A man who held his little daughter when he was killed by a San Diego police officer – and then continued the city during the shooting – was sentenced Thursday to 14 and eight months in state prison.
Steffon Nutall, 30, was killed on May 19 after the police said that he had threatened his ex-girlfriend, then took their child to the woman’s apartment. The police spotted him, then continued him on foot, and he was shot down several times. The child was not struck by the gunshots.
In a statement, San Diego police said Nutall ignored the repeated order of agent Robert Gladysz to disarm and go, then jumped with a sort of dark hand in his right hand, which prompted Gladysz to open fire.
In video sequences published by the police service, Gladysz was seen by telling a colleague that he “had not seen a kid” but saw Nutall holding a firearm.
Nutall then continued the city of San Diego and the officer who shot him. In his federal complaint, Nutall alleges that Gladysz used the “excessive, useless and illegal” force by opening fire on him.
Ballet wounds have left Nutall “severely limited in his ability to walk or move his legs, and therefore need the help of a wheelchair for mobility,” said the complaint.
Nutall appeared before the San Diego Superior Court in a wheelchair Thursday afternoon for a condemnation hearing following its guilt-in-children’s guilty pleadings, aggression with a semi-automatic firearm and being a criminal in possession of a firearm.
Defense lawyer Troy Owens said that on May 19 Nutall had gone home because he thought his daughter was mistreated and he intended to arrest him.
But Owens said that poisoning altered the judgment of his client on events and that his subsequent actions “are not something he is proud of. But the underlying motivation to go home was not to do anything other than protect your daughter. ”
In a declaration in court, Nutall echoes the explanation of his lawyer, while denying that he brought a firearm to the apartment.
“I only went there to protect my daughter,” he said. “I did not come there with the intention of injuring anyone, to harm anyone, none of this.”
Nutall said that “poisoning and anger took me on me” and that he did not intend to put his daughter in danger.
But his statement also mentioned the police shootout, which, according to him, was unjustified.
“I had no weapon. He had no reason to shoot me, point,” he said.
In his trial, Nutall allegedly alleged that he “posed no reasonable or credible threat of violence” to the officer, and he did not “justify the deadly force used against him”.
But assistant prosecutor Erin Casey said that Nutall was armed with a loaded weapon and was heard during an appeal to 911 threatening to shoot his ex-girlfriend. Casey also said that he had told an emergency distributor that if the police had answered, he “would kill everyone at home”.
The prosecutor also alleged that, although Nutall said that he had received an SMS detailing the alleged abuse of his child, “he was absolutely never presented to corroborate this.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
