EX-DEPUTY PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO MURDER IN FATAL SHOOTING OF FLEEING SUSPECT
Russell arraigned in death of man who escaped custody
A former San Diego County sheriff ’s deputy accused of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a man escaping from custody in May pleaded not guilty Tuesday, but few new details about the fatal encounter were shared in court.
The case marks the first time San Diego County prosecutors have charged a law enforcement officer with murder in the shooting death of a suspect. It comes months after a new California law raised the standard for when police can use deadly force from “reasonable”
to “necessary.”
Aaron Russell, 23, is accused of shooting Nicholas Bils on May 1 after the 36year-old managed to get out of a state park ranger’s car as it pulled into the San Diego Central Jail entrance and took off running.
Russell was arraigned via video connection from the Central Jail. Audio of the arraignment was livestreamed on Youtube, which San Diego
Superior Court has been doing for several weeks as COVID-19 concerns keep courtrooms closed to the public.
Authorities said Russell was a detentions deputy at the facility and was heading to work when he and a colleague saw the escape and chased Bils up Front Street.
Russell fired five shots at Bils as the unarmed man “was running not toward, but away from the officers on the scene,” Deputy District Attorney Stephen Marquardt said Tuesday in San Diego Superior Court.
“No other officer on scene as much as unholstered a firearm to stop Bils from running,” Marquardt told the judge. He later said, “Only the defendant unholstered, aimed and fired, and he fired five rounds.”
The prosecutor said Bils sustained four gunshot wounds, and also a possible grazing wound. One of the bullets entered the left side of his back and struck a lung and his heart, the prosecutor said.
Russell’s attorney Richard Pinckard said “significant defenses” will be raised as the case moves forward.
“This was a situation that arose from Mr. Russell act
ing in the force and scope of his employment as a deputy sheriff who was thrust into a situation,” Pinckard said.
The defense attorney said state law recognizes that for peace officers “these events occur in tense, uncertain, rapidly evolving incidents where decisions literally are being made in fractions of seconds.”
He also said Russell posed no community risk and “has based his entire life on the principles of honor and integrity.”
After hearing from attorneys on both sides, Judge Francis Devaney cut Russell’s bail in half, dropping it to $500,000 as the defense had requested. Russell had been jailed in lieu of $1 million bail since Monday when he voluntarily surrendered to authorities.
In setting the bail amount, judges take into consideration whether the defendant is a flight risk or poses a public safety threat, “and frankly, I can’t find he’s either in this case,” Devaney said.
The judge noted Russell’s long local ties and said he’d received from Pinckard a packet of material regarding Russell’s “long-standing behavior from grammar school to middle school to high school, and his church leadership.”
Russell resigned from the Sheriff’s Department a few days after the fatal shooting.
The charges against him come months after a new state law — authored by Assemblywoman
Shirley Weber, a San Diego Democrat — raised the standard for when officers use deadly force. It can be done only when “necessary,” when their life or the lives of others are in imminent danger and nonlethal methods are not available.
Until January, the law allowed the use of deadly force when an officer had a “reasonable” fear of imminent harm. With the change, California has one of the highest use-of-force standards in the nation.
Marquardt said prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office “carefully analyzed” Russell’s actions under the new standard.
“The defendant’s decision to apply deadly force here was unnecessary,” Marquardt said, “and it was not lawful.”
After the hearing, Bils’ mother and brother and their civil attorney Eugene Iredale held a media briefing via Zoom. Iredale applauded the District Attorney Office’s decision to bring charges, as well as Weber’s legislative work on the new use-of-force standard, saying it signaled “a new day in our county and in our country.”
Five or 10 years ago, he said, a similar prosecution would have been inconceivable, “no matter how clear the facts were.”
“It is a bright day for justice, regardless of the ultimate outcome of this case,” Iredale said, adding that he believes the shooting was unjustified.
Kathleen Bils, a firstgrade substitute teacher, described the past 21⁄2 months as agonizing. She said her family had been waiting for answers about the death of her son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“He at least gets to have a jury decide about his life,” she said of the defendant. “No one got to decide about Nicky except Aaron Russell.”
Benjamin Bils said his brother was not a saint and acknowledged his prior runins with law enforcement. “But it did not mean he deserved to be shot in the back,” he said. “Nobody deserves to be shot in the back.”
Iredale — who said he has not read police reports — said Nicholas Bils was arrested after park rangers approached him at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, where Bils was chipping golf balls as a way of playing fetch with his dog. When rangers approached him, Bils threatened them with the golf club before he ran away.
Rangers chased him for about a mile until they caught and arrested him, the family’s attorney said.
Outside of the downtown Central Jail, Bils, who had slipped a hand out of handcuffs, reached out of a ranger’s car window and opened a door before he took off, Iredale said, adding that he and the family were shown a short video of the fatal shooting. Bils ran fewer than 100 feet before he was shot.