The police killing of Anthoneil Williams II didn’t just hover over City Council’s July 30 meeting – it suffused it. Close to 100 residents spoke at the meeting, the vast majority using their two minutes of public comment to pour out heartbreak and anger over the Austin Police Department’s shooting of Williams. At least two dozen referred to the killing as a “murder.” Many fought back tears. The last order of business at the meeting – a public hearing on the budget – was so tense that it was suspended briefly after attendees chanted and screamed at Council members.
The meeting addressed several topics but was meant, generally, to serve as the opening of negotiations over the city’s fiscal year 2026-27 budget, which Council expects to finalize in mid-August. With Williams’ killing, it became a referendum on two proposals: a $25 million increase in the Austin Police Department’s budget and a simultaneous $5.1 million decrease in spending for social services.
Savannah Lee of Equity Action, a group that has long urged the city to redirect funding from APD to social services, was on the verge of tears as she spoke. “There is no data that I can bring you that could possibly be more convincing than the killing of a 17-year-old boy on an Austin playground,” Lee said. “And yet we’re here today discussing giving another $25 million to the institution that killed him, so that we can raise their salaries and benefits. Does that not feel entirely discordant to you, that you’re considering cutting the services that could have helped this young man and instead handing that cash over to the people that killed him?”
Williams was fatally shot by three APD officers in Northeast Austin in the early morning hours of July 24. At a press conference after the shooting, APD officials said Williams had called 911 to report a person in the park with a handgun. Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters that, in her opinion, Williams likely had engineered the encounter in an effort to commit “suicide by police.” Body camera footage released by the department showed officers arriving on the scene and demanding that Williams put his hands up. In the video, Williams reaches for an object in his waistband, later identified as a water bottle, and the officers open fire. They shoot him more than 20 times, then reload and fire more shots into his body.
Davis’ explanation of the encounter was unsatisfactory to many of those who spoke on Thursday. “‘Suicide by cop’ is a term that shuts down critical thinking and, according to the California Law Review, is based on junk science, and undermines police accountability,” said Janis Bookout, who presented Council with an analysis of Williams’ shooting that showed he was killed 16 seconds after the officers’ arrival.
Bookout joined the vast majority of speakers in demanding that Council keep APD’s budget flat in FY 2026-27 and redirect the $25 million to social services. Throughout the comment period, speakers said they supported the Community Investment Budget that groups like Equity Action, Grassroots Leadership, and others developed in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. The CIB seeks to increase spending on affordable housing, food access, mental health services, and community violence intervention.
Several speakers pointed out that the city has adopted CIB proposals in recent years. For example, Council has created a mental health response option for people who call 911 and established the Office of Police Oversight. Cynthia Simons, vice president of AFSCME Local 1624, urged Council to build on those reforms. Chris Harris of the Texas Civil Rights Project said the changes have made it easier to assess what occurred in the Williams killing. “But with the transparency, with the knowledge of what this department has done, you all have to decide now: Do you fund them, or do you fund the services that actually help someone like Anthoneil?”
Family members of people killed in past encounters with police watched the Council meeting unfold. Liz Gonzales, who has sought justice for her son Alex since he was shot to death by APD officers in 2021, screamed “Y’all murdered my son” during the proceedings, necessitating the brief recess. Mark Moonesinghe, the brother of Rajan Moonesinghe, who was killed by police in 2022, questioned APD’s culture, describing a random encounter with officers at a local golf course.
“I was paired up with three young police officers,” Moonesinghe said. “My playing partner and cart mate told me that he’s someone who actually trains new cadets at the academy. At one point during the round, he told me that he requests shifts at night in high-crime areas because he loves the thrill and the adrenaline rush. It makes him feel more alive. That’s the problem that APD has yet to address in the recruiting, training, and culture. Police are supposed to be peacekeepers who protect and serve, not adrenaline junkies looking for a fix.”
Thursday’s meeting ended around 6:30pm, nearly nine hours after it had begun. Almost immediately, a group of Council members including Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor Pro Tem Chito Vela, CM José Velásquez, and CM Krista Laine proposed restoring some of the planned social services cuts, especially those benefiting children, with $4.7 million in additional property tax revenue that city staff had announced earlier that day. Five minutes later, CMs Vanessa Fuentes, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, Zo Qadri, and Natasha Harper-Madison also suggested using the newly discovered revenue to restore social services spending.
“When we cut social services, we only shift the burden to those who can’t afford it and make the problem worse,” Fuentes told us. “I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in our efforts to restore the lifelines that keep Austin families housed, healthy, and safe.”
This article appears in August 7 • 2026.
