Coronavirus News

Fort Worth enacts more COVID-19 measures but stops short of lockdown

The goal is to avoid the coronavirus.

CDC

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price signed in a new round of restrictions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 that includes shutting down malls and religious services.

The order went into effect on Saturday, March 21 at 6 pm.

New restrictions include:

All in-person worship services are no longer permitted, with the exception of worship support staff to facilitate online services.

All malls and non-essential retail establishments including barber shops, hair salons, nail salons, spas, massage parlors, estheticians and related personal care businesses are closed and no occupancy is permitted.

Entertainment and personal service businesses are now closed, including bars, lounges, taverns, commercial amusement and entertainment establishments, bingo halls, theaters, gyms, fitness classes, yoga and personal training facilities, tattoo and piercing parlors, and tanning salons.

The order also closes residential meeting spaces, event centers, hotel meeting spaces and ballrooms, outdoor plazas, and markets.

What's open
Essential services such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and other establishments that sell household goods remain open but must enforce social separation. This includes:

Convenience and package stores, pharmacies and drug stores, day care facilities, medical facilities, veterinary facilities, non-profit service providers of essential services, homeless and emergency shelters, office buildings, jails, essential government buildings, airports and transit facilities, transportation systems, residential buildings and hotels, manufacturing and distribution facilities.

In-house dining at restaurants remains closed, but drive-in, drive-through, takeout, and delivery are still permitted.

There should be no gatherings of more than 10 people.

Social separation requires that you observe a 6-foot distance from others.

While these measures are sweeping, they're not as severe as Dallas' newly enacted shelter-in-place order, in which all residents must stay inside their homes unless doing essential business such as getting food. It goes into effect at 11:59 pm on March 23.

health

Death Penalty

Tarrant County man gets death for murder of convenience store owner

Tarrant County Sheriff's Office

Christopher Turner

A man received the death penalty for his 2020 cold-blooded execution of a convenience store owner.

According to a release from the office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Christopher Karon Turner, 48, to death on November 20 for executing convenience store owner Anwar Ali during a robbery. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorneys Charles Boulware and Allenna Bangs represented the state.

On March 27, 2020, at around 6:15 am, Turner, a convicted felon, wore a surgical mask and a glove and entered the Super Big Country Mart in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County south of Fort Worth. There, he held a gun to the back of Anwar Ali, the 62-year-old store owner, and walked him through the store.

Ali did everything Turner demanded, including opening the cash register to give him money. And yet Turner forced Ali into the bathroom and onto his knees, and shot him in the neck. Ali was discovered, dead in the bathroom, about an hour later.

Turner fled the store in Ali's Toyota minivan with the money from the register and Ali's wallet. In the van, he found more than $50,000 cash in a black bag. Over the next few days, Turner went on a shopping spree, buying cars, jewelry, drugs, clothes, and more. He and others used cash and a credit card that belonged to Ali.

Turner fled to Colorado where U.S. Marshals arrested him. On his body they found a firearm which was determined to be the murder weapon.

"This was a premeditated, cold-blooded murder," Boulware told the jury. "From the moment he was charged with this crime, he has tried to escape responsibility."

Bangs noted that before this trial began, Turner obtained the names of jurors and their telephone numbers, and gave them to an inmate charged with murder. At the trial on November 20, as Bangs addressed the jury, Turner tried to hold up a sign to the jury but was handcuffed by Sheriff's deputies who removed him from the courtroom, while he yelled out "she lied."

Ali came to the United States from Pakistan decades ago to pursue the American dream. Ali's son, Hussein, spoke in the courtroom after the death penalty was announced. "Thank you for giving us justice," Ali said. "I hope there are no more devils like this person."