× SDPD Midway shooting video

For the second time, a federal judge has told the city of San Diego to turn over records of all officer-involved shootings for the past three years to the family of an unarmed man shot to death by an officer last year.

Federal Magistrate Judge Nita L. Stormes also ruled that the family of Fridoon Nehad, which is suing the city in federal court over the shooting, will not have to pay the estimated $12,000 city officials said it would cost to assemble and review the information.

Nehad was fatally shot around midnight April 30 in an alley in the Midway district by veteran officer Neal Browder, who was answering a call that a man was in the area with a knife. Browder said he believed Nehad had a knife and was going to attack him. The 42-year-old Nehad did not have a weapon, but only a shiny blue pen.


Stormes had ruled earlier that the city had to turn over to the Nehad family lawyers all reports and Internal Affairs investigations for all officer-involved shootings in the city since 2013. The Nehad family alleges in its civil rights suit that the department has a pattern of poor investigations that cover up officer misconduct and errors.

The city’s lawyers complained that the request wasn’t relevant, and also said that assembling the information — about 15,000 pages of documents, 403 compact discs and 217 DVDs — and removing personal data of other officers or witnesses would be costly, about $12,000. They offered to provide summaries of Internal Affairs investigations totaling some 600 pages. In all, the city disclosed, there were 31 such shootings since 2013.

The city also said that if the ruling was not changed, then the family should pay for assembling the information.

In her July 15 ruling, Stormes said she was “unpersuaded” by the city’s arguments. She said the city did not mention the issue of costs or the amount of time it would take to provide the materials when she first ruled on the motion in April, and it was now too late to raise those concerns.