AUSTIN, Texas — During Monday's Public Safety Commission meeting, city leaders spoke about how Austin police can improve protocol when communicating with families after officer-involved shootings.
Families of some people who have been shot and killed by Austin police said that after their loved ones were killed, they were left with questions and without support. They're concerned and want policies changed.
Among the speakers were the mother of Alex Gonzales, who was shot in 2021, and the brother of Raj Moonesinghe, who was shot last November. They said they didn't receive any support from victim services or police besides getting a business card.
"I never got no communication," Gonzales's mother said. "Never got nobody to come out to talk to me about nothing. Not since my son was murdered."
"First, we thought my brother was still alive and we were frantically calling hospitals," Moonesinghe's brother said. "And to go to the scene the very next day, several hours, the very next day, and they still wouldn't confirm, or they wouldn't say that it wasn't a white person – for five days, almost five days, we didn't know that he was actually dead."
Staff with APD's Victim Services Unit said they have counselors available 24/7, but they have to be called to a crime scene. APD said it's up to the supervisor on the scene to decide if a counselor needs to be sent out because they're not automatically dispatched. One reason is that families aren't always at a crime scene.
The APD supervisor also decides if a counselor's help is needed throughout the process. That can include things like notifying the family of the death, counseling and arranging a safe place for the family to watch body camera video before it is released.
They also discussed how there's no formal APD policy for a time frame on notifying families, but Interim Police Chief Robin Henderson said that would be too difficult to create given every case is different.
"There could be an opportunity or a lack of opportunity to make contact with family because we don't even know who the next-of-kin is that we should be notifying," Henderson said. "So we can't necessarily say there's a standard sequence of contact just because each situation is unique."
Both Henderson and the head of Victim Services agreed they are committed to creating criteria and a policy requiring counselors to be automatically sent out after a police shooting if loved ones are on the scene.
The Public Safety Commission plans to meet again and give a recommendation to the city council.