SFPD Officers Who Fatally Shot Alex Nieto In 2014 To Stand Trial Tuesday
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A federal trial will begin in San Francisco Tuesday on a wrongful death lawsuit filed against four city police officers by the parents of a 28-year-old man killed by the officers two years ago.
A jury that will be seated in U.S. District Court Tuesday morning will decide whether the officers acted reasonably when they fatally shot Alejandro "Alex" Nieto, in Bernal Heights Park shortly after 7 p.m. on March 21, 2014.
The officers were responding to a report of a man with a gun.
Nieto, who lived nearby with his parents and was a student at City College of San Francisco, had been eating a burrito at the park before going to his job as a security guard at a local nightclub.
He was wearing a Taser stun gun, which the family's lawyers say was licensed and needed for his job.
The police allege that the first two officers on the scene shouted, "Show me your hands," at Nieto and that he answered, "No, show me your hands," and then pulled what appeared to be a gun with a red laser light from his holster and pointed it directly at them.
City lawyers representing the officers wrote in a court filing, "The officers shot at Nieto, believing that their lives were in danger, to protect themselves and their fellow officers.
The city lawyers said, "Officers are trained that they shoot until the deadly threat to which they are reacting is no longer a deadly threat."
Nieto was struck by at least 10 bullets, according to an autopsy report by the San Francisco medical examiner's office.
The defendants are Lt. Jason Sawyer, who was a sergeant at the time, and Officers Nathan Chew, Roger Morse, and Richard Schiff.
Nieto's parents, Refugio and Elvira Nieto, contend there is no evidence that their son said anything to the officers before the initial volley of shots rang out or that he threatened them or pointed an object at them.
There "was no justification for this unwarranted use of deadly force," the parents' lawsuit alleges.
The shooting led to protest marches and rallies in the city over the past two years.
Jury selection in the court of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins is expected to be completed in the morning and opening statements are slated to take place in the afternoon. The trial is estimated to take one and one-half weeks.
The parents filed the civil rights lawsuit in August 2014. After having two claims dismissed in pretrial proceedings, the lawsuit now contains three claims: use of excessive force and denial of the parents' right to a familial relationship in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and wrongful death under California law.
The lawsuit asks the jury to award an unspecified amount of financial compensation for lost wages and funeral expenses as well as an additional punitive financial award.
