would be available on campus and encouraged families to be attentive to their children’s mental and emotional state.
The school offered advice to parents including to answer questions in the “simplest, truest manner,” listen to and comfort them, accept their emotions and tell them it is natural to react in different ways, continue a normal routine and to stay calm to help their children process their emotions.
Southwest High School announced Wednesday it would cancel its Thursday football scrimmage against Arlington Heights High School.
The team will “utilize this time to grieve, heal, and become closer as a football program,” according to an announcement on the school’s Facebook page.
The next game on Aug. 30 against Bryan Adams High School in Dallas will continue as scheduled, according to the announcement.