San Francisco police exonerated in fatal shooting of college student
SAN FRANCISCO -- Four San Francisco police officers did not use excessive force when they shot and killed a college student at a park, a federal jury decided Thursday.
CBS San Francisco reported the eight-member jury reached the verdict in a civil lawsuit filed against the city following the 2014 shooting of 28-year-old Alejandro "Alex" Nieto.
The shooting in Bernal Heights Park on March 21, 2014 sparked protests and has fueled anger against San Francisco police in the wake of another fatal police shooting last year.
Nieto was killed after authorities said he pointed what they thought was a handgun at them, but turned out to be a stun gun. Nieto carried a stun gun for his job as a security guard.
Attorneys for Nieto's family said that he never pointed the stun gun at officers, and called a witness who said Nieto's hands were in his pockets when police opened fire. The officers fired as many as 59 shots in 30 seconds.
The parents' lawyer, Adante Pointer, told the jury during his closing argument that the officers robbed Nieto's parents of "years they might have spent with their son" by failing to come up with a tactical approach to determine whether he was in fact carrying a gun, according to CBS San Francisco.
"When you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. This failure resulted in a 28-year-old man being dead," Pointer told the jury.
"They went into a dangerous conflict and shot their way out of it," he said.
Deputy City Attorney Margaret Baumgartner, representing the officers, argued that they had no alternative but to use lethal force after Nieto allegedly pointed the device at them from 25 to 30 yards away.