A federal court judge has ruled in favor of the family of Fridoon Nehad, an unarmed man shot to death by a San Diego police officer in the Midway District last year, ordering the city to provide all records on deadly or serious injury officer-involved shootings between 2013 and present.
Nehad's family is suing the City of San Diego over the shooting, claiming the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) has a pattern of poorly investigating cases and covering up officer misconduct.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s office previously found the shooting was justified and did not to file charges. The Department of Justice cleared the officer of violating any federal criminal civil rights statutes in shooting of Nehad, NBC 7 San Diego learned Wednesday.
In a letter to SDPD Officer Neal Browder, released exclusively to NBC7, the DOJ says it is closing its investigation after careful consideration of the evidence.
Federal Judge Nita Stormes ruled earlier this month that the Nehad family will not have to pay the requested $12,000 the City Attorney's office says it would cost to copy all the documents. The requested documents include internal affairs investigations and DVDs containing surveillance video and body camera footage of the shootings.
The city claimed releasing such information would cause an “undue burden,” because the search would “yield dozens of investigations, thousands of pages of documents” and that “to review such investigations would require thousands of man hours to copy, sift through, redact etc.”
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the discovery dispute is not uncommon in large civil lawsuits.
"The role of the judge is to decide what is the scope of this case," Goldsmith said. "Is this only about what happened in the alley that night? Or is it broader? Our position was the case is about what happened that evening in the alley where (Nehad) was shot."
Federal Judge Stormes upheld a prior ruling that the discovery request was not unduly burdensome on the city. Stormes ruled the city provided “no persuasive reason” why they did not previously present specific information on the costs of assembling approximately 15,000 pages of documents, 403 compact discs and about 217 DVDs for the 31 officer-involved-shootings since 2013.
Goldsmith said ultimately the cost of providing the discovery will fall to the taxpayers. He estimated the total cost would be upwards of $40,000.
"The city is a deep pocket," Goldsmith explained. "When there's a discovery demand on the city and it's broad, we have to put people on overtime and it's huge costs all around."
The judge’s ruling also denied the city’s request to narrow the scope of the request to shootings between April 2013 and April 2015. Nehad’s family contends that, because the police department has not changed any policies since Nehad’s shooting, the discovery is relevant to their case.
The ruling leaves open the possibility that the city’s discovery will include body camera footage of the shooting of Thongsoune Vilasane, shot 22 times by police in Encanto in May 2016.
Police fired 40 rounds at Vilasane, with some of the officers reloading their weapons during the shooting. The officers said Vilasane tried to ram his car into them.
The civil rights case brought by Nehad's family is sealed, meaning all records released to the plaintiffs are under a protective order. They will not likely be released to the general public, unless the order is lifted or they are obtained by other means.
After being cleared of wrongdoing for shooting Nehad, SDPD officer Neal Browder, a 27-year veteran of the department, accidentally fired his weapon during a February 2016 foot chase and the stray bullet hit a baby’s crib in Oak Park.
No one was injured in the accidental discharge, which prompted a SDPD administrative investigation.
