SACRAMENTO — A federal court jury sided with three Yolo County sheriff’s deputies Tuesday in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of Luis Gutierrez, who was fatally shot during an April 30, 2009, encounter with the officers on a Woodland highway overpass.
“They said Luis Gutierrez was 100 percent negligent,” the deputies’ attorney, Bruce Kilday, said of the verdict read in U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton’s courtroom shortly before noon, following roughly a day and a half of deliberations.
The six-woman, one-man jury also rejected claims that Lt. Dale Johnson, Sgt. Hernan Oviedo and Deputy Hector Bautista unlawfully detained and used excessive force on the 26-year-old Woodland man, who allegedly swung a knife at Johnson during a brief foot pursuit.
“The community, through the judicial system, has heard the evidence and has concluded that the officers acted reasonably, acted properly, under the most difficult circumstances,” Kilday said.
All three deputies declined to comment as they stood outside the federal courthouse in Sacramento shortly after the verdict.
Paul Caputo, the San Jose-based attorney representing Gutierrez’s parents, Jose and Irma, said Tuesday he was disappointed in the jury’s decision.
“Unfortunately, they didn’t see the case as we saw it,” Caputo said. “However, I still have a lot of faith and confidence in the civil justice system and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
The verdict comes nearly 3 1/2 years after the controversial shooting, which occurred at about 2:20 p.m. on the East Gum Avenue overpass in Woodland.
The deputies, back then all members of the county’s gang task force, were wearing street clothes and driving an unmarked car when they encountered Gutierrez, who was walking home from a driver’s license test at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
According to testimony at the trial, which lasted 10 days over a three-week period, the officers decided to pull over and initiate a consensual encounter with Gutierrez after noticing his shaved head and baggy clothing. Johnson said he emerged from the front passenger side of the car and pulled up the hem of his T-shirt to expose his badge and gun while identifying himself as being from the Sheriff’s Department.
Gutierrez reportedly stuck his right hand in his pocket and ran, heading southeast across the bridge as Johnson and Oviedo, suspecting concealment of drugs or a weapon, gave chase. Johnson testified he grabbed at Gutierrez, who at that point threatened him with the knife.
Both Johnson and Oviedo fired their service weapons, with Oviedo discharging the fatal shot that entered through Gutierrez’s upper back and severed his jugular vein. He died a short time later at Woodland Memorial Hospital.
Subsequent reviews of the incident by city, county, state and federal authorities upheld the officers’ actions, but the incident generated considerable controversy as various civil-rights groups questioned why the deputies chose to stop Gutierrez — who had no criminal history or confirmed gang ties — and whether they properly identified themselves as law-enforcement officers.
Several witnesses who passed through the area during the incident testified they saw no knife or any other object in Gutierrez’s hands. Gutierrez’s family has said he was not known to carry the weapon, though DNA recovered from the handle included Gutierrez as a likely donor.
Also in dispute was the level of methamphetamine in Gutierrez’s system, which the family’s attorney suggested came from an inhaler. The defense contended the amount was consistent with someone exhibiting irrational or possibly violent behavior.
Today, only Bautista remains a member of the gang task force, with Johnson and Oviedo receiving promotions since the incident that moved them to their agency’s administrative and patrol divisions, respectively.
Their boss, Sheriff Ed Prieto, said all three officers were traumatized by the shooting.
“In this kind of a situation, there are no winners. It’s a sad day when somebody loses their life,” Prieto said. “This verdict clearly demonstrates that our officers acted within policy and procedure and were morally right in what they did.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene