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Wearing the same World Series San Francisco Giants cap that his son Alejandro gifted him in 2012, Refugio Nieto placed flowers at the spot where his son took his last breath after being shot 14 times by police.
Refugio and his wife Elvira stood atop Bernal Hill alongside a group of about 35 people on Monday, Jan. 5, “celebrating” the long overdue release of the names of the four San Francisco police officers who had gunned down their son Alejandro “Alex” Nieto on March 21, 2014.
“Now, at the very least the process can start, to see if something can be done,” Refugio said. “Because imagine, it’s been 10 months, and we’re still here like it’s day one, where we don’t know anything.”
After months of rallies, protests and community outrage, the SFPD on Jan. 2 publically released the names of Sgt. Jason Sawyer and officers Roger Morse, Richard Schiff and Nathan Chew—a move that was prompted after Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins ruled against the city in December.
“They [the city] were just stonewalling—refusing to make those names available, saying there was some threat against these officers—and I think the judge saw through that argument,” said Adante Pointer, an associate attorney in the office of civil rights lawyer John Burris, who is representing the Nieto family. “The question is ‘When does this threat end, and at what point in time does the public’s interest in knowing what its police officers are doing outweigh the threat of these armed police officers, who have shown their willingness to use their guns?’”
Pressure on the department to give up information surrounding the case mounted when the Nieto family filed a civil lawsuit against the city last August, and when the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Nieto’s death a homicide in September, confirming that police shot him 14 times.
“This is going to be a long journey to justice; one journey that we do not intend to give up,” Pointer said. “The next steps include playing out the legal process, taking depositions, getting witness statements, examining the evidence that San Francisco’s police department and the city of San Francisco are using to say that this was justified—evidence that we hold in skepticism.”
It was 7:11 p.m. on March 21 when police received a 911 call describing a Latino male pacing back and forth with what officers thought was a handgun holstered on his hip. Nieto, who had two hours until his shift as a security guard began, was carrying his licensed Taser.
Refugio hadn’t thought anything was wrong on March 22, not until he got a phone call from his niece from Kansas after seeing a Facebook post of the shooting. He worried it was his son. Then the cops showed up and confirmed the tragic news.
Days after the fatal shooting, Police Chief Greg Suhr said during a town hall meeting that Nieto had drawn his Taser and aimed it at the approaching police, who opened fire.
“Stop this torture of the family and community. Stop this circus of injustice,” said Benjamin Bac Sierra, a longtime friend of Nieto and spokesperson for the family. “Tell the truth. Alex Nieto never pointed any Taser at police officers. You insult our intellect and attempt to hurt is by spreading lies.”
Yet despite the optimism, Nieto’s supporters acknowledged that investigating the events surrounding that fatal night along with unearthing the prior histories of the officers involved will prove difficult.
“It’s a tough thing to do because similar to what we were dealing with in getting the names, the officers are afforded a lot of protections, where you just cannot go and access their file. This is going to have to play out through the litigation process, and that’s going to take some time. And by a person much more eloquent than I, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’” Pointer said, quoting the eminent British politician William Ewart Gladstone.
Nieto’s father agrees.
“Well, it’s very difficult,” said Refugio, who is originally from Guanajuato. “We’ll see what they come up with. Just look at the months they had to get their stories straight.”