A man who was holding his infant daughter when he was shot by a San Diego police officer — and later sued the city over the shooting — pleaded guilty this week to charges of child endangerment, assault with a semi-automatic firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Steffon Nutall, 30, was shot May 19 after police say he threatened his ex-girlfriend, then took their child from the woman’s Chollas View apartment. Officers spotted him, then chased him on foot, and he was shot multiple times, according to police. The infant was not struck by the gunfire.
Following the guilty pleas entered Monday, Nutall is expected to be sentenced next month to a state prison term of between 10 and 16 years, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
In a lawsuit filed last fall against the city of San Diego and the officer who shot him, Nutall alleges Officer Robert Gladysz used “excessive, unnecessary and unlawful” force by opening fire on him.
The gunshot wounds have left Nutall “severely limited in his ability to walk or move his legs, and consequently, (he) needs the aid of a wheelchair for mobility,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit also alleges Nutall did not “pose any reasonable or credible threat of violence” to the officer, nor did he “do anything to justify the deadly force used against him.”
The complaint does not reference the police department’s allegations that he threatened his child’s mother, took off with the infant or had a gun. The lawsuit remains pending in San Diego federal court.
Police said the woman called police on the night of May 19 to report her ex-boyfriend was outside her 47th Street residence and threatened to shoot through the front door if she would not let him in. When she complied with his demands, he threatened to shoot her, then snatched their baby daughter and walked out of the residence, according to sheriff’s Lt. Michael Krugh.
Seeing arriving police officers, the suspect ran off through the apartment complex, crossed a set of trolley tracks, ran across a parking lot at the 47th Street Trolley Station and entered a residential complex, the lieutenant said. Police soon found him there, hiding in a patch of shrubbery.
The suspect ignored Gladysz’s repeated orders to disarm himself and surrender, then jumped up with some sort of dark-colored object in his right hand, prompting Gladysz to open fire, police said.
“It was (then) learned the suspect was holding his daughter during the … shooting,” the lieutenant said. “The child was unharmed and was returned to her family.”
In video footage released by the police department, Gladysz is seen telling a fellow officer that he “didn’t see a kid” but saw Nutall holding a gun.
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