With 10,000 homes planned, Sendera Ranch is one of the largest developments in the Northwest school district.
M.L. GRAY
Star-Telegram archives
For families who moved to Sendera Ranch and the neighborhoods around Haslet in search of quiet streets and safe school routes, the gunfire on Zavala Road landed close to home.
About the time many parents might be heading out for a walk, 15 shots were fired in a driveway near Santa Rosa Drive on July 24. Around 8:30 a.m., bullets struck a house, a car and a fence, according to Star-Telegram reporting. Two young children were inside one of the homes hit by gunfire, a neighbor told the Star-Telegram.
Three men — Damoni Butler, 18, Davirion Sams, 20, and Walter Frazier, 21 — were arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Police located the suspects’ vehicle based on details from callers and witnesses.
How long does it take police to get here?
One of the most practical concerns for far north Fort Worth families is response time. Because Sendera Ranch sits at the edge of the city near Haslet, Fort Worth police can take up to 20 minutes to respond to calls for service, one longtime resident told the Star-Telegram.
That distance shapes daily choices — whether kids walk to the bus stop alone, when families feel comfortable being in the front yard and how neighbors respond in the crucial minutes before officers arrive.
“Any shootings anywhere are alarming, but that’s when we get out and walk our babies in the morning before it gets too hot,” the resident said. “What if this had happened when school is going on?”
Is crime actually getting worse in Sendera Ranch?
Fort Worth Crime Data shows reported incidents in Sendera Ranch climbed from 88 in 2021 to 149 in 2023. In the following two years, totals moved in the other direction: 145 in 2024 and 116 in 2025.
There have been 92 incidents so far in 2026, according to the Star-Telegram. More homes have also been added over the years.
The largest category shifted, too — from theft and larceny in the earlier years to vandalism more recently. There has been at least one aggravated assault reported every year going back to 2021, as far as the data set extends.
Robby Carruthers, whose house and car were hit Friday, has rented in the neighborhood with his wife and two children since 2020. He said crime has grown worse every year.
“I’m going to stand my ground,” Carruthers said. “We’re not leaving. We’re going to force these people to leave. This neighborhood is a good neighborhood. My kid rides his bike to school every day. I’m not leaving. I’m not going to run.”
What’s being done about security?
City Council member Chris Jamieson, who represents District 10 and sits on the Crime Control and Prevention District Board of Directors, said more patrols are on the way.
“As a member of the CCPD Board of Directors, keeping our neighborhoods safe through proactive law enforcement is my highest priority,” Jamieson said in a written statement. “I am actively collaborating with the Fort Worth Police Department leadership to expand visible patrols and step up security presence throughout the Sendera Ranch area.”
The Sendera Ranch Homeowners Association is also weighing the installation of Flock cameras, according to Carruthers. Those cameras photograph vehicles passing through an area and retain the images for 30 days in a database that law enforcement can access. Many homeowners already run their own doorbell and rooftop cameras.
Jamieson supports adding Flock cameras, saying they would give police “a critical tool to track criminal activity, deter bad actors and prevent future incidents.”
The homeowners association declined to comment on the rising crime and the solutions it is considering.
A divided conversation among neighbors
Not every family agrees on the cause — or the fix. Online, some residents have blamed Housing Choice Vouchers, commonly known as Section 8, for the shift.
Sendera Ranch resident Tristen Robinson pushed back, saying that framing sweeps up good people.
“These things are happening, and it’s terrible and inexcusable,” Robinson said. “But there’s also innocent children, innocent Black people living in this neighborhood who are being lumped into this violence and the crime that’s happening.”
Robinson said she worries a neighborhood-organized patrol could lead to someone calling police on her younger brother without cause.
What parents can do now
For families weighing their morning routines, the practical takeaways from the reporting are concrete: response times from far north Fort Worth are longer than in other parts of the city, home and vehicle cameras are already dense in Sendera Ranch, and both HOA-level Flock cameras and expanded police patrols are on the table.
Neighbor Daniel Bryant, who lives next door to where the shooting happened, said he and his wife are among those thinking about moving.
“I don’t know what this world is coming to, you know, in our own front yard,” Bryant said. “I told my wife, that hit pretty close to home right there.”