For almost a century, the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and Hemphill Street in Fort Worth has been known for serving food that comes with comfort.
“But here again, it’s just a sad situation,” said Dave Harris of Weatherford while sitting at the Paris Coffee Shop.
He’s among a lunch crowd of heavy hearts, “I feel sad,” said Karen Shields Smith. “I feel like we need more love in the world.”
“It breaks my heart,” said Susan Imke. “I drove home yesterday with my husband from San Antonio. We’d been there on holiday.”
“My heart goes out to the victims and the families,” said Sigourney James.
James was on break with her classmates. All three of them are trying to get back into the work force while also taking questions from home.
“And unfortunately when the children ask, ‘mommy can this happen to me?’” said Renea Roeder.
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“Another friend of mine, their child did say, ‘daddy can this happen to me?” And his response was, ‘it’s my job to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.’ Because it could happen to them, but it’s a hard, hard, hard conversation to have,” Roeder said.
While out in front of the restaurant, Deborah Mahomes sat at the bus stop. “Where are you heading?” asked NBC 5’s Kristin Dickerson. “Well I’m just here because I’m homeless right now,” answered Mahomes.
She’s homeless, but not removed from the sadness that’s coming from South Texas.
“I read it in the paper this morning,” Mahomes said.
Deborah has been without a permanent residence for almost two months. In that time, two mass shootings have taken 84 lives.
“Do you have time to worry about those things when your day-to-day needs still need to be met?” Dickerson asked Mahomes. “Ya, pray every day for the families that lost their loved ones,” Mahomes responded.
It’s violence that is changing the way we live.
“Where do I sit in church? You know, where’s the safest place? Those are not things that I used to think about,” Roeder said.
“And now our houses of worship aren’t safe? I mean you just want to say, ‘enough,’” Imke said.
”I just told my friend as I was parking somebody was waiting to get in I said, ‘you have to be careful because they might pull a gun because you never know now, we’re living in hostile times,” said Shields Smith.
There are also differences of opinion when it comes to what needs to be done about the violence.
“I think that we’re all devastated that one more time these mass murders occur and our leaders refuse to even address the issue of guns,” Imke said.
“It’s my opinion that guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” Harris said.
“And we have to look at mental illness,” Shields Smith said.
Nearly everyone interviewed on Monday mentioned not being able to understand how someone could commit such violence.
“What’s going on in their minds and how could somebody do something like that?” James said. “It’s just something that’s very scary to think about and I’m just hoping that nothing like that happens again, but I think it’s something that everybody should come together and seriously have a conversation and talk about.”
“We need to come together and see if there’s a way that we can protect society in some way,” said Harris.
No matter how close or far from home violence happens, it still hurts.
“If they had the opportunity for someone to show them what the reality of their actions really is, you know it might change something,” said Harris.
And maybe that change could bring comfort.
“Let’s just give a little bit more love to each other, because love breeds love,” said Shields Smith.
