A man who allegedly threatened to shoot his former girlfriend and was later shot by a San Diego police officer after fleeing with the couple’s baby has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the officer and the city of civil rights violations, including excessive force.
Steffon Nutall, 29, was shot on the evening of May 19 in the city’s Chollas View neighborhood after his former girlfriend called 911 when he allegedly entered her apartment with a gun, threatened to kill everyone if police came — and then fled with their 11-month-old daughter, according to a San Diego police video.
Nutall was shot several times outside a nearby apartment a short time later. He has been charged with multiple felonies, including assault with a firearm, criminal threats, child endangerment and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, police said. He has pleaded not guilty and is in custody without bail pending a preliminary hearing.
Police later found he had dropped his weapon and was not armed when he was shot, authorities said. The baby was found nearby and unhurt.
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, claims Officer Robert Gladysz “unreasonably and unjustifiably” discharged his weapon though Nutall never posed a “credible threat of violence,” leaving him with injuries that limit his ability to move his legs and in need of a wheelchair.
“It’s a bad shooting. His back was turned to the officer. There was clearly no gun,” attorney Douglas Hopson, whose firm filed the lawsuit, said Saturday. “There’s too many facts, too many circumstances that should have made it clear that Nutall was not armed.”
Hopson said Nutall went to the apartment because he feared for his child’s safety, declining to elaborate. “He’s there to get his child, because he, in his mind, believes his child is in danger,” he said.
Police have said that Nutall was holding the baby when he was shot, but Hopson said that was not true. The city of San Diego and police did not respond Saturday to messages seeking comment.
San Diego police had earlier released a 10-minute video of the incident that includes the 911 call, police attempts to find Nutall and the shooting, which occurred at 10:27 p.m.
The 911 call is partly unintelligible, but police said his former girlfriend opened her bedroom door after he threatened to shoot through it. A man, identified as Nutall, then grabs the phone, not knowing who is on it and that police were on the way, and states, “If the police come to this door I am going to kill everything in here. I promise you that. So you call 911, I’m killing people.”
When officers arrived, police said Nutall ran away with the infant, and he was later found hiding in bushes near other apartments. The body camera of Gladysz shows the officer ordering Nutall to show his hands or he will shoot, right before the man darts out of the bushes and Gladysz fires several shots.
The officer can be heard saying Nutall pointed a gun at him but he didn’t see the baby. The police later found the gun in the parking lot of a trolley station that Nutall had run through while trying to evade police. In a video still, police highlighted what they said was an object in his right hand that Gladysz may have mistaken for a weapon. The infant was found near Nutall after he was shot. Police said he was holding the girl under his left arm at the time of the shooting.
However, Nutall had already put his daughter down prior to the shooting, Hopson said, “expecting and praying it wouldn’t be the case that the officers would just start shooting at him.”
An investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, which will be reviewed by the San Diego County district attorney’s office to determine if criminal charges are warranted against officers, according to the police video.
The investigation is being monitored by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, while the Police Department’s internal affairs will look to see if any policies were violated. A shooting review board will also evaluate the officers’ tactics, according to the video.
Gladysz, a patrol officer, had been employed by the department for a year and a half prior to the shooting, according to the sheriff’s department.
The federal lawsuit seeks various damages and claims the shooting resulted from “policies, practices and customs” that result in “unconstitutionally inadequate treatment for individuals of [African] descent.”
Hopson said Nutall was shot four times, once in each limb, and has suffered nerve or orthopedic damage that has made him bound to a wheelchair. He was hospitalized for more than a month after the shooting, and his release on bond is being sought so he can receive better medical care, Hopson said.
The lawsuit was filed by Hannah Hopson, a California attorney who is a partner in the Hopson Firm, a Chicago law firm founded by her father Douglas Hopson. Hopson said he plans to seek permission to participate in the case, though he is not admitted to the state bar here. Another attorney is representing Nutall in the criminal case.