Videos Of Police Shootings In Chollas View, Mission Valley Released

SAN DIEGO, CA — Authorities have released video footage of two unrelated San Diego police shootings that wounded assault suspects — one fatally — within a 12 1/2-hour period last week.

The first of the two shootings, images of which were recorded by cameras worn on officers' uniforms and mounted on a police helicopter, took place late on the evening of May 19.

The events that led to the law enforcement gunfire began shortly before 10:30 p.m., when ex-con Steffon Nutall, 29, showed up at his former girlfriend's apartment in the 400 block of 47th Street in Chollas View and threatened her with a handgun, police said.

During the confrontation, the woman was making a 911 call, and Nutall allegedly grabbed her phone and told a dispatcher he "would kill everything in here" if officers showed up. He then grabbed the couple's 11-month-old daughter and left, according to police.

Patrol personnel arrived to see the suspect walking off, carrying the child. Spotting the officers, Nutall allegedly bolted, ran to the south across a set of trolley tracks and a parking lot at 47th Street Transit Station, and entered an adjacent residential complex.

Officer Robert Gladysz, an 18-month employee of the San Diego Police Department, soon found the suspect in a wooded area on the outskirts of the complex, trying to conceal himself in shrubbery on a steep hill, police said.

The suspect allegedly ignored Gladysz's repeated orders to disarm himself and surrender, then jumped up with some sort of dark-colored object in his right hand, prompting Gladysz to open fire, police said. As the suspect tried to flee down the foliage-covered bank with his child, the lawman fired 10 rounds from his service pistol, wounding Nutall repeatedly.

When asked by a fellow officer moments later if the suspect was holding the baby during the shooting, Gladysz replied that he "didn't see a kid."

"I saw the gun," Gladysz said.

Officers found the baby, who had suffered no serious injuries during her ordeal, on top of a nearby retaining wall in front of which her father was lying, unarmed. After police arrested him, paramedics took him to a trauma center for treatment of non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.

Investigators later determined that Nutall had dropped his gun while running through the transit station. What he was holding when Gladysz shot him remained undetermined this week, according to police.

Upon being released from medical care, the suspect is expected to face charges of assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, child endangerment, making criminal threats and being a felon in possession of a firearm, police said.

The second of the two police shootings took place in Mission Valley late on the morning of May 20, stemming from a report of a robbery at a Morena- area market.

A worker at the store in the 1000 block of Morena Boulevard made a 911 call shortly before 10:30 a.m. that day to report that a man had threatened her with a knife when she tried to stop him from stealing soda and potato chips.

Police said that, a short time later, officers located and confronted the suspect at a shopping center in the 5100 block of Napa Street. When they ordered him to halt and drop his knife, he refused and fled to the south, according to police. An attempt to subdue him with an electric stun gun was unsuccessful.

Officers caught up with the suspect again at a nearby squatters' camp in the 5300 block of Friars Road. As they approached, the suspect allegedly grabbed a bystander and held the knife to his neck.

Moments later, the victim's two dogs went after the suspect, who then made "stabbing motions" at the hostage, prompting SDPD Officers Michael Howells, Matthew Steinbach and Justin Tellam to open fire, police said.

The suspect, whose name has been withheld pending family notification, died at the scene of the shooting, still clutching the serrated-edge kitchen knife he had been wielding.

Paramedics evaluated the abduction victim at the scene. He did not require hospital care, according to police.

Howells has been employed by the SDPD for 18 months, Steinbach for 12 years and Tellam for 6 1/2 years.

— City News Service