<\/p>\n
Wedgwood Square residents say crime has worsened in recent years, and police aren\u2019t doing enough to combat it. <\/p>\n
Miami Herald file<\/p>\n
Longtime residents of Fort Worth\u2019s Wedgwood Square say crime in their area has worsened in recent years, and Fort Worth police haven\u2019t done enough to combat it.<\/p>\n
Shootings, assaults and vandalism were once far from the minds of those living in this quaint midcentury neighborhood. Now, incidents like these occur far too frequently for some, who believe vagrancy and crime from surrounding neighborhoods is beginning to creep into Wedgwood Square.<\/p>\n
A police official and a City Council member, however, disputed the perception that crime in the neighborhood is on the rise.<\/p>\n
A thrown rock was the last straw for one Wedgwood Square resident<\/p>\n
At around 7 p.m. on Dec. 20, Amy Wright was driving her Toyota 4Runner near the intersection of Wheelock Drive and Kingswood Drive, just north of Altamesa Boulevard, when a large rock was thrown at her windshield. The force of the impact was such, Wright said, that her windshield shattered, showering the car\u2019s interior with glass.<\/p>\n
Wright said the rock came from the direction of the Nolan Apartments at the corner of Wheelock Drive and South Hulen Street. There is a pile of landscaping stones on the Nolan\u2019s property near where the impact occurred.<\/p>\n
While Wright acknowledged the rock was probably thrown by a young person, she believes it was thrown with intent to cause damage, and she was shaken when it struck her vehicle. But when she called the police, officers weren\u2019t dispatched to her home until the next morning, roughly 12 hours later. When officers arrived, Wright said they told her higher priority calls took precedence the previous night.<\/p>\n
According to police records, the rock throwing incident was deemed criminal mischief and classified as a priority three call, the lowest priority for Fort Worth police.<\/p>\n
According to response time data obtained by the Star-Telegram, it takes police an average of 2 hours and 40 minutes to respond to priority three criminal mischief calls in the South Division, which encompasses Wedgwood Square. That is down from the first half of 2025, when it took nearly 5 hours on average to respond to those calls.<\/p>\n
A police spokesperson told the Star-Telegram last summer that several factors affect response times, including traffic, call volume and a shortage of officers. The spokesperson said at the time the police department was ramping up its recruiting efforts to fill approximately 200 beat officer vacancies.<\/p>\n
But according to the most recent data obtained by the Star-Telegram, Fort Worth still has more than 200 officer vacancies, and there are 54 police trainee vacancies.<\/p>\n
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More serious crime stoking fears in Wedgwood Square<\/p>\n
Three months before the rock throwing incident, on Sep. 12, a man was shot near Wright\u2019s home on Kingswood Drive. Records show police recovered handgun casings from the scene, and the victim, who survived, was treated at a hospital.<\/p>\n
In March 2023, a man was shot<\/a> at a property on Winn Street, less than half a mile from where Wright lives. In September 2021, 24-year-old Hamza Faraj was shot and killed<\/a> near the intersection of Kingswood Drive and Altamesa Boulevard in a road rage incident. That happened within eyeshot of Wright\u2019s home, and she said her college-age son, Charlie, witnessed the shooting and ran to the scene to administer aid to the victim.<\/p>\n Recent police records reveal a list of additional crimes in the vicinity of Wright\u2019s street, ranging from criminal mischief to aggravated assault.<\/p>\n These are incidents Wright and her family never dreamed would occur in their quiet neighborhood when they moved in nearly 20 years ago. But Wright said crime has gradually become a bigger concern.<\/p>\n It\u2019s now common to hear gunshots in the area, according to Wright and a neighbor, Cindy Boyd, who has lived in Wedgwood Square all her life. Boyd said she worries stretches of Altamesa Boulevard and South Hulen Street near where she lives are fast becoming like Las Vegas Trail<\/a>, a Fort Worth street long marred by violence and high crime.<\/p>\n The night Boyd walked down the street to Wright\u2019s house to talk, she said she locked her front door, something she wouldn\u2019t have done in years past. But Boyd said the September shooting changed things.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been such a nice neighborhood for ages,\u201d said Boyd, bemoaning the shift she\u2019s seen.<\/p>\n Another issue Wright and Boyd have noticed is the influx of homeless people in the area. Wright showed a photo of abandoned shopping carts on Wheelock Drive around the corner from her home, and she said she\u2019d had a homeless man confront her in her driveway asking for money.<\/p>\n Wright also alleged the Nolan apartment complex is a focal point for some of the area\u2019s crime. Records showed at least eight calls to police originating at the Nolan in 2025.<\/p>\n Two of the calls were reports of criminal mischief, two were reported thefts and the others were for assaults, including at least two for family violence.<\/p>\n The Star-Telegram contacted the Nolan\u2019s property manager, but she said she wasn\u2019t authorized to speak with the media. She would only confirm her company purchased the complex in October 2025 in a foreclosure sale. The manager said she had limited knowledge of what had gone on at the property before that.<\/p>\n When asked for her perspective, District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck said data provided to her by the police showed crime was down in Wedgwood Square almost across the board.<\/p>\n Beck said she\u2019s not one to shy away from critiquing the Police Department when it\u2019s deserved, but she said in the case of Wedgwood Square, there\u2019s little to take issue with. In particular, Beck praised the improved response times.<\/p>\n South Division Police Commander Andre Smith said crime was down in Wedgwood Square, and he said those numbers speak for themselves in regard to how his officers are performing. When asked if the Police Department stepped up preventative patrols after some of the recent incidents in Wedgwood Square, Smith said that is generally what happens, though he didn\u2019t cite a specific example and couldn\u2019t recall if preventative patrols increased following the September shooting.<\/p>\n However, police department records obtained by the Star-Telegram paint a different picture. According to those figures, crimes against persons remained flat from 2024 to 2025, but crimes against property rose by approximately 4%.<\/p>\n There were 95 crimes against persons in Wedgwood Square in 2024 and 96 in 2025. There were 189 crimes against property in 2024 and 198 in 2025.<\/p>\n Most of the crimes against persons were assaults, including domestic violence. Those crimes are difficult to predict because they so often happen without notice and behind closed doors. Most of the crimes against property were larceny, like shoplifting, that are likewise difficult to prevent.<\/p>\n The trends in Wedgwood Square contrast with trends for Fort Worth as a whole, where overall crime was down in 2025 as compared to 2024, according to the police department\u2019s 2025 fourth quarter crime report<\/a>.<\/p>\n Smith said staffing levels in the South Division were good, though he added he\u2019d always like to have more officers. Since he joined the force more than 30 years ago, Smith said, calls to Fort Worth police have increased by at least tenfold.<\/p>\n He attributed that to the growth Fort Worth has seen, but also to the fact that residents increasingly call police for incidents that don\u2019t warrant a police response.<\/p>\n Will Wedgwood ever again be what it once was?<\/p>\n Nicole Westhoff is a real estate developer, a lifelong Wedgwood Square resident and the president of the Wedgwood Historical Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n She said the Wedgwood area, which includes Wedgwood East and Wedgwood West in addition to Wedgwood Square, was first developed in the 1950s. Some of the earliest residents were officers from Carswell Air Force Base and their families, along with workers employed in Fort Worth\u2019s defense industry.<\/p>\n Westhoff described Wedgwood as an idyllic suburb during the post-war years, and to a large extent it appears to have retained much of its charm and community spirit. Westhoff said she loved the area and did not want it shown in a negative light.<\/p>\n But she agreed with Wright\u2019s assessment that it no longer feels as safe as it once did.<\/p>\n \u201cCrime may seem relatively low, but you\u2019re definitely seeing an increase,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In Westhoff\u2019s view, the crime in Wedgwood Square in many cases originates in surrounding neighborhoods that are more economically disadvantaged. She said you can see how tough things have gotten in some areas by the number of homeless people coming and going.<\/p>\n Westhoff said there was once a police substation in the Wedgwood Village shopping center on Granbury Road south of Interstate 20, but that closed. Since then, Westhoff said, the Granbury Road commercial corridor has deteriorated. She hopes the city invests in the area sooner rather than later before more properties fall into disrepair. If and when that investment occurs, Westhoff said, the entire Wedgwood area, which includes Wedgwood West and Wedgwood East in addition to Wedgwood Square, could see a revitalization.<\/p>\n \u201cWedgwood has a lot going for it,\u201d said Westhoff. \u201cIt has a lot of potential for development.\u201d<\/p>\n Recently, Wright and her husband, Kip, who is vice president of the Wedgwood Historical Association, have considered the previously unthinkable: packing up and moving. They don\u2019t want it to come to that, but they do want to feel safe on their own street, in their own home once again.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can start to get a good police presence down here,\u201d said Wright, \u201cthose worries go away.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 1:23 PM.<\/p>\n A model home in Fort Worth\u2019s Wedgwood neighborhood in 1975. The area grew during the post-war housing boom from the 1950s into the 1970s. University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections\/Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection <\/p>\n
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