OPO's officer-involved shooting dashboard Credit: austintexas.gov

For years, Austinites trying to understand police shootings had to piece together answers from briefings, news coverage, court cases, and old reports. Now, a new Office of Police Oversight dashboard puts that information in one place.

OPO launched its Officer-Involved Shooting Dashboard May 19, tracking Austin Police Department shooting incidents from 2018 through 2025. The launch comes after APD leaders told City Council that officers are using force less often, while advocates questioned the department’s data and recent changes to how force is counted.

Crystal Kimbrough, policy compliance consultant for OPO, said the dashboard moves the office beyond static reports. OPO’s last officer-involved shooting report was released in 2020 and covered 2018 incidents.

“This new dashboard is a centralized interactive platform,” Kimbrough said. “Instead of reviewing data for multiple reports, everything’s integrated into one place. Users can quickly explore incidents, identify patterns, and generate insights.”

What the Dashboard Shows

The dashboard is organized by overall trends, officer information, subject information, and incident details. From 2018 through 2025, the dashboard shows 60 officer-involved shooting cases involving 151 officers and 60 subjects. About 38% were self-initiated by officers, while 62% began as calls for service. It lists 36 fatal cases and 24 nonfatal cases.

The most officer-involved shootings occurred in 2018, with 11 cases, followed by 2022 and 2023, with nine each. Council District 4 had the most cases, with 11, followed by District 9 with eight.

The officer race breakdown shows 69.5% were white, 22.5% were Hispanic, 5.3% were Black, and 2.6% were Asian. Hispanics made up the largest group of injured parties, followed by white, Black, and Asian injured individuals.

Each case includes a narrative summary. One example is the November 2022 fatal shooting of Rajan Moonesinghe by APD Officer Daniel Sanchez. According to the dashboard narrative, Moonesinghe fired into his home as police arrived, then turned away from the doorway with a rifle pointed down. Sanchez yelled for him to drop the gun, and “just a split second later” fired five shots. As Moonesinghe collapsed, he shouted, “It wasn’t me.”

Sanchez’s felony deadly conduct trial ended in a deadlocked jury after a nine-day trial last November. Prosecutors argued Sanchez fired less than a second after ordering Moonesinghe to drop his gun, while defense attorneys argued he reasonably believed he was responding to an active shooter situation. Now, he is being retried.

“If you have data that’s published, but no one can find it, no one can use it, no one can understand it, it’s not clean, it’s not accessible, then what’s the point?” said Sara Peralta, public information and marketing program manager for OPO. “Transparency informs accountability.”

“The data integrity is really important to us because of the seriousness of this dashboard.”

OPO policy compliance consultant Crystal Kimbrough

Transparency Is Only the First Step

Kimbrough said OPO validated the data through critical incident briefings, APD Special Investigations Unit yearly spreadsheets, internal affairs case files, and, in some cases, body-camera footage.

“The data integrity is really important to us because of the seriousness of this dashboard,” Kimbrough said. “We comb through reports, we validated everything with multiple sources.”

OPO is independent from APD and reports to the city manager, not the police chief. It reviews officer conduct, APD policies, and training practices, but does not discipline officers or conduct criminal investigations. OPO officials said they plan to update the dashboard as they verify new cases and gather community feedback.

“This is a living thing,” Kimbrough said. “We’re open to feedback to improve it.”

That means the dashboard can show trends and context, but criminal review remains separate. Travis County District Attorney José Garza, whose office was not involved in creating the dashboard, said his office typically becomes involved months after APD’s Special Investigations Unit sends a case to prosecutors.

Garza said dashboard trends or OPO recommendations could be useful if they pointed to patterns that may require policy changes.

“Being able to have those kinds of briefings or recommendations would help us to better understand whether or not there are policy changes necessary in order to keep officers and our community safe,” Garza said.

OPO officials said the dashboard will be updated as new cases are verified and shaped by community feedback after launch. 

“This initiative aligns with our commitment to transparency and improved oversight,” Kimbrough said. “We’re going to continue to enhance and expand the dashboard to reflect community needs and strengthen transparency.”

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Lucciana Choueiry is a freelance writer for The Austin Chronicle covering local government, public safety, the environment, the intersection of technology and policy in Central Texas – and anything else Austinites can’t stop talking about. She has reported for KUT and Texas Monthly, and was previously an editorial intern with The Austin Chronicle as well as News Editor at The University Star at Texas State University.