A judge declared a mistrial Thursday morning after a federal jury was unable to unanimously decide whether to convict a former San Diego County sheriff’s deputy on civil rights violations for fatally shooting an unarmed man in the back in 2020 outside the downtown Central Jail. Deputy Aaron Richard Russell, 28, was charged with depriving Nicholas Bils of his rights under color of law when he shot and killed Bils, who had just escaped from a law enforcement vehicle and was sprinting away from officers and deputies with handcuffs still attached to one wrist. Russell, who faced life in prison if convicted on that count, was also charged with discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Following nine days of testimony in which Russell took the stand and testified that he mistook the handcuffs for a gun, the jury deliberated for four full days and parts of two other days before deciding Thursday morning they were hopelessly deadlocked. One juror said the panel was initially split 11-1 in favor of conviction, but toward the end of deliberations, he believed it was closer to 8-4 in favor of guilt. “It’s not a joyful outcome,” defense attorney Richard Pinckard said Thursday outside the downtown San Diego federal courthouse. “Even if he had won, it wouldn’t be a joyful outcome. A man lost his life. And that is not something that my client will ever forget. It’s the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up in the morning, it’s the last thing he thinks of before he goes to bed.” Federal prosecutors indicated in court Thursday that they intend to retry the case. U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson set a status hearing for next month to decide the next steps. Russell, who resigned from the Sheriff’s Office five days after the shooting, previously served about five months in jail after pleading guilty in 2022 to a state charge of voluntary manslaughter in San Diego Superior Court. County prosecutors initially charged him with second-degree murder, making him the first ever San Diego-area law enforcement officer to face a murder charge in the shooting death of a suspect. He was also the first officer in the state to face a murder charge under stricter use-of-force standards that went into effect just months before the shooting. In his voluntary manslaughter plea agreement, Russell admitted that he “unreasonably believed that I or someone else was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury,” according to the District Attorney’s Office. “I actually, but unreasonably believed that the immediate use of deadly force was necessary to defend against the danger.” In 2022, the county agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Bils’ family. Last May, more than four years after the shooting, a federal grand jury indicted Russell on the civil rights violations. During opening statements on May 13, Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Askins told the jury that Russell shot Bils simply for running away. “No other officers on scene thought Nicholas Bils was a threat,” Askins told the jury. “Every single one of them knows you can’t shoot an unarmed man in the back just for running away.” Russell testified that he believed Bils was armed with a gun. “The act of running was not why I shot Mr. Bils,” he told the jury. The fatal shooting happened the evening of May 1, 2020, a little more than a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, after two California State Park rangers arrested Bils at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, where he had gone to play with his dog in violation of COVID restrictions. Park rangers said Bils, who had been hitting balls to his dog using a golf putter, had briefly held up the club in a threatening manner while fleeing from the rangers. The rangers drove Bils to the downtown Central Jail in two vehicles, but as they reached the facility, Bils slipped a hand out of his cuffs, reached out a back window that was partially rolled down to allow airflow because of the pandemic and opened the door using the outside handle. Video played during trial showed that as Bils began to run away, the second ranger was trying to get out of his agency pickup truck. Bils pushed the truck’s door, not hard enough to close it on the ranger, and then sprinted north on Front Street. “I knew (Bils) was not a threat,” State Parks Ranger Jessica Murany, from whose car Bils had escaped, testified during trial. Russell, who’d graduated from the San Diego Regional Training Academy barely a year earlier and was walking to work at the jail alongside another deputy, saw Bils escape from the opposite curb. He stepped into the street and fired five shots from close range without warning. At least four of the shots struck Bils, including one that pierced his back. “I was shocked; I shouted to myself, ‘What just happened here?’” Murany testified. Footage of the shooting captured on a street light camera showed that Russell fired all five shots in less than 1.5 seconds. Then, as Bils slowed and stumbled toward a curb, Russell put his gun back in his holster. Murany testified that the move went against proper police practice, as officers are trained to “stay on target until the threat is neutralized.” Prosecutors argued that by re-holstering so quickly, Russell showed he never truly believed Bils was armed with a gun or posed a deadly threat.