As the Austin City Council convened inside City Hall Thursday morning to take up the proposed budget, activists gathered in front of the building to demand better funding for mental health support services after the killing of Anthoneil Williams II.
Williams was fatally shot by Austin Police at a park last week after allegedly calling 911 to report a young man brandishing a gun. Responding officers shot Williams several times as he lifted his shirt and reached for his waist band. Williams was unarmed.
The officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis has characterized the shooting as potentially a “suicide by police.”
Chas Moore, founder of the Austin Justice Coalition, doesn’t agree with that claim. He said Austin needs to do better in responding to 911 calls from people who may be having mental health crises.
“We need better options,” Moore said. “Instead of Anthoneil having a better option, he got the option that we always have available .… They are coming with open arms alright, but not the arms that we are talking about. He got the open arms of the Austin Police Department, but he did not get the open arms that he deserved.”
A proposed city budget for the next fiscal year calls for about $5.1 million in cuts to social services contracts, including mental health programs. It also calls for increasing the police budget by nearly $25 million.
“It does not make sense that we keep putting millions and millions and millions of dollars into a police department that has proven time and time again that they cannot provide the care that our community deserves,” Moore said.
Annette Price, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, said every dollar the city spends on police is a dollar that is not spent on people and systems that prevent crises.
“We could have a crisis counselor that responds within minutes,” Price said. “We could have mental health professionals available 24/7. And we can have peer support specialists trained to talk a person down, deescalate, listen and help. But instead we have trigger-happy cops with guns pointed at our children.”
State law in Texas penalizes cities if they reduce police funding. Scott Delgado with the Party for Socialism and Liberation said activists are not asking the City Council to cut the police budget but to keep it flat.
“A lot of social services in this city, specifically mental healthcare, are underfunded,” Delgado said. “They need more money to properly handle the increase in population that has happened in Austin over the past five to six years.”