SACRAMENTO — Over the past several weeks, a federal court jury has heard roughly 60 hours of evidence regarding an officer-involved shooting incident that spanned less than a minute in time.

Now, those jurors must decide whether three Yolo County sheriff’s deputies used excessive force or were justified when they stopped, chased and fatally shot Luis Guiterrez on a Woodland highway overpass on April 30, 2009.

“Reckless” and “negligent” are among the allegations levied by attorneys for the Gutierrez family in their wrongful-death lawsuit naming Lt. Dale Johnson, Sgt. Hernan Oviedo and Deputy Hector Bautista — all members of a gang task force — and the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department as defendants.

During closing arguments in the trial Wednesday, plaintiff’s attorney Paul Caputo said Gutierrez was minding his own business when the deputies initiated a consensual contact on the East Gum Avenue bridge.

“What’d he do? He was walking home from getting his driver’s license,” Caputo told the six-woman, one-man jury in U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton’s courtroom. “Who escalated this? Who provoked this? It wasn’t Luis.”

But Bruce Kilday, who represents the county and the deputies, said it was Gutierrez’s decision to run from the law, and allegedly swing a knife at Johnson, that ultimately led to the fatal shooting.

“I believe the evidence shows the deputies acted reasonably under terribly difficult, horribly challenging and life-changing circumstances,” Kilday said. City, county, state and federal authorities who reviewed the incident concluded the same.

The jury is expected to start deliberating Monday. The trial began Sept. 26, comprising testimony from a series of civilian and expert witnesses and law-enforcement investigators, in addition to the three deputies involved.

Both parties in the lawsuit agree on a few basic facts:

The deputies, all wearing plain clothes and traveling in an unmarked car, pulled over and made contact with the 26-year-old Gutierrez at about 2:20 p.m. as he walked home from the Department of Motor Vehicles. He ran, and was shot and killed after crossing to the south side of the bridge with Johnson and Oviedo in pursuit.

That’s where the similarities end.

Johnson testified that Gutierrez fled after the then-sergeant pulled up his shirt to reveal the badge on his waistband while saying, “Sheriff’s Department — can I talk to you?” He said Gutierrez stuck his hand in his pocket as he ran, then swung a knife at him as he grabbed at Gutierrez’s shoulders.

Both Johnson and Oviedo fired their service weapons, with Oviedo delivering the fatal shot that severed Gutierrez’s jugular vein, according to a coroner’s report.

Caputo contended the deputies were acting on a “baseless and unsubstantiated hunch” when they made contact with Gutierrez — who had no criminal history — based on his shaved head and baggy clothes, and suggested Gutierrez ran in fear because he did not realize the three men were law-enforcement officers.

He also cited the testimony of three civilian witnesses who testified they saw nothing in Gutierrez’s hand either before or during the chase.

Kilday noted it was Gutierrez’s hand in his pocket that raised the suspicions of the deputies, whose training and experience led them to believe Gutierrez may have been carrying drugs or a weapon.

“This was not — not — a mere hunch,” said Kilday, who added that the deputies had “a right and a duty” to detain the fleeing man.

Gutierrez was under the influence of methamphetamine when he died. At trial, both sides offered differing information about the level of the drug, whether it got into Gutierrez’s system through an inhaler or illicit use, and its effects on his behavior during his interaction with the deputies.

The knife Gutierrez allegedly swung at Johnson also was a point of dispute.

Recovered on the side of the road, its blade stuck into the gravel, the knife showed no identifiable fingerprints but carried DNA that excluded the three deputies and included Gutierrez as a likely donor, according to Kilday. Caputo said Gutierrez was not known to carry a knife and cited an analyst’s testimony that the donor was more likely Caucasian than Hispanic.

There’s disagreement as well over how Gutierrez suffered his fatal wound, which entered his back near his right shoulder blade. Caputo alleged he was shot while hunched over to avoid Johnson’s grab, while Kilday contended the trajectory is consistent with Gutierrez twisting his torso as he swung the knife.

For their clients, Jose and Irma Gutierrez, the plaintiff’s attorneys are seeking damages of $2 million, a figure based on the nearly 51 additional years Gutierrez might have lived, plus the equivalent of one year’s salary for both Johnson and Oviedo.

“The loss of love of a child, I submit, is against nature,” Caputo said. He asked the jury “to set an example, to punish if you will, the deputies for their wrongful act.”

Kilday noted the officers’ actions in the wake of the shooting, including Johnson’s efforts to slow Gutierrez’s bleeding with his bare hands, and Oviedo’s words, captured on tape, “telling him to hold on … that help is on the way.”

“Is that the kind of person who should be punished?” Kilday said.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

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