A witness who stepped into a domestic dispute inside a home on Fort Worth's north side ended up shooting and killing one of the people involved, then disappeared before officers arrived. Fort Worth police say 40-year-old Kendrick Malone died after being shot at least once during the confrontation, and the person who pulled the trigger remains at large.
Officers responding to the 6300 block of Sloop Street learned that a nearby witness had tried to intervene in a domestic dispute between a man and a woman inside the home, ultimately confronting and shooting Malone before fleeing. Fort Worth Police Northwest Division officers were dispatched to the scene at 10:27 p.m. Tuesday, according to FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth, which reported that the witness had alerted an adult suspect about the altercation before the confrontation turned deadly.
Emergency medical personnel transported Malone to a local hospital, where he later died, the station's report notes. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner identified him as 40-year-old Kendrick Malone, per the same account. Homicide detectives took over the investigation after processing the scene, and authorities say the shooting appears to be an isolated incident with no ongoing threat to the public.
Who Fired the Shot Remains Unknown
The available account describes the shooter as an adult suspect but does not identify the person or state their relationship to the two adults involved in the dispute. That gap sits at the center of the case: without knowing who the shooter is or why they intervened, investigators and prosecutors cannot yet say whether the shooting could ultimately be evaluated as a legally justified defense of a third person rather than a criminal act.
Texas law does provide a specific framework for that kind of scenario. Under Texas Penal Code § 9.33, a person is legally justified in using force, including deadly force, against another person to protect a third party if they reasonably believe stepping in is immediately necessary to prevent unlawful force — and that protection applies regardless of whether the intervening person is related to the person they are protecting. But if the shooting is not found to meet that standard, the exposure is severe: Texas classifies aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 20 years in prison, escalating to a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison if the victim is a family or household member who suffers serious bodily injury, according to Texas legal guidance on assault and domestic violence cases.
Autopsy Findings Await Prosecutorial Review
Any official cause-of-death determination in the case will follow a set process. Texas law lists specific circumstances requiring an inquest. The medical examiner's office serves Tarrant, Denton, Parker, and Johnson counties.
Fort Worth police have asked anyone with information about the incident to come forward. Homicide detectives are leading the investigation. Detectives are seeking information about the shooting.
A Broader Pattern of Domestic Violence Cases
The Sloop Street shooting adds to a string of domestic-violence-linked incidents Fort Worth police have investigated this year, including an 18-year-old charged in a Northwest Fort Worth stabbing earlier this month and a woman shot in the leg during an East Fort Worth domestic dispute in August whose suspects also fled. Domestic violence remains deeply embedded in Tarrant County's criminal justice system: roughly one in three women in the county experience intimate partner violence at some point in their lives, and domestic violence cases made up the second-largest category of criminal filings processed by the District Attorney's Office in 2024, according to Tarrant County records.
Even so, Fort Worth's overall violent crime numbers have been trending downward this year. The city recorded a 36% decrease in homicides and a 15.5% drop in aggravated assaults between January and August compared with the same period in 2025, per Fort Worth Police Department statistics reported by WFAA. No separate Major Cities Chiefs Association comparison is provided. The supplied account does not provide biographical details about the department's chief.
For now, the person who confronted Malone and pulled the trigger has not been identified, and no arrest has been announced. Fort Worth police continue to ask anyone with information about the Sloop Street shooting to contact investigators.
