Former San Diego County sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Richard Russell gunned down an unarmed man from behind in May 2020 outside the downtown Central Jail, to the shock of other nearby law enforcement officers, simply because the man was running away, a prosecutor told a federal jury Tuesday.
“No other officers on scene thought Nicholas Bils was a threat,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Askins told the jury as trial began with opening statements at the downtown San Diego federal court. Askins said no other officers even pulled out their weapons, much less shot at Bils. “Every single one of them knows you can’t shoot an unarmed man in the back just for running away.”
The government alleges Russell violated Bils’ civil rights when he fatally shot him, but defense attorney Richard Pinckard told jurors that Askins’ version of events was too narrow. Pinckard said the jury would need to consider all circumstances of the “tense situation,” the total context and each of the officers’ perspectives.
Pinckard hinted to the jury that the other officers were distracted or scared, but Russell was brave enough to take action.
Russell, who was 23 years old at the time of the shooting, is charged with one count of depriving Bils of his rights under color of law and one count of using and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. If convicted, the former deputy faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He resigned from the Sheriff’s Office just days after the shooting.
Russell was previously charged by county prosecutors in San Diego Superior Court with second-degree murder, becoming the first ever San Diego-area law enforcement officer to face a murder charge in the shooting death of a suspect. He was also the first officer in the state to face a murder charge under stricter use-of-force standards that went into effect just months before the shooting.
He eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter in the state case, itting in his plea agreement that he “unreasonably believed that I or someone else was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury,” according to the District Attorney’s Office. “I actually, but unreasonably believed that the immediate use of deadly force was necessary to defend against the danger,” he itted in the plea agreement.
He was sentenced in February 2022 to one year in jail, though he actually ended up spending about five months in custody. He was also sentenced to three years of probation.
A few months later, the county agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Bils’ family. Last May, more than four years after the shooting, a federal grand jury indicted Russell for the alleged civil rights violations for which he is now on trial.
The fatal shooting happened May 1, 2020, a little more than a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, after two California State Park rangers arrested Bils at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, where he had gone to play with his dog despite the park being closed to the public because of COVID restrictions. Park rangers said Bils, who had been using a golf putter to hit balls to his dog, had briefly held up the club in a threatening manner while fleeing from the rangers.
The rangers drove Bils to the downtown Central Jail in two vehicles, according to court documents and Askins’ opening statement. When they reached the facility, Bils slipped one hand out of his handcuffs and reached out a back window that was slightly open to allow airflow because of the pandemic, Askins said. He opened his door using the outside handle, and as a second ranger in a pickup truck tried to get out, Bils pushed the truck’s door closed and sprinted north on Front Street. He was not armed.
Russell, who was walking to work at the jail alongside another deputy, saw Bils escape from the car from the opposite curb, according to court documents and evidence in the case. He stepped into the street and, without warning Bils to stop, fired five shots at him. At least four of the shots struck Bils, including one that pierced his back.
“It never even crossed (the other officers’) minds to shoot Mr. Bils,” Askins told the jurors. “That wasn’t even a close call.”
He said Russell had graduated from the San Diego Regional Training Academy barely a year before the shooting and had received extensive training about when officers can use deadly force.
The prosecutor also began to paint a picture of Russell as a disaster in waiting, telling the jury he was reprimanded and almost kicked out of the regional law enforcement academy for negligently discharging his gun on the firing range.
“In a handwritten report about the incident, Defendant explained that during a shooting exercise, he ‘was too quick to put my finger on the trigger in anticipation of trying to shoot as fast as I could,’” prosecutors wrote in a trial brief.
Russell does not dispute that he shot and killed Bils. “What is in dispute … is whether the use of deadly force was objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances,” his attorney wrote in a trial brief.
Russell also disputes whether the government can prove he was acting under the color of law, in part because he was off-duty and had not yet clocked in for work at the jail when he shot Bils. Part of that argument also rests on Russell’s inexperience. He had graduated from the academy in April 2019 and was still in the midst of his 18-month probationary period as a deputy. And he had only worked in the courts and jail, never on patrol.
“He had never worked in the field as a law enforcement deputy, and he had not even commenced his Field Training Program,” his attorney wrote in a trial brief. “He had no actual experience as a law enforcement deputy when he reacted to the actions of Mr. Bils.”
Pinckard also wrote in the trial brief that Bils was “gripping a shiny object,” referring to the handcuffs that were still attached to one wrist. “Although with the benefit of hindsight, Mr. Bils was ultimately determined to have been unarmed throughout the incident … it was later revealed that after he slipped the handcuff off of his left wrist, he scooped up the loose cuff with his right hand and gripped it with the shiny metal around his fist,” Pinckard wrote. “Mr. Bils’s actions immediately preceding his death and the totality of the circumstances presented a tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving situation, which would make it objectively reasonable for a California trained peace officer to have used deadly force.”
Sheriff Kelly Martinez, who at the time was in a top leadership position in the department, was listed by both prosecutors and the defense as a potential witness in the trial, which is being presided over by U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson. The government’s case is expected to take about a week to present to the jury.
