Crime Scene Cleanup in Fort Worth, TX

Fort Worth in particular

Fort Worth publishes three police numbers and the right one depends on the hour, which is unusual and worth getting right. 817-392-4222 is the number to report a non-emergency. The main line, 817-392-4200 at 505 W. Felix St, is listed for 8:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday. After 5:00 PM and at weekends the department directs callers to 817-392-3900 at 501 Jones St — which is the one to write down, because that is when most of these calls happen. For the money there are two separate routes here rather than one. Fort Worth Police run a Victim Assistance Section on 817-392-4390, and the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney runs its own Victim Services on 817-884-2740. Either can help with a crime victims' compensation claim, which is the state money that reaches cleanup; if one is closed the other is a real alternative. Fort Worth is not investigated by a single-county office. Tarrant County runs a medical examiner's district rather than a county office — one building at 200 Feliks Gwozdz Place covering Tarrant, Parker, Denton and Johnson Counties together, a combined population above three million. The county publishes something most offices do not: assistance is available 24 hours a day at 817-920-5700. It is the only number on this network with published 24-hour availability. Set against that, releases to a funeral home are weekdays only, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., with none at weekends or on holidays, and the office does not store, embalm or cremate — so a funeral home has to be chosen before anything moves. The buildings differ too. Fort Worth has the newest housing of the North Texas cities here, a median build year of 1994, and it is markedly more owner-occupied than Dallas: 43.0% rented against 57.6%. More single-family homes and fewer building managers usually means faster access, but newer floor systems carry fluid differently — along a floor assembly or into a wall cavity rather than straight down through plank subfloor. Ask what is being lifted, not what is being sprayed. The city's Environmental Collection Center at 6400 Bridge St takes household chemicals from Arlington and dozens of other entities as well, but its published not-accepted list names “Medicines & Medical waste”, so it is not a route for anything from a crime scene.

Reporting and access in Fort Worth

The non-emergency number here is 817-392-4222. Police release the property once they have finished with it, and they do not clean it — ask the officer at the scene who to contact about access.

Police contact →

Who helps with the cost

Fort Worth Police Department — Victim Assistance Section: 817-392-4390. The state program pays up to $2,250 toward crime-scene cleanup, after your insurance rather than before it, and not for structural repairs.

Compensation rules →