Shooting of Kathryn Steinle

Shooting

Francisco Sanchez told ABC station KGO-TV in a jailhouse interview that he started wandering on Pier 14, a tourist attraction area at the Embarcadero waterfront district, Wednesday, July 1, after taking sleeping pills he found in a dumpster. He said he then picked up a gun that he found. Sanchez fired three shots from a .40-caliber handgun. One of the bullets struck Steinle in the back and pierced her aorta. She collapsed to the pavement while screaming for help to her father Jim, who was accompanying her at the pier. Jim performed CPR on Kathryn before paramedics arrived and took her to an ambulance. She died two hours later at San Francisco General Hospital.

Sanchez was arrested about an hour after the shooting at Pier 40, about one mile south of Pier 14 and divers from The San Francisco Police Department Underwater Recovery Unit found the gun in the bay alongside Pier 14, the next day. Following his arrest, Sanchez was booked into San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of murder.

The gun used by Sánchez had been stolen in downtown San Francisco from a Bureau of Land Management officer's personal vehicle on June 27, 2015, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The car's window had been broken.

Victim

Kathryn Michelle "Kate" Steinle (December 13, 1982 – July 1, 2015) was originally from Pleasanton, California, and graduated from Amador Valley High School and earned a communications degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She was employed at Medtronic in San Francisco and was living on Beale Street, close to Pier 14, the site of the shooting. Her funeral was held at a winery in Pleasanton on July 9.

Suspect

Juan Francisco López-Sánchez (or Francisco Sánchez; given name José Inez García Zárate), 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 at the time of the shooting. He had seven felony convictions. When he was apprehended, Sanchez was listed as 45 years old by police, but as 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 (SFSD), 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. However, as a sanctuary city, its “Due Process for All” ordinance forbade cooperation with ICE only to cases where specific convictions against the immigrant are identified, therefore, San Francisco disregarded the detainer and released him. 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.

Legal proceedings

Sanchez was formally charged with first-degree murder and possession of illegal narcotics 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 first claimed that he was aiming at sea lions, then that the gun had fired while he was picking up the wrapped package, 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.

In August, a judge set December 2 as the date to assign the case to a judge for trial. López-Sánchez's public defender said there have been no discussions of a plea deal. However, the trial date set for December 2016 was postponed. López-Sánchez returned to court July 14, 2017 and a trial date is pending.

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 (BLM) 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 federal authorities could take him into custody for deportation proceedings.

Based on one ballistics expert, it has been stated that the shot was fired accidentally and ricocheted off the pavement before traveling another 90-95 feet and striking Steinle. Sanchez admitted firing the pistol three times.

Lawsuit

In September 2015, the Steinle family announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Bureau of Land Management, alleging complicity and negligence in the death of their daughter. On January 7, 2017, Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero dismissed the family's claims against San Francisco and former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. The magistrate also dismissed their claim against ICE, but he ruled that the lawsuit accusing the BLM of negligence can proceed.

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 approved 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, a Democrat, 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 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 reactions

The Donald Trump presidential campaign for the 2016 election released the political advertisement "Act of Love", showing Sanchez and criticizing rival Jeb Bush's policy on immigration. Later, when accepting the Republican nomination for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Trump mentioned Steinle's death as a rationale to deport illegal aliens in the United States. After the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, President Trump again mentioned Steinle and other victims of violent crime by illegals when creating the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office within ICE.

Fox News Channel political commentator Megyn Kelly criticized President Obama's silence on Steinle's killing, 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's August vacation.

Ross Mirkarimi lost his bid for re-election to Vicki Hennessy on November 3, 2015, receiving 38% of the vote. His defeat was partly due to his unapologetic support of San Francisco’s sanctuary city laws despite three other deaths in the city connected to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants since 2008.

Kate's Law

In response to the controversy, Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Matt Salmon introduced H.R.3011, the Establishing Mandatory Minimums for Illegal Reentry Act of 2015, also known as Kate's Law. No vote was ever held. In July 2015, however, the House did pass the Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act, a related bill that is often confused with Kate's Law.

In July 2016, a Senate version of the law (S.2193) was passed 55-42, mostly by Senate Republicans, but was filibustered with no supermajority to defeat the filibuster. The Senate also voted on another bill often confused with Kate's Law, the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act (S.3100). The bill passed 53-44 but was filibustered.

On June 23, 2017, Representative Bob Goodlatte reintroduced two bills, Kate's Law and an anti-sanctuary city policy, into the House which passed on June 29 and proceeded to the Senate.