A suspect is in custody after a shooting that wounded three people at the State Fair of Texas, sending fairgoers into panic Saturday night.
The shooting took place in the food court at the Tower Building about 7:45 p.m., Dallas police said, when one man fired at another man. Three people were wounded, but police said their injuries were not considered life-threatening.
Police said a suspect was in custody just after 8 p.m., around the same time the State Fair said on social media that Fair Park was being evacuated. The suspect, whom police said was arrested after running from the scene of the shooting, was not identified.
Outside the fairgrounds, traffic was gridlocked as families tried to find their way back to their vehicles. Clumps of stranded fairgoers waited under trees and on sidewalk curbs as brake lights and police cars flashed.
Dallas City Council member Adam Bazaldua, whose district includes Fair Park, said in a post on X that he’d been briefed on the situation by City Manager T.C. Broadnax.
Bazaldua said the shooting was “sparked from a dispute between two people who knew each other.”
The victims’ names were not released. Everyone involved in the incident has been identified, police said, and officers recovered a gun at the scene.
Not far from Fair Park, Oscar Macias was waiting outside Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas late Saturday to learn about the condition of a friend who was shot. The victim, a maintenance worker at the fair from the same town in Venezuela as Macias, was struck in the arm, he said.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, videos posted online showed the chaos unfolding on the fairgrounds as a large number of people ran to seek shelter.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, videos posted online showed the chaos unfolding on the fairgrounds as a large number of people ran to seek shelter.
Near the Midway, dozens of people ran in a panic. The group was quiet besides someone gesturing behind repeatedly to go anytime the crowd stopped moving.
As people ran, some screamed for their children, searching for them. Some people ducked behind rides while others kept moving. The area cleared near the southeastern part of the fairgrounds, where a person thanked those nearby and ushered past hurriedly.
Outside the fairgrounds, families with toddlers walked by as the children cried.
Clara Bishop, 20, said she was holding a friend’s phone and bag as her friends got on a UFO ride, then she started yelling for her friends to get off. The doors closed and a sea of people started running outside the ride. Bishop hid under a ride until her friends came.
It was the first time Bishop had been to the fair since she was young.
“I was on the verge of tears,” she said.
Johnna McKee, 63, was working inside The Dock when she heard that shots were fired in the Tower Building. Immediately, she and other workers started shutting and locking the doors to the restaurant.
“There’s a calmness that comes across you,” said McKee, whose family has worked at the fair since the 1960s. “I had to keep my composure while telling everyone there was an active shooter and that we were going into lockdown.”
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There were 75 people, including 60 guests, at The Dock at the time. Those who stayed in the building waited for about an hour while McKee got constant updates from fair officials over WhatsApp.
McKee’s son Johnathan, 34, was working at another one of the family’s stands and helped track down the company’s 20 other employees working tonight. The family, best known for bringing funnel cakes to the fair, has been competitive in the Big Tex Choice Awards for years.
When DPD officers banged on The Dock’s door, McKee didn’t know whether it was really the police department and whether she should open the doors. But she said she had faith in the fair’s readiness for an event like this.
“As a little girl, a 7-year-old, I never felt scared here, I was never not safe. Even tonight, I knew they were prepared,” McKee said. “In today’s society you always have to be on heightened alert. You never know, even just walking into a Walmart.”
Juan Reaves, 52, was making a trip to his car to get more turkey legs for one of his Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que locations when people started running.
Then came messages from some of his employees, working across six stands throughout the park.
”It was a banner day. Sales were going great,” Reaves said. “But all of that came screeching to a halt.”
Reaves said he has not been allowed into the Smokey John’s location in the Tower Building. He said three employees have already let him know they will no longer work the stands at the fair because they don’t feel safe.
”This is so disappointing,” Reaves said. “The fair is one of the best reflections of Dallas.”
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The shooting came a year to the day after a report of a shooting at the fair led to chaos at Fair Park. Police later said there was no shooting, and a fair spokeswoman said the pandemonium appeared to be purposely caused by people running through the crowds.
It was unclear whether the fair would have normal hours Sunday.
The State Fair’s website says no weapons are allowed on the fairgrounds but goes on to say the fair “has long allowed Fair attendees with valid handgun licenses to carry their handguns in a concealed manner.” Visitors to the fair walk through what is known as an “open gate system” instead of metal detectors.
Bazaldua, the council member, called for state lawmakers to pass “meaningful gun legislation.”
“It’s one thing to have a right to bear arms, it’s another to have legislation like permit-less carry, that makes it easier for senseless acts of gun violence like this to be carried out in our state,” he said in his post.
