Amid Sanctuary City Scandal, Kate Steinle’s Parents Will Sue
A time for action
Back in July, the conservative media shined its spotlight on the controversial issue of “sanctuary cities” following the shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. This happened because perennial criminal and five-time deportee Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who had no business in this country, much less on the pier where Kate died, pointed a gun and pulled the trigger.
He sought refuge underneath San Fran’s “sanctuary” umbrella, and Kate Steinle paid the price.
It was an inconvenient narrative for the Obama Administration, and an even more inconvenient scoop for reporters reluctant to address the issue of illegal immigration during an election cycle. Kate was laid to rest with little fanfare, but her family has taken up her cause, and is planning a lawsuit against San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and The Bureau of Land Management.
Since the death of their daughter, Jim Steinle and Liz Sullivan have become activists demanding justice for their daughter. “Everyone can’t keep saying this is the way it is — it isn’t the way it has to be. We have to stand up and say we’re mad as hell we’re not going to take it anymore,” Sullivan said.
Both want to make sure what happened to their daughter doesn’t end up happening to someone else. “Somebody has to stand up and unfortunately it took the death of my daughter to become activists,” Steinle said.
Mirkarimi faced intense criticism in the wake of the shooting because his department had custody of the man charged with the murder of the young woman at the pier and let him go in April without notifying ICE.On Monday, Mirkarimi’s office released a statement, saying that while the sheriff can’t comment on potential litigation, “he continues to extend his deepest sympathy to the Steinle family for their loss.”
Watch the news report and Steinle family interview, from NBC Bay Area:
In the mean time, prosecutors are working to hold Lopez-Sanchez accountable for his actions. A ballistics expert has come forward with a report suggesting that the bullet that killed Kate was fired accidentally, but the State is still fighting for a ruling that would allow them to hold Lopez-Sanchez for a murder trial:
Prosecutor Diane Garcia contends that the shot was intentional. Her firearms expert, inspector John Evans, and Norris agree a divot in the mangled bullet taken from Steinle show a ricochet occurred. Evans said in court Wednesday that it was possible the gunman was aiming at Steinle.
Garcia hammered that point at Norris on Thursday, asking him if it were possible Lopez-Sanchez intended to shoot Steinle and the bullet hit the ground “because he was a lousy shot.”
Lopez-Sanchez admitted firing the gun, a police sergeant testified earlier in the week.
We’ll keep you updated as the case progresses.
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Comments
So if you are an illegal immigrant the “whatever results from a projectile leaving the muzzle of your weapon when that weapon is under your control is your responsibility” doctrine does not apply?
What a crock.
I don’t think anybody is saying that.
But killing someone without intent is a different crime than killing them intentionally, as you’ll appreciate.
And crime is not the same as responsibility (which is much less restricted, and more terrible in some respects).
Involuntary Manslaughter or Negligent Homicide depending on the state laws. Could be upped if any of the OTHER crimes he was committing is a felony.
Is it a felony in CA for a 5-times felon to be in unlawful possession of a gun?
Given it’s Kulhifornia, I bet it’s an aggravated felony to IMAGINE you are holding a gun.
The family has every right to do this, but they need to name the officials.
I hope the sue San Fran into the bottom of San Fran Bay……
In Washington, negligence looks something like this.
1- duty to act
2- and you did not act or were woefully bad at it
3- that failure to act caused harm
4- that harm is measurable and covered by state law.
For the city of San Fran, all of these criteria are met… dunno how this translates to Ca or federal law, but if it were my daughter… A BILLION dollars is leaving their hands and I’m making it painful for them.
One lawsuit that I can definitely get behind.
Make part of the settlement that someone gets fired with no retirement. (I know, I know. Still)
Yes. A happy dream. But…Sand Francisco. “It’s Chinatown, Jake”. And that’s the normal part…
Was he trying to rob her? If not, why was he pointing the gun at her? If he was, it’s murder whether he fired intentionally or not. (At least it would be in Texas, lord knows what the loons in Cali consider it.)
I would like everyone to take good look at that photo at the top. President Obama, Jorge Ramos and all the Democrats choose that scumbag on the right over the victim on the left to live with all of us. Let me say that one more time. That piece of garbage is who the President, and Jorge Ramos prefer to have in America!
They are so stupid that they actually made that choice, they aren’t smart enough to understand that it was going to be a swap for her life!
Morons and fools all of them!
P.S. You can go ahead and include Black Lives Matter!
If not for the San Francisco sheriff’s office failure to hold Sanchez for ICE to take into custody Kate Steinle would still be alive, in all likelihood.
Shades of the murder of the Bologna family several years earlier due to SF’s sanctuary policy that puts the welfare of illegal immigrants ahead of everyone else.
It’s so sick and San Francisco, the city that’s run by fools.
It’s exactly like the Bologna murder, and that suit was dismissed. The state of the law in the 9th circuit, at least, is that the city is not responsible.
I don’t see how this suit is different from the Bologna one that was dismissed.
“Judge Charlotte Woolard of San Francisco Superior Court ruled on February 22, 2010 that the city couldn’t be liable for any crimes that Edwin Ramos committed post-release because the city had no information that Ramos posed a specific threat to the Bolognas and that the sanctuary city policy was intended “to improve immigration controls” rather than prevent crime.”
Perhaps the Steinles want to challenge the absurd notion that a city can’t be liable for letting illegal felons walk their streets because they can’t specifically know who will be killed or not.
Maybe they also wish to challenge the notion that a dangerous policy that ignores federal immigration law isn’t
liable for whatever happens as a result of it because it’s intent is “good” (in their view) and not meant to stop crime anyway (which is beside the point and wrong anyway…the whole idea of sanctuary city is to give illegals protection from crime without suffering repercussions due to their immigration status).
This decision has to be addressed and taken as high up the judicial system as possible. It’s a joke decision from the
doorknobs in the 9th Circuit Court.
the absurd notion that a city can’t be liable for letting illegal felons walk their streets because they can’t specifically know who will be killed or not.
What’s absurd about this notion? It’s firmly established law that the government has no duty to protect any specific individual. The city had no reason to suspect that this specific crime was going to happen, so it had no duty to go out of its way to prevent it.
“What’s absurd about this notion? It’s firmly established law that the government has no duty to protect any specific individual. The city had no reason to suspect that this specific crime was going to happen, so it had no duty to go out of its way to prevent it.”
Again, the notion that the SF sheriff’s department couldn’t know a specific crime would be committed against specific individuals (the Bologna family) therefore they are not culpable for shielding a known violent member of MS-13 from deportation is just a crock of doo doo.
There is every reason to believe and reasonably expect that career criminals are in the crime business (rape, assault, murder)and protecting Edwin Ramos from deportation was a sick form of Russian roulette Gavin Newsome (who quietly changed city policy after the Bologna murders) was playing
with the citizens of SF.
Thanks to sanctuary city policy, at any random moment, innocent lives could tragically intersect with those of cold blooded killers roaming San Francisco streets thanks to the Mayor, Board of Supervisors and Sheriff’s department.
Claiming those authority figures couldn’t know specific bad things would necessarily happen is like leaving a box of hand grenades on a school yard playground and then claiming
you couldn’t specifically know which child would blow himself into a thousand bloody pieces therefore you bare no blame. It’s sick.
Again, it s firmly established law that the government has no duty to protect any specific individual, or to prevent any specific crime. You can’t dispute that. So how do you justify the lawsuit?
Firmly
established
law.
“Again, it s firmly established law that the government has no duty to protect any specific individual, or to prevent any specific crime. You can’t dispute that. So how do you justify the lawsuit?”
You easily justify the lawsuit on the grounds that a criminal act facilitated by SF sanctuary city policy is only specific AFTER THE FACT! So blather about protecting
specific individuals from specific crimes is just that…blather! It’s an absurdity and no one is claiming
San Francisco should shield victims from criminals for acts as yet unknown and not committed.
But any reasonable person or someone with a child’s grasp of logic can see that a city that is hiding violent felons from the federal government is engaging in conduct that will, in all likelihood, get bystanders hurt and murdered by people who otherwise would be in ICE custody or back in Mexico (or El Salvador, in the case of Ramos).
In the case of Katherine Steinle the SF sheriff’s department
was derelict in it’s duty by hiding a felon and thereby, though it’s willful negligence, put innocent people at undue risk. The case is very clear.
The cases I cited show that you are wrong. The city had no specific duty to Kathy Steinle, or to the Bolognas, to protect them from all harm. It has a general duty to the public at large to keep it safe, and it has the discretion to decide how to do that. If the way it chooses to fulfil its general duty happens to leave an individual vulnerable, that’s that individual’s problem.
Your compassion (quote-unquote) is touching but San Francisco indeed has no duty to protect citizens from ALL harm…just the harm that it itself created by shielding felons from the law itself.
I’m pretty sure that point will be stressed in court and it will not escape notice that Gavin Newsome altered San Francisco sanctuary policy after the Bologna fiasco which is going to seem like a tacit admission that the mayor and city knew it was culpable in the deaths of the Bolognas by hiding Edwin Ramos from the law.
San Francisco’s “discretion” in deciding how to protect it’s citizens does not give it carte blanche to assist felons evade capture and I’d like to see a city attorney assert otherwise.
In time the “individual’s problem” will become San Francisco’s problem as they try to explain how helping illegal felons evade federal agents does not make them complicit in Kate Steinle’s needless death.