A man who was holding his infant daughter when he was shot by a San Diego police officer was sentenced Thursday to nearly 15 years in state prison.
Steffon Nutall, 30, was shot last 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.
He was shot multiple times. The infant was not hit by the gunfire. In September, Nutall sued the city of San Diego and the officer who shot him, alleging that Officer Robert Gladysz used “excessive, unnecessary and unlawful” force by opening fire.
Nutall appeared in court in a wheelchair for his sentencing, following his March guilty pleas to charges of child endangerment, assault with a semi-automatic firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Defense attorney Troy Owens said that Nutall went to the home because he believed his daughter was being abused and he wanted to stop it.
But Owens said intoxication impaired his client’s judgment. His subsequent actions “are not something that he is proud of. But the underlying motivation to go to the home was not to do anything other than to protect his daughter.”
In a statement to the court, Nutall echoed his attorney’s explanation, while also denying that he brought a gun to the apartment.
“I only went over there to protect my daughter,” he said. “I didn’t come over there with the intent to hurt anybody, harm anybody, none of that.”
Nutall said “intoxication and anger took over me” and that he didn’t mean to put his daughter in harm’s way.
But his statement also touched on the police shooting, which he said was unwarranted.
“I had no gun. He had no reason to shoot at me, period,” he said.
But Deputy District Attorney Erin Casey said Nutall was armed with a loaded gun and was heard on a 911 call threatening to shoot his ex-girlfriend. Casey added that he told an emergency dispatcher that if police responded, he “would kill everyone in the home.”
The prosecutor also said that though Nutall claimed he received a text message detailing the alleged abuse of his child, “there has been absolutely no evidence ever presented to corroborate that.”
In the end, Nutall was sentenced to 14 years and eight months in prison.
In a statement, San Diego police said Nutall ignored Gladysz’s repeated orders to disarm himself and surrender, then jumped up with a dark-colored object in his right hand, prompting the officer to open fire.
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.
The gunshot wounds, Nutall said in his federal complaint, severely limit “his ability to walk or move his legs, and consequently, (he) needs the aid of a wheelchair for mobility.”
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