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Billy Austin Day

Age : 31

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 08/16/2025

Location : Closed car wash, 1600 block of South Ferdon Boulevard near Duggan Avenue

City : Crestview

County : Okaloosa

State : Florida

Agency : Crestview Police Department

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during mental health crisis and standoff

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/16/2025, Crestview police officers shot and killed 31-year-old Billy Austin Day after an approximately three-hour encounter at a closed car wash in the 1600 block of South Ferdon Boulevard. Day was born 07/28/1994 and lived in Crestview. His parents are John and Jennie Day.
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The police encounter began shortly before 2 a.m. when Crestview officers noticed what the department described as a suspicious vehicle parked outside the closed business. Police were not responding to a reported violent crime involving Day and had not gone there to arrest him. Officers approached because of the parked vehicle.
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Police said officers subsequently learned that Day had a firearm and was making suicidal statements. Officers remained at the scene and communicated with him for nearly three hours.
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Crestview police alleged that near the end of the encounter Day pointed a firearm at an officer. Police then opened fire, killing him. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was asked to investigate the shooting.
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Day's family strongly disputes important elements of the police account. His mother, Jennie Day, publicly described her son's death as a wrongful killing and created a fundraiser titled “Justice for Billy Day: Support His Family.”
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Jennie Day said Billy was emotionally distraught following a breakup but challenged the implication that this justified the police response that ended his life. She said Billy was sitting in his vehicle at the closed car wash and had not been committing a crime when officers approached him.
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Day's mother also directly challenged the police allegation that he pointed a gun at the negotiating officer. She questioned how the negotiator could have been standing at Billy's car window when police claimed Billy pointed the firearm at him without the negotiator himself being shot or injured when other officers opened fire.
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According to Jennie Day, both she and Billy's father were telephoning their son during the standoff and Billy was answering their calls. She said their conversations were repeatedly disrupted because the police negotiator was talking over them and instructed the parents to stop calling Billy.
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Jennie Day said the negotiator personally assured her that police would not hurt her son. After Billy was killed, she attempted to call the negotiator again and said he hung up on her.
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The family's account is especially significant because it establishes that police were not the only people communicating with Day during the encounter. His parents had direct telephone contact with him while police negotiations were underway. The complete negotiation recordings, police communications and Day's telephone records would therefore be particularly important for reconstructing what occurred and comparing the police account with what his parents heard.
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Day's mother also publicly alleged excessive gunfire. A photograph she posted with the family's fundraiser shows extensive apparent gunfire damage to Day's vehicle. She cited the condition of the vehicle as one reason she believes police used excessive force.
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An employee of a nearby business subsequently gave the Crestview News Bulletin an account describing a large volume of police gunfire and identifying Day's weapon as an AK-47-style rifle. Police Chief Steve McCosker publicly disputed portions of that account, saying the witness had taken liberties with what occurred. The exact number of officers who fired, number of shots fired and precise firearm involved therefore require confirmation from the FDLE investigative record rather than reliance on the conflicting early accounts.
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Day's mother additionally said her son had never been arrested and had never previously had dealings with law enforcement. No unrelated criminal history is pertinent to the circumstances of his killing.
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Day's identity and correct age are now independently supported by both local reporting and his obituary information. Billy Austin Day was born 07/28/1994 and died 08/16/2025 at age 31. Earlier secondary compilations listing him as 44 are incorrect.
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The shooting presents several significant unresolved factual questions because the family's account directly conflicts with the police narrative at the critical moment when deadly force was used. The most important evidence includes body-camera footage from every officer at the scene, any dash-camera footage, the complete crisis-negotiation recording, CAD and dispatch records, radio traffic, photographs of Day's vehicle, the FDLE scene reconstruction, firearm and ballistic evidence, shell-casing locations, autopsy findings and the identity and position of every officer who fired.
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The family's assertion that the negotiator was at Day's vehicle window is particularly important to test against body-camera video and scene evidence. Those records should establish the negotiator's precise location, Day's location and movements, the location and orientation of Day's firearm, which officers reported seeing Day point it, and what each shooting officer could actually see when gunfire began.
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The Crestview Police Department's institutional record is unusually relevant to this case. When Crestview officers killed Day, three officers from the same department — Brandon Hardaway, William Johns and Evan Reynolds — had been under felony manslaughter indictments arising from the 2021 death of Calvin Wilks Jr.
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Wilks died following a Crestview police response that began as a welfare check. Police restrained him and used a Taser during the encounter. The medical examiner classified Wilks' death as a homicide, and an Okaloosa County grand jury subsequently indicted Hardaway, Johns and Reynolds for manslaughter.
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The Wilks prosecution was still unresolved when police killed Billy Day. Ten days after Day's death, prosecutors dismissed the manslaughter charges against the three officers after concluding that subsequent expert evidence created reasonable doubt about whether criminal responsibility could be proven. Crestview subsequently returned the officers to duty.
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The Wilks case also produced civil litigation by his family. It is therefore a particularly relevant prior episode because both encounters began as situations other than conventional violent-crime arrests and escalated into fatal uses of force by Crestview police.
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The department has faced additional federal litigation involving allegations concerning internal accountability. Former Crestview Professional Standards investigator Shawn Temple sued the city after his termination, alleging retaliation after reporting misconduct and discrimination involving command personnel. A federal court denied the city's effort to dispose of significant portions of Temple's claims at summary judgment, allowing litigation to continue.
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Earlier litigation involving former Crestview officers Matthew Purvines and Zachary Faircloth contained allegations involving excessive force, Taser use, threats and instructions concerning police reports. Those allegations involved other personnel and earlier incidents and are relevant only as part of the department's institutional history, not as evidence about the unidentified officers who killed Day.
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Crestview's current command structure also places Professional Standards, internal affairs and SWAT functions within identifiable command divisions. The department lists Major Joshua Grace as Operations Division commander and a SWAT team leader and Major Andrew Schneider as Support Services commander and SWAT commander. Their positions do not establish that either participated in Day's shooting, and neither should be identified as involved without the FDLE file or another reliable source establishing participation.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Crestview police officer or officers who shot and killed Billy Austin Day have not been publicly identified.
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Officer identification remains a high-priority records issue because the names would permit individual searches for prior shootings, uses of force, complaints, discipline, civil-rights litigation, criminal investigations and certification history.
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The department itself had a significant recent fatal-force history when Day was killed. Officers Brandon Hardaway, William Johns and Evan Reynolds had been indicted for manslaughter in Calvin Wilks Jr.'s death and remained under those indictments on 08/16/2025. Prosecutors dismissed those charges ten days after Day's killing.
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Day's family is actively contesting the police version of his death rather than merely expressing grief. Jennie Day disputes that her son would have pointed a firearm at police, disputes the handling of the crisis negotiations, says police interfered with his parents' telephone contact with him, alleges excessive gunfire and characterizes the killing as wrongful.
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The FDLE investigative file is therefore particularly important because it should allow direct comparison between the family's account and the officers' statements through body-camera footage, recorded negotiations, radio traffic, ballistic evidence and scene documentation.
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SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.fox10tv.com/2025/08/16/officer-involved-shooting-crestview/
https://weartv.com/news/local/police-shooting-in-crestview-leaves-armed-suspect-dead-investigation-underway
https://crestviewbulletin.com/0828-officer-involved-shooting/
https://crestviewbulletin.com/0904-shooting-followup/
https://www.echovita.com/us/obituaries/fl/crestview/billy-day-20203291
https://www.fox10tv.com/2022/06/07/3-police-officers-indicted-manslaughter-crestview-mans-death/
https://www.fox10tv.com/2025/08/27/crestview-officers-manslaughter-charges-dismissed-2021-death/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/florida/flndce/3%3A2019cv02989/108013/38/
GoFundMe:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-for-billy-day-support-his-family