Dallas Parks and Rec committee raises concerns about local park after shooting

DALLAS - A recent shooting at a park near Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas has prompted calls for increased safety measures.

Calls for safety upgrades at a Dallas park

What we know:

At a Park and Rec Safety and Security committee meeting Friday, board member Rudy Karimi presented nearly a dozen safety enhancement ideas for Willis Winters Park, where a student at nearby Woodrow Wilson High School was shot and killed in the park's lot last week.

The backstory:

Karimi says the city has an agreement with Dallas ISD to allow Woodrow Wilson students to use its parking lot. During school hours, most vehicles at the park belong to students.

"There just isn’t enough parking for the school," Karimi said during the meeting. "And if we had the lot closed there would just be spillover into the neighborhood."

Woodrow Wilson High School student shot and killed

The shooting happened on Jan. 22 afternoon on Glasgow Drive at Santa Fe Trail, which is near the high school.

Images from SKY 4 show police officers who appeared to be focused on a black vehicle in the parking lot for the neighboring Willis Winters Park. Crime scene tape surrounds the scene.

Dallas police confirmed 18-year-old Wornan Garcia Padilla was shot at the location and later died at the hospital. A 16-year-old suspect is also in custody. Police are not releasing the suspect's name due to their age.

What upgrades could be made?

Local perspective:

Karimi suggested K-9 units and an increased police presence at the park to deter something like last week's incident from happening.

The park had ten cameras, but since the shooting, additional cameras are now in place. A Dallas ISD police presence has also been clearly visible.  

Also visible was a young man, mourning at the spot where 18-year-old Wornan Garcia Padilla was killed.

Fellow board member Grady McGahan questions what could have prevented this shooting.

"Or is there something specific to this that like were we to have been abiding by this comprehensive plan or were we to potentially have been doing something differently that somehow this could’ve been avoided," McGahan said.

What's next:

Implementation of Karimi's ideas will require assistance from city and school district officials. 

While debating safety improvements, Karimi says there’s also a deeper question: what’s leading school kids to risk lives with gun violence?

"Why do they find no risk in that, and why do they find no reward in staying in a classroom where they belong? Because this did happen before the end of the day," he said.