A federal court jury decided March 10 that police were justified in firing dozens of times at 27-year-old college student Alex Nieto after mistaking the taser for a real gun, in a shooting that sparked months of demonstrations and controversy in a place accustomed to calm relations between citizens and police.
Nieto, who was employed as a security guard, was struck numerous times by police bullets in Bernal Heights Park and died, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
The shooting, which occurred just three months before another group of San Francisco cops shot and killed a black man armed with a knife in the city’s Bayview district, was understood to be one of the cases that convinced federal authorities to open a formal review of local police practices.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office cleared the officers of wrongdoing in 2015.
But the federal lawsuit was the last avenue for the Nieto family to seek redress for the police shooting, although the jury decision’s still could be appealed.
Most of the facts in the case were in dispute, except that officers were called to the park on March 21, 2014, in response to calls about a man with a gun in the park.
Officers Richard Schiff and Nathan Chew arrived first, followed by Roger Morse and Lt. Jason Sawyer after the shooting started, the newspaper said.
Officers who fired dozens of shots at Nieto were accused of violating Nieto’s rights to due process and to be protected from unreasonable force.
“I am pleased the jury saw the facts the way we presented them,” Deputy City Attorney Margaret Baumgartner told the newspaper outside the courthouse.
“Everybody here, including the officers, understands that the Nietos must be very sad to lose a child like that but my officers didn’t do anything wrong,” Baumgartner said.
“It was tragic but, unfortunately, I was forced,” Schiff testified.
But the Nieto family’s attorneys, Adante Pointer and Lateef Gray, criticized the verdict as wrong.
“The verdict was not what the Nietos deserve, and it’s not what the city deserves,” Pointer said outside the courthouse.
“What you have here is a green light to fire 59 shots in a public park — it’s a sad day for the city and county of San Francisco,” Pointer said.
Later Thursday night, Nieto’s parents — Refugio and Elvira Nieto — spoke before a crowd of supporters assembled at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts on Mission Street.
“It’s a shame on the city,” Refugio Nieto told supporters in Spanish.
“We need to understand this is a danger to all of us,” he said.
“It was a hard case,” a juror who did not give her name said as she left the courtroom.
None of the other jurors would speak with reporters.
“This shows that the San Francisco Police Department can shoot 59 shots and get away with it,” said a friend of the Nietos, Oscar Salinas.
“We’re still going to continue fighting and we’re happy that Alex’s story was told, and now the evidence is out and the public can decide for themselves,” Salinas said.
The eight-person jury apparently rejected testimony from witness Antonio Theodore, who said Nieto had his hands in his pockets when police started shooting.
Theodore’s testimony was bolstered by a bone fragment found in Nieto’s jacket pocket, the newspaper said.
“To claim a man’s hand was in front of him but there’s a wrist bone in his pocket, just doesn’t add up,” Pointer said after court.
But Baumgartner questioned Theodore’s credibility by challenging some of his testimony and allowing him to bring up how he had become an alcoholic since the shooting.
The jury also heard testimony from Evan Snow, who was walking his dog in the park shortly before the shooting and said Nieto pointed the stun gun at him.
“I thought it was the grip of a pistol, and I was incredibly frightened at that time — I froze in my tracks,” Snow said.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to get shot. I’m going to die right now, ‘” he said.
Elvira Nieto was forced to leave the courtroom briefly when autopsy photos were displayed, but returned to testify about how proud she had felt when she posthumously received her son’s diploma from City College a few weeks after the shooting.
