Protesters call for charges in San Francisco police shooting

By Emmett Berg SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Protesters rallied outside a San Francisco police station on Monday, calling for prosecutors to reverse course and file charges against officers who shot and killed a man who pointed a stun gun at them in a city park, firing a total of 59 shots. The death of Alex Nieto, 28, in a hail of police bullets on March 21, 2014, pre-dates recent police killings of unarmed black men that have touched off a nationwide wave of demonstrations over the use of deadly force against minorities. Nieto was Latino. Prosecutors last month declined to file charges against the four San Francisco police officers who opened fire on Nieto in Bernal Hill Park, saying they believed the Taser electroshock device he was holding was a gun. In calling for the San Francisco District Attorney's Office to reconsider that decision, activists said they were skeptical of the police version of events and that investigators did not interview a key witness in the case. "There will be justice because my son did not deserve to die that way," said the slain man's mother, Elvira Nieto, who joined the approximately 175 protesters. "He was a good, law-abiding citizen who loved San Francisco." In declining to press charges, prosecutors cited witnesses who saw Nieto behaving aggressively in the park and who also mistook his Taser, which he carried in a holster on his hip, for a firearm. (Reporting by Emmett Berg; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Eric Beech)