SD Cop Sentenced to Only 1 Year in Jail for Murdering White Man, Shot to Death as He Fled. Arrested b/c Dog Wasn't On Leash [all laws are backed by the Threat of Violence in System Based on Coercion]

From [HERE] A former San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed a man who was running from authorities outside the downtown jail nearly two years ago was sentenced Monday to three years of probation and one year in jail.

Aaron Russell, 25, pleaded guilty last month to voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Nicholas Bils, 36.

According to the NYT, Mr. Bils was putting golf balls at a San Diego park on May 1, 2020, in a game of fetch with his dog when park rangers approached him and told him that his dog could not be off its leash and that the park was closed because of the coronavirus, Mr. Iredale has said.

Park rangers told Ms. Bils that her son had swung a golf club at rangers and then fled, her lawyers said. The rangers caught him about a mile away and arrested him on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. On the way to a county jail, Mr. Bils slipped his left hand out of a handcuff and ran out of the car, prosecutors said. When it stopped in front of the downtown jail. He ran north on Front Street at B Street. Mr. Russell, who was in uniform, was standing at a nearby intersection and saw the escape, prosecutors said, adding that he fired five shots, striking Mr. Bils four times.

Another sheriff’s deputy who had witnessed the escape testified that he had planned to chase and tackle Mr. Bils, the district attorney’s statement said.

“He testified he saw no need for any type of other force and did not feel anyone in the area was in immediate danger,” the statement said.

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Francis Devaney issued the sentence during a hearing that lasted most of the morning. Under state law, the judge had the option of placing Russell on probation, with or without time in local custody, or sentencing him to prison.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Marquardt, had sought a six-year term behind bars.

When choosing probation, the judge ordered a three-year suspended sentence, meaning that if Russell were to violate the terms of probation, he could be sent to prison.

The former deputy initially had been charged with murder, making him the first law enforcement officer in California to be charged as such since the state raised the standard two years ago for when peace officers can use deadly force.

Such force is permissible only when “necessary,” when a life is in imminent danger and nonlethal methods are not available, the law states. Previously, deadly force had been allowable when “reasonable.”

According to the San Diego County district attorney’s office, Russell admitted in the plea agreement he entered Jan. 7 that he “unreasonably believed that I or someone else was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury” when he saw Bils running from the jail.

“I actually but unreasonably believed that the immediate use of deadly force was necessary to defend against the danger. I, therefore, acting alone, personally used my department-issued firearm to shoot Nicholas Bils, ending his life,” Russell admitted in the agreement.

Bils’ mother, Kathleen Bils, has sued Russell and the county in federal court, alleging excessive force and wrongful death.