Fort Worth Bar Shooting Investigated

Ft Worth police are investigating a shooting at a bar. When they arrived they failed to find a shooting victim. A man was later transported to a local hospital and treated for multiple gunshot wounds. It was later determined that he was wounded in the incident. No one has been arrested. If a suspect is arrested Texas Aggravated Assault charges would be brought.

Even if law enforcement arrest a suspect there will be many defenses available. Assaults that occur in bars often prove challenging to prosecutors. Often all witnesses are intoxicated which leads to credibility problems. Many times the victims have criminal records or have instigated the incident.  They may also prove to be reluctant to participate in a trial and come off less than credible on the witness stand.

Self defense is almost always an issue in bar fights. Texas law has very strong self defense laws and citizens are entitled to meet force with force if the force is reasonable based on all the surrounding facts. If the issue of self defense is raised at trial it becomes the prosecutors burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did no tact in self defense.