By Tim Redmond
SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 — The autopsy report on Alex Nieto was full of news; we reported some of it last week. There are lots of ways to look at the new evidence.
But the Chron in a back-of-the-news-section story, focused on only on piece, and most likely the least relevant information available.
The piece barely mentioned the gunshot wounds, and instead detailed the mental-health issues in Nieto’s personal hospital files, which became part of the public record when the medical examiner asked SF General to hand them over after his death.
The files show that Nieto was being treated for mental illness, had been prescribed some powerful medications (which he apparently wasn’t taking regularly) and at one point had been involuntarily confined after threating to burn down his parents’ house.
That may sound sexy to an editor looking for a crime story – but Nieto’s past has absolutely nothing to do with whether the police shooting was appropriate.
In fact, if he was exhibiting signs of mental illness on Bernal Hill, the police should, by policy, have engaged a special protocol designed after the shooting of Idriss Stelley. There should have been mental-health intervention teams before shots were fired.
The police who shot Nieto knew nothing about his history. They didn’t even know his name; when he arrived at the morgue, he was first identified as John Doe. So he could have been the best-behaved person in San Francisco or he could have had a long criminal history and the way the police responded to him should have been exactly the same.
You could argue that a person with behavioral problems might be more likely to wave a Taser at the cops – but the Nieto family lawyer says he has eyewitnesses who didn’t see that happen. Which is what will matter if the case goes to trial.
The family, meanwhile, is asking for an independent investigation, outside of the San Francisco police and District Attorney’s Office. That would mean the feds, who thus are haven’t said anything.
So the main impact of the Chron story is to malign the reputation of Nieto. But again: His reputation or history isn’t the issue here. Nor is the matter of whether he was acting erratically that night on Bernal Hill.
The question is whether the police should have shot and killed him. And that’s still very much an open case.
