More than a year after San Diego Police Officer Daniel Gold shot and killed 16-year-old Konoa Wilson near the Santa Fe Depot, the San Diego County District Attorney's Office has announced it will not file criminal charges against him. Prosecutors concluded that no criminal charge in the matter is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, according to a DA news release. The decision closes the criminal chapter of a case that already produced one of the largest known payouts in the country for a police killing.
The shooting happened around 9 p.m. on January 28, 2025, according to FOX 5 San Diego. Officers had responded to an unrelated assault call at 600 W. Broadway when they heard nearby gunshots and moved toward the train platform corridor. Wilson, who was running from a confrontation with two other individuals at the Santa Fe Depot platform, encountered Gold in the 1100 block of Kettner Boulevard. Gold fired at least one gunshot at close range. Paramedics took Wilson to a hospital, where he died of his injuries. Police recovered a gun from Wilson while providing medical aid, but the teen did not point a weapon at Gold and made no threats toward him, per the outlet's reporting.
Bodycam footage released by SDPD in February 2025 showed Gold had been scrolling through his phone while walking calmly on Kettner Boulevard less than a minute before the gunfire began, according to KPBS. The footage indicated Gold only identified himself as a police officer after he had already fired two shots. At the time, Gold had two years of service with the department and held the rank of Police Officer I, an entry-level position, per CBS 8. Wilson, described as a boy of mixed race, was initially misidentified by authorities as a Hispanic man in his 20s.
A Legal Standard Built on Split-Second Judgment
The DA's office said it reviewed the facts, law, and expert opinions for more than a year before reaching its conclusion, and that criminal charges require evidence capable of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Under California Penal Code Section 835a, enacted through Assembly Bill 392 in 2020, officers may use deadly force only when necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, judged on the totality of circumstances — a standard that replaced the older reasonable-force test. The law was authored by San Diego Assemblymember Shirley Weber, according to FindLaw.The DA's office said it must objectively evaluate the totality of the circumstances and noted it does not evaluate potential civil or administrative actions separately, adding that it shares review results with families of the deceased and answers their questions, per its statement.
Criminal justice professor Philip Stinson of Bowling Green State University publicly questioned whether the shooting was legally justified back in February 2025, noting that Gold acted so quickly he could not have properly evaluated whether Wilson presented an imminent threat, as reported by KPBS. District Attorney Summer Stephan's office has been willing to charge officers under the AB 392 standard before: in July 2020, she charged former San Diego County Sheriff's Deputy Aaron Russell with second-degree murder for shooting an unarmed, fleeing detainee outside the downtown jail, marking the first case filed under the revised law, according to Police1.
A Record Settlement Preceded the Criminal Decision
Wilson's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in June 2025, after submitting a tort claim arguing the teen was merely fleeing gunshots fired by a third party and posed no imminent threat to Gold or the public when he was shot twice in the back, per CBS 8's reporting. The family's claim asserted the shooting was unwarranted because Wilson had not brandished a weapon or presented a threat toward the officer. The city of San Diego agreed to pay the family $30 million, an amount reportedly among the largest settlements ever tied to a police killing and more than the $27 million Minneapolis paid to George Floyd's family.
The San Diego City Council voted unanimously in December 2025 to approve the settlement as part of its consent agenda. During that meeting, Councilmember Henry Foster III delivered an emotional statement expressing fear for his own young Black son and questioning why little had changed in police accountability since George Floyd's murder, according to KPBS. Foster publicly challenged Mayor Todd Gloria and Police Chief Scott Wahl to do better. The payout also became part of a much larger financial strain: Hoodline previously reported that the Wilson settlement contributed to a $116 million total in police liability payouts battering San Diego's municipal budget, with city attorneys framing the deal as a business decision made without an admission of liability.
Decades of Data on Officer-Involved Shootings
The Wilson case sits within a longer regional pattern. A 25-year study by the San Diego County District Attorney's Office examining 451 officer-involved shootings between 1993 and 2017 found that 55 percent were fatal, and in 36 of those cases the person shot was unarmed, according to CBS 8's separate reporting on the analysis. The vast majority of those historical shootings were determined by prosecutors to be legally justified.
For Wilson's family, the DA's decision not to prosecute leaves the $30 million settlement as the primary form of official accountability in the case. The city's willingness to pay a historic sum while prosecutors declined to bring charges underscores the gap between civil liability and the higher bar required for a criminal conviction under California's deadly-force law.
