HANNAH WESTALL

Public court proceedings, conversations with sources and case records reveal ongoing communication lapses and mishandling of evidence between the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and the area’s two largest law enforcement agencies: the San Antonio Police Department and the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

For two years, Hannah Westall's family was told there was no body camera footage existed of her March 2019 shooting. Homicide investigators and the Bexar County District Attorney's Office appeared to believe that, too. But now its sudden appearance has reopened the shooting investigation.

The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office has reopened its investigation of a 2019 San Antonio police shooting after body-camera footage of the fatal encounter surfaced this week.

The filing of the suit by the family of Hannah Westall comes a day before the two-year anniversary of the shooting. Westall, 26, was reaching for a non-functional replica Uzi BB gun on March 20, 2019, when SAPD Sgt. David Perry repeatedly shot her. The dash camera video of the shooting instead shows Westall repeatedly being shot and the weapon falling behind her without it ever pointing at the officer. AdIn October 2018, after an SAPD officer shot and killed someone inside a home in the 200 block of Roberts Street, McManus said the person killed was armed and a threat to the officer.

As public officials across the country seek to make their law enforcement agencies more transparent, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg requested a “complete review” of the police department’s body worn camera policies in a memo released Wednesday. Police departments in some major cities across Texas have begun to release body-worn camera footage, sometimes within days of the shooting taking place. In San Antonio, however, the police department typically does not release body camera footage even after the investigation is concluded, which is allowed under state law. The release of police footage, body-worn camera and dashboard camera, can be crucial in determining whether officers acted appropriately in the incident. After the Defenders report, San Antonio police amended the in-custody death report, more than a year after Westall’s death.

The amended report, submitted to the Texas Attorney General’s Office August 13, now states that 26-year-old Hannah Westall “reached” for a firearm prior to being shot by Sergeant David Perry. Previously, the department had publicly maintained that Westall pointed a replica firearm at the officer before he killed her. The decision to amend the death report came days after the Defenders investigation revealed that SAPD Chief William McManus’ account of the shooting and the in-custody death report- both stated that Westall pointed the weapon- was contradicted by the police footage. In this case what I was told at the scene is that the woman turned and pointed a gun at the Officer. If SAPD wanted to make amends for its handling of Hannah’s case, it could have and should have done so the instant it learned that Sgt.

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police dash camera video obtained by the KSAT 12 Defenders contradicts the department’s long-held narrative that a woman shot and killed by an SAPD sergeant in early 2019 had pointed a weapon at him prior to being shot. Dash camera video of the shooting, however, shows Westall repeatedly being shot and the weapon falling behind her without it ever pointing at the officer. Photos taken by SAPD personnel at the scene showed that the weapon carried by Westall, 26, was a replica Uzi BB gun. To say it’s a false narrative is awfully kind when you have video evidence that completely contradicts your statement. Charles Roundtree was shot and killed by an SAPD officer in Oct. 2018.