San Francisco: Illegal Alien a Suspect in Murder Case
Deputies had removed an ICE monitoring device during a September 3 arrest
In a jaw-dropping case involving an illegal alien wanted for deportation, a police officer’s weapon, and local law enforcement not only ignoring an ICE request to block his release but removing an ICE monitoring device, a young San Francisco man has been murdered during a robbery.
Federal immigration agents were tracking a teenager who was facing deportation when he fatally shot a popular community volunteer during a robbery in San Francisco, authorities said Friday.
The slaying occurred on Aug. 15, four days after sheriff’s investigators say 18-year-old Erick Garcia-Pineda stole the murder weapon from the personal car of a San Francisco police officer.
Four days after the killing, Garcia-Pineda’s monitoring device was removed from his ankle, triggering an unsuccessful search for him. An immigration judge ordered him to wear the bracelet as a condition of his release from federal custody in April.
. . . . Authorities say Garcia-Pineda had been detained by immigration authorities in December and released from custody in April pending deportation. In addition to wearing the ankle monitor, the judge required him to routinely check in with immigration officials.
He failed to show up for his August appointment, said James Schwab, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE said a contractor received a tamper alert on Aug. 19 but authorities couldn’t find him. ICE told the man’s attorney that his client should report to them immediately.
The sheriff’s department says Garcia-Pineda was wearing the ankle bracelet when he was arrested on Sept. 3 on misdemeanor battery charges and deputies removed it. ICE says the Sheriff’s Department ignored a request to block his release from jail that day.
Investigators later connected Garcia-Pineda to the killing of 23-year-old Abel Esquivel during a robbery.
San Francisco law enforcement also ignored ICE requests to detain José Inez García Zárate (aka Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez) in 2015. He also obtained a police officer’s weapon and then walked out onto a pier and shot Kate Steinle, killing her.
The Sacramento Bee continues:
The case has stirred memories of the 2015 killing of a young woman on a San Francisco pier by a Mexican national who had been deported five times. A gun stolen from a law enforcement officer was also used in that shooting.
. . . . In the 2015 killing, Kate Steinle was shot as she walked on a pier crowded with tourists.
The San Francisco sheriff had released José Inez García Zárate from jail several weeks before the Steinle shooting despite a detainer request from ICE.
San Francisco’s policy of not assisting federal immigration officers has, effectively, resulted in yet another lost life at the hands of a criminal alien who should not even be in the country.
In related news, California’s legislature has sent a “sanctuary city” bill to Governor Jerry Brown (D). The bill, SB-54, limits how local and state law enforcement can interact with federal immigration officers.
California Democrats approved a “sanctuary state” bill Saturday that would limit how local and state police can interact with federal immigration agents.
The bill is intended to bolster immigrant protections in the state that are already among the toughest in the nation.
It will now be considered by Gov. Jerry Brown, who announced his support after the top state Senate leader agreed to water down the bill and preserve authority for jail and prison officials to cooperate with immigration officers in many cases.
The legislation is the latest effort by Democratic lawmakers in California, home to an estimated 2.3 million immigrants without legal authorization, to create barriers to President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to step up deportation efforts. They’ve also approved money for legal assistance and college scholarships for people living illegally in the U.S., and made it harder for businesses and government agencies to disclose people’s immigration status.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the bill would “expand so-called sanctuary city policies, prohibiting state and local law enforcement agencies, including school police and security departments, from using resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes.”
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Comments
California does have its priorities.
“[Murder victim] Esquivel volunteered at the Central American Resource Center, which provides legal help to low-income Latino clients and other social services.”
So, was Esquivel a victim of one of his clients?
No justification for his murder, but irony at work perhaps.
Honestly, one solution to the problem of sanctuary cities and such is to strip said jurisdictions of all sovereign immunity defenses against civil suits brought by victims and relatives of victims of crimes committed by illegals whose deportation was hindered by said sanctuary policies.
At what point of this interference with ICE authorities can the federal government start pressing charges against police and jail officers? Removing a ICE device would seem to come very close to that point to my unschooled view.
I say now!
What we have here is exactly the same as the South Carolina “Ordinance of Nullification” and its follow up in 1861. California is claiming functional independence from the laws of the United States. The Federal government is acquiescing in that independence. This middle ground is not stable. Either California must be forced to submit to Federal law, to use their own phrase “By Any Means Necessary”, or give them independence after securing all Federal property at gunpoint. I would like a county option vote on whether to secede, but at that point treat the newly independent Peoples’ Democrat Republic of Alta California with less goodwill than we treat ISIS. No funding, no trade, no water, no power, and an armed, fortified border with weapons free.
Smallpox infected blanket optional.
So says one of our #civilwarmongers.
Really down-thumbers…???
This guy’s a nutter. You SUPPORT this madness…???
BS. South Carolina was rebelling against the constitution; here California is upholding it and you are rebelling against it. The same constitution that makes federal laws override conflicting state laws also protects the states’ right to refuse their assistance in enforcing those laws. Federal law is the supreme law of the land, but it’s up to the federal government to enforce it, and if they want state or city assistance they have to ask politely and accept “no” for an answer.
You have frequently claimed that the states aren’t obligated to help the federal government enforce its laws. I have no legal expertise, so I’m willing to grant that your claim may have merit.
But this case appears to go well beyond refusing to help the federal government. Sheriff’s deputies removed a monitoring device from a federal parolee on the lam. This sounds like aiding and abetting.
Under what circumstances do you think the constitution gives someone the right to actively help a fugitive without reprisal?
What is required to invoke Martial Law? Anyone know.
The civilian courts being unable to function. The moment a civilian court is able to function martial law becomes illegal, and enforcing it becomes a crime. Note that “unable to function” because the military is preventing it doesn’t count.
the cop who had the weapon stolen should be facing accessory charges, at the very least.
#Failifornia has all sorts of restrictive laws about transporting weapons, and various penalties for people who have them stolen.
as for the rest of it, all i can say is, we’re fing stupid out here.
and yes, the irony of someone who spent their days “helping” these criminals getting capped by one is darkly amusing… “how was i to know hanging around with criminals was dangerous?”
natural selection @ w*rk
What gets me is that this is the second (that we know of) LEO weapon used in murders by illegals in San Fran.
This is unacceptable.
“This is unacceptable.”
you keep using that word… i do not think it means what you think it means.
😎
And pretty much all of those laws don’t apply to cops, specifically.
Something tells me the deputies removing the ankle monitor don’t have surnames like Anderson or O’Hara.
As for the cop who had his firearm stolen: there are strict laws about storage of firearms in California. He’s a cop so he’ll get off with an add chewing. Maybe.
According to the report, the officer feels really really bad that his weapon was used in a murder.
I’d like to see those deputies be investigated by the FBI for civil rights violations – of the murdered victim.
they already did: turns out there was no intent to violate his rights, so no crime was committed.
😉
Where did you see that? It wasn’t in the article linked.
That’s garbage. Whatever offenses they may have committed, that is definitely not one of them.
What about the officers who removed the murderer’s monitoring ankle bracelet and the PD higher-ups who approved its removal? Why didn’t ICE make a big deal of this?
The entire episode stinks of corruption and DOJ needs to get a case to SCOTUS that will, once and for all, firmly state in a decision that every state/county/city/town must comply with all federal laws.
the US AG is too busy pushing civil asset forfeiture to be bothered with such mundane trivia as this.
he’s been a YUGE disappointment, but, then again, what else should we have expected from a swamp creature?
With all due respect, removing a federal court-ordered ankle monitor goes a lot beyond “not assisting”. What would the charges be if you or I did that?
Indeed it does, and I expect that now there’s so much attention on the case whoever removed the tracker will be charged. without this spectacular outcome, though, I doubt there would have been any charges; cops stick together, after all.
A federal judge in Chitown ruled that the DOJ would exceed its authority if it withholds grant money to be distributed to sanctuary cities under the terms and conditions adopted upon the establishment of the grant funds. At stake for San Francisco is the sum of $1.4 million. If San Francisco loses these funds, it could put a major dent into Mayor Ed Lee’s vacation fund.
The mayor recently announced he is making a “goodwill” visit to San Francisco’s sister city in County Cork, Ireland and rhn on to Germany where he hopes to establish another sister city relationship. Traveling with the mayor will be various city officials, various staff, aides and family. The mayor’s entourage is expected to total 79, yes, seventy-nine, people. Even Willie Brown has expressed his criticism of the size of this trip.
Of course we should not expect the mayor and his entourage to fly RyanAir cattle car coach or share four to a room in Ireland’s equivalent to Motel 6. The trip will probably be first class all the way and five star hotels. Maybe even private charter jet. $1.4 million should just about cover the tab.
If any good comes from this trip, it might answer the burning question on everyone’s mind. Which is better Guiness or Anchor stout?
Willie’s just mad he’s not on the list to go.
Criminals stealing police guns.
Well, that’s the way to do it. Police have all sorts of hardware we mere citizens can’t get.
especially here in #Failifornia, where cops can by any handgun they want, but us zeks can only have what is on the ever shrinking safety list.
That’s the way it’s been for a very long time. Criminals don’t buy their guns from licensed dealers, they steal them, and the most obvious people to steal them from are the police. That’s just one reason why so-called “gun control” is such a fraud.
Isn’t tampering with an ankle bracelet ILLEGAL. We’re not talking about refusing to enforce federal law we’re talking about actively breaking federal law.
Arrest the sheriff and charge him with tampering with the bracelet and obstruction of justice.
Throwing these pukes in jail is what its going to take to stop this.
Exactly. The deputy who did it shoudl definitely be charged. But I don’t see any evidence that the Sheriff authorized it.
How far up the chain they can go will depend on how tight lipped the people at the bottom are. Even if there isn’t a written policy if the people who removed the bracelet turn it could be pinned on the sheriff.
So, does the family of the murdered man have grounds to sue whoever removed the ICE monitor? Serious question for the law folks here.
Could someone help me with the timeline here? Reading the article, it sounds like the murder was on August 15, and the tracking device was removed on September 3.
Obviously still bad, but not nearly as bad as what I understood from the post.