A Hays County grand jury has declined to indict two San Marcos Police Department officers who shot and killed 25-year-old Thomas Anthony Hawkins III during a warrant call in June, the Hays County Criminal District Attorney's office has said. The decision, reported on Saturday, November 14, closes the criminal review of the shooting.
Source: KSAT reporting via T-SPAN Texas
Prosecutors said the grand jury reviewed body-camera footage from both officers who fired, together with the results of an investigation by the Texas Rangers, before concluding that no charges should be filed. The district attorney's office said Hawkins had a knife in his hand and lunged at one of the officers before the officers shot him multiple times. That account is the prosecution's description of the evidence; the officers have not been publicly named in the reporting reviewed for this story.
What happened on June 26
The shooting happened on the evening of June 26, 2026, at the Mission Trail @ El Camino Real apartment complex in San Marcos, in the 3000 block of State Highway 123. San Marcos police said officers responded at about 7:45 p.m. after being told that Hawkins, who was wanted on active felony warrants, was inside one of the units.
Source: The University Star
At a press conference the next day, San Marcos Police Chief Stan Standridge laid out the warrants in detail. One warrant came out of a San Marcos police investigation into an assault involving family violence — impeding breath or circulation — originally reported to the department on February 10, 2025. Hawkins also held two further full-extradition warrants: assault on a peace officer out of Tarrant County from 2023, and continuous violence against the family out of Bell County from 2020, the chief said.
Three officers went to the apartment. Two went up to the third-floor unit while the third watched the balcony from below, prosecutors said. After the officers knocked and announced themselves, residents — including Hawkins' brother and another person — came out and spoke with them. The officers were told there were weapons inside, and prosecutors said the brother offered to go back in and try to bring Hawkins out peacefully.
While the officers waited outside, they heard voices and a possible struggle inside, according to the district attorney's office. The door then opened and the brother was seen pushing Hawkins out. Prosecutors said Hawkins had a knife in his right hand and immediately turned and lunged at one of the officers. Chief Standridge's account in June described the knife raised near Hawkins' head as he lunged toward the officer standing at the top of the stairs outside the door.
According to the Hays County district attorney's office, Hawkins had a knife in his right hand and lunged at an officer; both officers at the door then fired, striking him multiple times. The grand jury reviewed the body-camera footage and the Texas Rangers investigation before voting not to indict.
The first officer fired as Hawkins lunged, and Hawkins fell face down still holding the knife, the chief said in June. When Hawkins began to roll over while still in possession of the knife, the two officers discharged their firearms multiple times. Hawkins was handcuffed, treated by San Marcos Hays County EMS and taken to Ascension Seton Hays hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No officers were injured.
The investigation and the grand jury review
As is standard in Texas officer-involved shootings, the Texas Rangers — the state's top investigative agency — investigated the shooting, with assistance from the San Marcos Police Department's criminal investigations division. The Hays County district attorney's office responded to the scene on the night of the shooting and remained through the early morning hours, Chief Standridge said at the time.
The case then went to a Hays County grand jury, the citizen panel that decides whether evidence supports a criminal indictment. Prosecutors said the panel reviewed body-camera footage from both officers along with the Rangers' findings. Its decision not to indict means no criminal charges will be filed against the two officers in this case.
What happens next
With the grand jury's decision, the criminal side of the case is closed. The reporting reviewed for this story does not say whether any separate departmental or civil process will follow, and the San Marcos Police Department has not announced the officers' names in connection with the decision. In June, the department said all three officers had been referred to a licensed professional counsellor and that the two officers who fired were placed in accordance with department policy while the investigation ran.
San Marcos, a city of Hays County between Austin and San Antonio and home to Texas State University, has been through this process before: in August 2024, a Hays County grand jury also declined to indict an officer in a separate fatal shooting, of Malachi Williams at an H-E-B parking lot — a different incident, decided on its own evidence. Each grand jury decision turns on the specific facts and footage of its own case, and Saturday's decision concerns only the June 26 shooting of Hawkins.
Sources: KSAT reporting republished by T-SPAN Texas (November 14, 2026) and The Austin News on the grand jury decision and the district attorney's account; The University Star's report of Chief Stan Standridge's June 27, 2026 press conference for the details of the warrants and the encounter.