{"id":173083,"date":"2026-02-20T16:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/173083\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:40:17","slug":"austin-officer-daniel-sanchez-to-be-retried-in-moonesinghe-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/173083\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin officer Daniel Sanchez to be retried in Moonesinghe shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Austin police officer who fatally shot an armed man standing on his\u00a0front porch will once again stand trial<\/a> for felony deadly conduct three months after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the officer’s initial trial, according to a spokesman for Travis County District Attorney Jos\u00e9 Garza.<\/p>\n

Spokesman Ismael Martinez said that\u00a0prosecutors moved to retry Daniel Sanchez, who stands accused of shooting 33-year-old tech entrepreneur Rajan Moonesinghe outside his Bouldin Creek duplex in November 2022, following a Feb. 18 pre-trial conference. The new trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 10, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hearts continue to break for the Moonesinghe family, who are still waiting for justice for their son, Rajan,\u201d\u00a0Garza said in a news release announcing the decision. \u201cOur Civil Rights Unit is prepared to proceed with a new trial and present evidence and facts surrounding the excessive force that led to Rajan Moonesinghe\u2019s death.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sanchez’s first trial ended Nov. 17 after attorneys spent nine days presenting evidence. Jurors deliberated for 12 hours before announcing they could not reach a unanimous verdict<\/a>. State District Court Judge Karen Sage, who presided over the trial, said at the time that the jury had been “evenly split” since it began deliberating, which prompted her to declare a mistrial.<\/p>\n

The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, the statewide police union, blasted Garza’s decision to revive the case.<\/p>\n

“Jos\u00e9\u00a0Garza is doubling down on his efforts to politicize and persecute the men and women who protect the residents of Travis County,” CLEAT Executive Director Robert Leonard said in a news release that referenced\u00a0a December ruling by the Seventh Court of Appeals in a separate case that\u00a0overturned the historic conviction<\/a> of former Austin officer Christopher Taylor and ordered him acquitted of the same felony deadly conduct charge Sanchez is facing.<\/p>\n

Leonard said CLEAT attorneys will again represent Sanchez at trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Austin police officer who fatally shot an armed man standing on his\u00a0front porch will once again stand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,815,251],"class_list":{"0":"post-173083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-local-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}