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Kathryn Michelle "Kate" Steinle (December 13, 1982 – July 1, 2015)
Kathryn Steinle was
shot dead at San Francisco’s Pier 14 while out for an evening stroll with her
father along the waterfront. Steinle Family
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Shooting
of Kathryn Steinle
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Location
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Pier
14, San Francisco, California, U.S.
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Date
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July 1, 2015
6:30 p.m. |
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Weapon
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.40-caliber
SIG
Sauer P239 handgun
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Victim
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Kathryn
Steinle
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Suspected perpetrator
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Francisco
Sanchez (in custody)
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On July 1, 2015, an illegal alien
fired a gun three times on Pier 14 in the Embarcadero district in San Francisco, California. One bullet
struck 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle in the back. She died two hours later at a
hospital. A homeless man, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, was arrested. Because
Lopez-Sanchez is an illegal alien from Mexico who had previously been
deported on five different occasions, the shooting sparked controversy and
political debate over San Francisco's status as a sanctuary
city.
INTERNET
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Kathryn_Steinle
Kathryn
Steinle
Kathryn Michelle "Kate" Steinle
(December 13, 1982 – July 1, 2015) was originally from Pleasanton, California, and graduated from Amador Valley High School and California Polytechnic State
University, earning a communications degree from the latter. She was
employed at Medtronic
in San Francisco, and was living on Beale Street. Her funeral was held at a
winery in Pleasanton on July 9.
Shooting
At 6:30 p.m., a gunman, alleged
to be Francisco Sanchez, fired three shots from a .40-caliber handgun at Pier
14, a tourist attraction area at the Embarcadero district. One of the
bullets struck Steinle in the chest and pierced her aorta. She collapsed
to the floor while screaming for help to her father Jim, who was accompanying
her at the pier. Jim Steinle performed CPR on her before paramedics arrived
and sent her to an ambulance. She died two hours later at San Francisco General Hospital.
Sanchez was arrested about an hour later one mile away from the pier and was
booked into San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of murder. The shooting was
believed by police to be random. Divers from a police boat found the gun in the
bay later that night.
The gun used by Sánchez was stolen
from a Bureau of Land Management officer's vehicle on June 27, 2015 according
to the Bureau of Land Management.
Legal
proceedings
Sanchez was formally charged with
first-degree murder and a firearm enhancement on July 6. Sanchez admitted in a KGO-TV interview
that he committed the shooting but said he found the gun wrapped in a T-shirt
under a bench after taking sleep pills he found from a trash can. He also
claimed that he was aiming at sea lions and that Steinle's shooting was
accidental. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was held on $5 million
bail. Sanchez's attorney, Matt Gonzalez, stated in court that the shooting was
likely accidental.
On July 28, prosecutors filed an
additional charge against Sanchez: being a felon in possession of a firearm. On
September 4, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Brendan Conroy stated that
there was enough evidence to try Sanchez. Initially charged with first-degree
murder, Sanchez will be tried for second-degree murder. If found guilty of the
charges of second-degree murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and
an enhancement of using a firearm, Sanchez could face a life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole for 45 years. A jury can also decide if he is
guilty of manslaughter.
Investigation
The gun used in the shooting was
confirmed by forensic crime laboratory technicians to be the same one stolen
from a federal agent's car. The .40-caliber handgun had been taken from a U.S.
Bureau of Land Management ranger's car that was parked in downtown
San Francisco, on June 27, 2015. The ranger was in San Francisco for an
official government business trip. The ranger immediately reported the theft to
San Francisco police, as well as the Federal
Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center. Police
issued a citywide crime alert but did not call in CSI technicians to examine
the scene.
On July 10, San Francisco County
Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi
said during a press conference that federal authorities failed to provide legal
basis to hold Sanchez, and that the sheriff's department followed procedure and
local laws when they released Sanchez after a years-old warrant on a marijuana
charge was dismissed. A federal immigration request had asked the SFSD to hold
Sanchez until US authorities could take him into custody for deportation
proceedings.
Based on a ballistics expert, it has
been stated that the shot was fired accidentally.
Lawsuit
On September 1, Steinle's parents
announced that they will file a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco and
the Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), finding them liable in Kathryn
Steinle's death.
Francisco
Sanchez
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Born
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José
Inez García Zarate
Mexico |
Nationality
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Mexican
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Occupation
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Unemployed
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Criminal charge
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Second-degree
murder, enhancement of using a firearm, being a felon in possession of a
firearm
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Criminal status
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In jail
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Capture status
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Arrested
on July 1, 2015
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Suspect
Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez (or Francisco Sanchez;
given name José Inez García Zarate), of Guanajuato,
Mexico, had
been deported from the U.S. a total of five times, most recently in 2009. He
was on probation
in Texas during the time of the shooting. He had seven felony convictions. At
the time of the shooting, Sanchez was listed as 45 years old by police, but 52
in jail records.
Sanchez arrived to the U.S. sometime
before 1991, the year he was convicted of his first drug charge in Arizona. In
1993, he was convicted three times in Washington state for felony heroin possession
and manufacturing narcotics. Following another drug conviction and jail term,
this time in Oregon,
the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) deported Sanchez in June 1994. However, Sanchez returned to
the U.S. within two years and was convicted again of heroin possession in
Washington state. He was deported for the second time in 1997.
On February 2, 1998, Sanchez was
deported for the third time, after reentering the U.S. through Arizona. United States Border Patrol caught him
six days later at a border crossing, and a federal court sentenced Sanchez to
five years and three months in federal prison for unauthorized reentry. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE), formerly INS, deported Sanchez in 2003 for his fourth deportation.
However, he reentered the U.S. through the Texas border and got another federal
prison sentence for reentry before being deported for the fifth time in June
2009.
Less than three months after his fifth
deportation, Sanchez was caught attempting to cross the border in Eagle
Pass, Texas. He pleaded guilty to felony reentry; upon sentencing, a
federal court recommended Sanchez be placed in "a federal medical facility
as soon as possible."
On March 26, 2015, at the request of
the San Francisco Sheriff's Department,
United States Bureau of Prisons
(BOP) had turned Sanchez over to San Francisco authorities for an outstanding
drug warrant. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued a detainer for
Sanchez requesting that he be kept in custody until immigration authorities
could pick him up. As a sanctuary city, however, which limits cooperation
with ICE only to cases where active charges against the immigrant are
identified, San Francisco did not honor the detainer and released him, since
they found no active warrant for his arrest. San Francisco officials
transported Sanchez to San Francisco County Jail on March 26, 2015 to face a
20-year-old felony charge of selling and possessing marijuana after Sanchez
completed his latest prison term in San Bernardino County for entering in the
country without the proper documents. He was released from San Francisco County
Jail on April 15, and had no outstanding warrants or judicial warrants, as
confirmed by the San Francisco Sheriff's Department.
Reaction
The killing sparked criticism and
political debate over San Francisco's sanctuary city policy, which aims to
strengthen community safety by disallowing local officials from questioning a
resident's immigration status, thus enabling local victims of crime to report
without fear of deportation. Multiple Republican presidential candidates,
including Donald Trump and
Jeb Bush, made statements blaming the
immigration policy for Steinle's death, and encouraged the need for a secure
border wall. White House
Press Secretary Josh Earnest
stated that the U.S. would be safer if Republican lawmakers had improved
comprehensive immigration reform backed by President Barack Obama.
2016
U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined California Senator
and former San Francisco
Mayor Dianne Feinstein
(D) in condemning the policy that led to Steinle's death. Clinton said,
"The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal
government strongly felt should be deported ... So I have absolutely no support
for a city that ignores the strong evidence that should be acted on." That
same week, Feinstein penned a public letter to San Francisco
Mayor Ed Lee
that stated, "The tragic death of Ms. Steinle
could have been avoided if the Sheriff's Department had notified ICE prior to
the release of Mr. Sanchez, which would have allowed ICE to remove him from the
country..."
Local and
state reaction
San Francisco County Sheriff Ross
Mirkarimi received criticism by anti-illegal immigration activist groups, including
Californians for Population
Stabilization, and a range of politicians, including San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and California U.S. Senator Dianne
Feinstein, for Sanchez's release from custody before he allegedly committed
the shooting. Lee stated the sanctuary city ordinance allows the sheriff to
coordinate with federal immigration and ICE agents. On July 7, Feinstein stated
that the San Francisco County Sheriff's Department should have notified ICE
before Sanchez was released, so that he could be deported from the county. In a
press conference held on July 10, Mirkarimi blamed federal prison and
immigration officials for the series of events that led up to the release of
Sanchez.
Political
commentator reactions
The Trump
campaign released the political advertisement Act of Love,
showing Sanchez and criticizing rival Jeb Bush's
policy on illegal immigration.
Fox
News Channel political commentator Megyn
Kelly criticized President Obama's silence on Steinle's murder, contrasting
it to his direct comments on the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray.
Bill O'Reilly met with Steinle's
parents on July 13 on his show The O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly and Steinle's
parents discussed the idea of a mandatory prison sentence for deported felons
who return to the U.S., an idea the parents supported. The idea is being
created as an online petition to House Speaker
John
Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, advocating the proposal as "Kate's Law". In the days
following the interview, the Steinle family was allowed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Kate's
Law as hearings convened before the Congress' August vacation.
Kate's Law
In response to the controversy, the United States House of
Representatives passed what has been dubbed "Kate's Law", blocking
states and cities from receiving federal law enforcement funding if they refuse
to communicate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) due to their
sanctuary policies. The law aims to create a budgetary consequence for refusal
to follow federal law, as Sanchez would have instead been deported for the
sixth time had the San Francisco Sheriff's Department not chosen to ignore the
detainer hold placed on him.
Reaction from
victim's family
Brad Steinle, the victim's brother,
has stated that he believes Donald Trump "in a way" is
sensationalizing this tragedy. Steinle told CNN's Anderson
Cooper that Trump "talks about Kate Steinle like he knows her. I've
never heard a word from his campaign manager, I've never heard a word from him.
It's disconcerting. I don't want to be affiliated with someone who doesn't have
the common courtesy to reach out and ask about Kate, and our political views
and what we want. ... "Sensationalizing [the death] is not the route we
would like to go."
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