Police arrested two men on July 7 in connection to the mass shooting that killed three people in the Fort Worth neighborhood of Como, in Texas, on July 3.
The suspects, Christopher Redic Jr., 20, and Brandon Williams, 19, were arrested by Fort Worth police and now face murder charges, Fort Worth police Chief Neil Noakes said at a news conference on July 7. It was unclear whether the two suspects had attorneys.
Mr. Noakes said investigators believe the shooting was gang-related, adding that there could be additional arrests.
“I don’t know specifically whom they were shooting at,” the police chief said. “There’s a potential that altercation is what initiated the violence to occur.”
Police previously said several men fired indiscriminately into a crowd of hundreds of people following a July 4 festival in Como, called ComoFest.
The festival was held in a park several blocks away from where the shots were fired. The shooting, which took place on Horne Street at around 11:47 p.m.—about two hours after the festival ended—was “separate from and unrelated” to the festival, police said.
The three people who died due to the shooting were identified as Paul Willis, 18, Cynthia Santos, 22, and Gabriella Navarrete, 18, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office. Another eight people were injured that night.
Mr. Noakes said police have been discussing with the predominantly black community about how ComoFest “needs to look going forward.”
“That after-party, if you will, that’s not going to look the same,” he said.
The neighborhood also has been holding an annual Fourth of July parade for more than 70 years.
Mr. Noakes said that Como is “one of the most historic and loved communities in Fort Worth” and said that in the face of the shooting, it has “stood tall, rallied around one another and loved one another.”
