Steinle Family Files Lawsuit in San Francisco for the Preventable Murder of Daughter Kate by an Illegal Alien
09/02/2015
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Above, the late Kate Steinle (left) and her parents Jim Steinle and Liz Sullivan (right) with accused killer Francisco Sanchez (inset).

The parents of Kate Steinle appeared with their lawyer in a Tuesday news conference in front of San Francisco City Hall to announce a suit against the city and government agencies for failing to follow immigration law, negligence which led to the death of their daughter.

Here’s a few clips of the presser from AP:

Bill O’Reilly dedicated his opening segment to the Steinle case. He has proposed “Kate’s Law” to end such preventable crimes by severely increasing the punishment of deported felons who return to this country.

The July 1 murder of Kate Steinle by a five-times-deported illegal alien shocked many Americans because the case got national news coverage, unlike most crimes of lawbreaking foreigners which pass unnoticed except for local attention.

It’s tough to sue the government. When the Bologna family tried to sue in a case of similar malpractice by the city of San Francisco, the judge dismissed the claim. In 2008 Tony Bologna and his two sons were shot and killed by Edwin Ramos, an illegal alien MS-13 gangster with a rap sheet of violence who had been protected by the city rather than deported. Ramos mistook the family for gang rivals and murdered them on sight.

Back in 2008, San Francisco wasn’t just refusing to hand foreign criminals over to the feds, the city was actively hiding them in southern California. San Francisco sent several Honduran crack dealers to a comfy group home in San Bernardino for culturally appropriate counseling, where they promptly walked away. The activities persuaded the FBI to investigate San Francisco’s unique protective policies toward foreign drug dealers.

In the same year, San Francisco spent $83,000 on an ad campaign to attract illegal aliens to the city and its wonderful services.

Liberal values in San Francisco are so extreme that elites believe it’s better to award special privileges to illegal aliens (because they are seen as victims) rather than protect public safety. SF libs think they are superior to the rest of us because they are on the side of the diverse downtrodden masses, even when they are criminals.

It’s good to see Jaxon Van Derbeken still writing on illegal aliens in San Francisco. In 2009 he won the Katz Award from the Center for Immigration Studies for his excellence in reporting the Bologna murders and the whole swamp of crazy sanctuary policy.

S.F., feds liable in Kathryn Steinle killing, parents say, By Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle, September 1, 2015

The parents of a San Francisco woman shot to death in July by an immigrant who was facing possible deportation filed legal claims Tuesday against the city and federal governments, saying their negligence led to her killing.

The chain of events that ended in Kathryn Steinle’s death began when a federal Bureau of Land Management agent left his gun in a backpack that someone stole out of the backseat of his car in San Francisco, said the claim filed on behalf of her parents, Jim Steinle and Liz Sullivan of Livermore.

Within four days, the gun came into the hands of 45-year-old Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez — a Mexican immigrant who would probably have been deported, Steinle’s parents say, had San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi not released him from jail without alerting federal officials.

Steinle’s killing brought national attention to San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policies that, in many cases, discourage cooperation with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It also focused attention on whether law enforcement officials are doing enough to safeguard their guns from thieves — the Steinle case was one of three recently in the Bay Area in which unattended firearms were stolen from authorities’ cars.

Now, her slaying could result in lawsuits against the city, the Bureau of Land Management and ICE if, as is typically the case, officials reject the legal claims. The claims do not specify what damages the family is seeking.

“You have finger pointing that went on publicly right after this event,” said Frank Pitre, an attorney for the family. “You had the mayor, Sen. (Dianne) Feinstein and ICE all essentially acknowledged the Sheriff’s Department was at fault for failing to notify ICE and that nothing in the city sanctuary law prohibited contacting ICE.”

But Mirkarimi blamed ICE for failing to submit the paperwork that might have led to Lopez-Sanchez being turned over to federal authorities, Pitre noted.

Lopez-Sanchez had been deported from the U.S. five times and had recently completed a prison stint for entering the country illegally. He was sent to San Francisco to face a possible drug charge dating from 1995, but the district attorney declined to prosecute.

“You cannot have it both ways — somebody is wrong.” Pitre said. “The Steinle family is tired of all the finger pointing. Who among these government bureaucracies is going to stand up and take responsibility for their failure?”

Any lawsuit the family files against a government agency could face steep odds, however. The family of a father and two sons who were shot dead on a San Francisco street in 2008 were barred from suing the city for failing to turn their alleged killer over to immigration authorities after earlier arrests.

The city wasn’t legally to blame for any crimes Edwin Ramos, a suspected illegal immigrant from El Salvador, committed after his release for offenses he committed as a juvenile, JudgeCharlotte Woolard of San Francisco Superior Court ruled in 2010.

Cities “generally are not liable for failing to protect individuals against crime,” Woolard said in dismissing a damage suit by the widow and daughter of Tony Bologna, 48, who was shot to death in his car near the family’s home in the Excelsior district. His sons Michael Bologna, 20, and Matthew Bologna, 16, were also killed.

Kathryn Steinle was shot July 1 on Pier 14 as she walked with her father. Lopez-Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to murder, and his lawyer has portrayed the killing as an accident.

In their claim against the city, Steinle’s parents say Mirkarimi and other San Francisco officials contributed to her death through “their combined negligence and/or refusal to carry out mandatory duties to report convicted felons that are undocumented immigrants” to ICE.

“Whether singularly, and/or in combination, their wrongful conduct set in motion the tragic series of events which foreseeably led” to Steinle’s death, the claim says.

The claim refers to Mirkarimi’s March 13 memo directing deputies against notifying ICE about jailed suspects. That memo, the claim asserts, contravened federal law that protects the right of law enforcement agents to contact immigration authorities.

For support, the claim cites Mayor Ed Lee’s assertion that “communicating with federal law enforcement agencies in these cases is simply common sense and in the best interest of public safety. … There is nothing in our sanctuary-city law that prohibits such communication.”

A separate claim filed with the federal government blames immigration officials for not doing more to make sure that San Francisco held Lopez-Sanchez, given that Mirkarimi had informed them that he did not honor ICE detainers. The claim notes that the sheriff met with the head of the Department of Homeland Security a month before he issued his memo and stressed his office would not honor such holds.

The claim says ICE knew that Lopez-Sanchez could be released from San Francisco and failed to take steps to deport him.

The family also blames the Bureau of Land Management agent for not securing the gun that was stolen out of his car four days before the shooting. Rather than lock the Sig Sauer pistol in a box inside the car, the agent left it in a clearly visible backpack in the rear seat of his vehicle, according to the claim.

It’s the most detailed description to date of how the gun was stored in the agent’s car. Authorities have said only that the weapon was in a bag in the vehicle, but have never said whether the bag was in the passenger compartment or the trunk.

The thief stole the entire backpack, the Steinle family’s claim says. It does not cite the source of that information.

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