PITTSBURG — A former Antioch police officer admitted under oath Wednesday that he misrepresented key details of the police report he filed following the 2022 arrest of a man who he punched, elbowed and kneed, all while the man was in handcuffs.
The testimony from ex-Officer Matthew Nutt came during the second day of his misdemeanor assault trial at Contra Costa County Superior Court in Pittsburg.
Jurors again heard different views of the July 1, 2022, traffic stop that ended with the arrest of Terry Robinson. Contra Costa County prosecutors say Nutt landed 16 various blows in a 32-second time frame.
Nutt had been on the lookout for a vehicle involved in a robbery in Danville and noticed a vehicle with no license plate and with the front-seat passenger, Robinson, wearing a ski mask with two eye holes and a nose hole, pulled down over his face. Nutt approached the car, called for backup and later learned Robinson had a felony warrant out for him in Santa Cruz County.
Robinson ended up handcuffed; as he was being loaded into the back of a police SUV, he hooked his leg on the door, pushing back as Nutt tried to corral him with help coming from Officer Dustin Dubble and Sgt. Joshua Evans. That moment preceded much of the violence in question from Nutt.
On cross examination, Contra Costa Assistant District Attorney Simon O’Connell pointed out several inaccuracies in the police report of the incident filed by Nutt. The final version of that report was not approved by his supervisor, Evans, until Aug. 19, seven weeks after the incident.
Chief among the inaccurate details was that Nutt did not include every punch, kick or elbow he used while trying to subdue Robinson, in particular the final three “leg strikes” or kicks that came after a time in the incident when Nutt testified Robinson was no longer combative.
“I misrepresented,” Nutt testified about the omissions. He added that he used his own body-camera video as well as his own reconstruction of the incident to try to name off the blows he had issued. “I didn’t intentionally misrepresent.”
In testimony, Nutt admitted that in the police report, he stated that he asked Robinson for his registration and proof of insurance to go with his license when, in fact, video showed in the courtroom indicated he did not. Nutt also admitted under questioning from O’Connell that he excluded from the report the fact that he’d had a previous interaction with the driver.
O’Connell also questioned Nutt’s decision not to collect the ski mask that he said Robinson was wearing when he first spotted the car that Robinson and another person were in.
“All of this on a report that took seven weeks to turn in?” O’Connell said to Nutt at one point. Nutt replied: “Yes, sir.”
Nutt’s lawyer, Nicole Pifari, questioned Nutt for nearly an hour, focusing primarily on his training in the use of force and and the appropriate and legal responses for different situations.
Suspects who are in complete compliance with police are called “compliant-non resistant,” Nutt testified. That can give way to “non-compliant,” when suspects ignore commands, and then to “actively resistant,” when they are “trying to run or get away,” Nutt said.
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Nutt testified that when he approached the car, Robinson initially “showed no resistance. He was compliant. Then there was a pretty immediate jump to active resistance.”
Nutt testified that Robinson became “physically evasive,” that he tried to run away before being tackled after gaining only two or three feet. Then, Nutt said, Robinson stiffened his body to keep from going into the car and hooked his foot on the door while two officers tried to get him into the car.
Asked why he didn’t use his baton, a taser or pepper spray to help subdue Robinson, the officer testified: “I didn’t want to use tools. I didn’t think it was necessary,” adding that Robinson’s resistance never approached the need for deadly force.
Robinson was listed as 6 foot, 2 inches, 290 pounds on his driver’s license, but Nutt testified that he was “closer to 6-4 and 350-to-400 pounds.”
“I believe I used proportional force,” Nutt said.
The violence started after Nutt learned Robinson had a warrant; Nutt told him to get out of the vehicle and be handcuffed, and Robinson complied. On the way to the police SUV, though, Robinson began to argue with Nutt about his warrant status and pull away from the officers. O’Connell said that’s when Nutt did a “lawful takedown” and knocked Robinson over; the suspect then agreed to get in the car.
However, Robinson then hooked his foot to the patrol car, leading to more physical blows from Nutt.
Jurors again saw video of the incident, this time from the cameras of Nutt, Evans and Dibble played simultaneously. All three seemed to bear out Nutt’s testimony that at times Robinson became actively resistant while at other times he was not resistant at all.
The case is the first in what may be several criminal trials involving Antioch police as eight other former officers face a litany of state and federal charges related to alleged civil rights violations, fraud, bribery and steroid distribution. Nutt’s case is not part of the bigger scandals involving the department, but he was fired and charged during the same timeframe.