Alex Nieto civil trial to begin March 1

A civil trial is set to begin March 1 to determine whether San Francisco police used excessive force against a 28-year-old man in a fatal officer-involved shooting in The City’s Bernal Heights Park in 2014, according to his family’s attorneys.

Alejandro “Alex” Nieto, a San Francisco native who lived in Bernal Heights, was killed by San Francisco police officers on March 21, 2014. An autopsy report, released six months after his death, indicated that Nieto was struck by at least ten bullets.

San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr has said that officers were dispatched to the area when they received a call reporting a man with a gun in the park.

Officers shot Nieto and later discovered he was armed only with a Taser stun gun. Nieto was a security guard who attended City College of San Francisco with aspirations of being a probation officer.

Benjamin Bac Sierra, a friend of Nieto’s prior to his death and an English professor at City College, is pleased to hear that the case will go to trial after the city tried to have it dismissed but was denied by a federal judge.