San Diego Pays $30 Million Over Fatal Police Shooting of a Fleeing Teenager
After trial: The settlement was approved by unanimous vote of the San Diego City Council and carried the standard disclaimer that it is not an admission of liability by any party. As a negotiated, council-approved settlement, it is not subject to appeal. In September 2026 the San Diego County District Attorney's office announced it would not file criminal charges against Officer Gold, concluding in a 14-page letter that no criminal charge was provable beyond a reasonable doubt. The family's attorneys disputed that conclusion. The declination does not disturb the civil settlement, which the city has already approved and funded.
The Wilson family's 16-year-old son was shot and killed by a San Diego police officer on January 28, 2025, seconds after he ran into the officer's path while fleeing gunfire from another teenager at Santa Fe Depot. His parents sued the City of San Diego and the officer in San Diego Superior Court in June 2025, alleging the officer fired twice into the boy's back without warning, in violation of his civil rights and of department use of force standards. The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on December 9, 2025 to approve a $30 million settlement, with the city paying $5 million and the rest drawn from a public liability fund shared by member municipalities. San Diego attorneys King Aminpour and Michael VanGalio worked the case alongside lead attorney Nicholas Rowley.
What happened
On the night of January 28, 2025, the Wilson family's 16-year-old son was standing on the trolley platform at Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego, around 8:50 p.m., when someone nearby pulled a gun and opened fire on him. The teenager ran. Security camera footage later released by police showed him fleeing the platform and out through a corridor toward Kettner Boulevard.
San Diego Police Officer Daniel Gold, a two-year member of the department, was nearby responding to an unrelated report of an assault on a trolley at America Plaza Station when he heard the gunshots and ran toward them. As he approached the corridor, the teenager suddenly emerged, running, feet in front of him. Gold fired twice within seconds of the encounter, striking the boy in the back. Attorneys for the family, describing Gold's body-worn camera footage, said he shot before he announced who he was and without any warning. The teenager was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead a little more than half an hour later.
Police said afterward that officers found a handgun concealed under his clothing near his right thigh. Surveillance and body camera footage showed he never drew it, brandished it, or fired it during the encounter, and investigators said there was no indication he had fired it at the other youth either. Rowley told reporters he did not believe the gun had any bullets in it and said the teenager had been carrying it after being badly beaten more than once, saying the boy, who was half-Black, had been targeted by local gangs. The teenager who fired the first shots on the platform was identified as another 16-year-old and was arrested on February 6.
The boy's parents sued the City of San Diego and Officer Gold in San Diego Superior Court in June 2025. The complaint alleged Gold opened fire instantly and without warning, in violation of the teenager's civil rights, California law, and San Diego police use of force standards. The case moved quickly by civil litigation standards: filed in June, it reached a tentative settlement by late September.
The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on December 9, 2025 to approve the $30 million settlement, with $5 million paid by the city and the remaining $25 million drawn from a public liability fund the city shares with other municipalities. Attorneys for the family said it is believed to be the largest settlement ever paid in a police shooting case in the United States, larger than what Minneapolis paid the family of George Floyd in 2020.
Rowley, the family's lead attorney, called the shooting a catastrophic failure of policing and said the teenager was not a threat when Gold opened fire. Rowley said his firm teamed with San Diego attorneys King Aminpour and Michael VanGalio on the case. At the time the council approved the payout, Gold remained on administrative duty and the San Diego County District Attorney's office had an open review of the shooting.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.San Diego Union-Tribune (Teri Figueroa), Dec 8, 2025, republished by Police1: names San Diego attorneys King Aminpour and Michael VanGalio as part of the team with Nicholas Rowley, gives the $30 million figure and the $5 million city / $25 million public liability fund split, the June 2025 filing in San Diego Superior Court, and the officer's administrative status
- 2.San Diego Union-Tribune (Teri Figueroa), Dec 2025, syndicated: Rowley's statement that his firm teamed with King Aminpour and Michael VanGalio, the late-September tentative settlement, the concealed handgun and Rowley's belief it held no bullets, the boy's background, and that he died a little more than half an hour after the shooting
- 3.KPBS, Dec 9, 2025: council vote, two shots fired into the boy's back, Rowley's account that the officer fired before announcing who he was, the concealed handgun, and the no-admission-of-liability term
- 4.Times of San Diego, Dec 9, 2025: unanimous council vote, Officer Daniel Gold's two years with the department, two shots in the back, ongoing internal and outside investigations
- 5.ABC 10News: the parents' suit in San Diego Superior Court, the January 28, 2025 shooting date, and the body camera and surveillance footage
- 6.Times of San Diego, Feb 21, 2025: the 8:50 p.m. platform shooting that preceded the encounter, the February 6 arrest of the other 16-year-old, and investigators finding no indication the boy fired the handgun found on him
- 7.Times of San Diego, Sept 4, 2026: the District Attorney's 14-page declination letter finding no criminal charge provable beyond a reasonable doubt, and the family's response
Related civil rights verdicts
Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis served as court-appointed co-lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation over Capital One's 2019 data breach, which exposed the personal information of roughly 98 million U.S. customers. The $190 million settlement won final approval in 2022 as one of the largest data breach recoveries in U.S. history.
An Essex County jury awarded $165.97 million against the State of New Jersey and its Division of Youth and Family Services for failing to remove an infant from his home despite his grandmother's abuse report, a verdict reported as the largest in state personal injury history. The trial judge cut it to $102.6 million on remittitur, and in April 2017 the Appellate Division reversed the judgment entirely on qualified immunity grounds under the Tort Claims Act. The family collected nothing from the State.
As court-appointed lead plaintiffs' counsel, Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis negotiated the $117.5 million settlement resolving claims from Yahoo's 2013-2016 data breaches, the largest theft of personal data in history, touching roughly 3 billion accounts worldwide. Judge Lucy Koh approved the fund in 2020 after rejecting an earlier version as inadequate.
On December 14, 2019 Emily Gaines, an 18-year-old Moore High School senior, was driving to take the ACT when Sgt. Kyle Lloyd of the Moore Police Department, off duty and rushing a key to another officer's patrol car for a department event, hit her broadside at 95 to 100 mph in a 50 zone. She died at the scene. On April 1, 2026 a federal jury returned $126,000,000. The court entered $90,000,000 against Lloyd, who is in prison, and cut the $36,000,000 against the City to $125,000 under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act.