{"id":31819,"date":"2025-11-02T10:23:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T10:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/31819\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T10:23:14","slug":"trial-for-austin-police-officer-who-shot-killed-man-in-2022-begins-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/31819\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial for Austin police officer who shot, killed man in 2022 begins next week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trial <\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas – The trial for an Austin police officer who shot and killed a man in 2022 starts next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Officer Daniel Sanchez is facing a deadly conduct charge for the shooting death of Raj Moonesinghe.<\/p>\n

Officer Sanchez\u2019s trial starts on Monday, Nov. 3.<\/p>\n

Death of Raj Moonesinghe <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

In November 2022, Officer Daniel Sanchez killed 30-year-old Raj Moonesinghe after police got a call about a man pointing a rifle down the street of a neighborhood in South Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When officers arrived, they said they saw Moonesinghe shooting into his home and then Officer Sanchez shot him.<\/p>\n

“The bullet holes are not there, the bloodstains are off of the cement. But, you know, every time I walk up here, I see those things, you can’t get them out of your mind,” Raj\u2019s brother, Mark, told FOX 7 in November 2024.<\/p>\n

\"Rajan <\/p>\n

The Austin Police Department cleared Officer Sanchez of any wrongdoing, and he was put back on patrol.<\/p>\n

“He clearly presented a lethal threat to Officer Sanchez and, again, based on his training and the law, Officer Sanchez responded appropriately,” Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas Executive Director Bob Leonard said.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

About a year later, Officer Sanchez was indicted on a third-degree felony deadly conduct charge and was put on leave.<\/p>\n

“A grand jury determined that Officer Sanchez\u2019s conduct was unlawful,” Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza announced in a press conference in December 2023.<\/p>\n

“The district attorney’s office in prosecuting this case is basically sending a clear signal to all police officers that, regardless of whether you are in the right, that he will prosecute you,” Leonard said.<\/p>\n

\"APD <\/p>\n

Since District Attorney Garza has been in office, more than 25 officers have been indicted, with the majority having their charges dropped.<\/p>\n

“I believe that Officer Sanchez is innocent of the charges that he has been accused of. I believe CLEAT is going to provide him with the best legal defense that he can get, and I believe we will prevail at trial,” Leonard said.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Moonesinghe family filed a 32-page wrongful death lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Meredith Aldis<\/p>\n

Austin<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a>CrimeWatch<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas – The trial for an Austin police officer who shot and killed a man in 2022…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1046,20826,223,1726,394,216,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-31819","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-crime-publicsafety","12":"tag-crimewatch","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-series","15":"tag-travis-county","16":"tag-tx","17":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31819","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=31819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}