Los Angeles Times
By Lee Romney
September 1, 2015
The
family of a woman allegedly killed by an immigrant whom the U.S. had
deported five times has filed claims against San Francisco city and
county, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement and the federal Bureau of Land Management, alleging
that all bear responsibility for her death.
The
July 1 shooting of Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old medical sales
representative, added to the national debate on immigration enforcement —
and highlighted the fact that
many local law enforcement agencies do not comply with federal requests
to hold inmates beyond their release dates for potential deportation.
The
parents of Kathryn Steinle, the San Francisco woman shot to death July 1
on Pier 14 by a man being sought for deportation, filed legal claims
Tuesday to hold local
and federal officials accountable for her death.
In
March, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez had completed his third federal
prison term for felony reentry into the United States from Mexico. He
has said that he found the
gun that killed Steinle wrapped in a T-shirt, and that it fired
accidentally.
Steinle was struck once in the back while walking with her father on San Francisco's Embarcadero.
The weapon had been reported stolen from a BLM agent's car in downtown San Francisco four days earlier.
Frank
Pitre, an attorney representing the family, said Tuesday that Steinle's
“last words to her father were to help her. Unfortunately he could not
do anything at that
time … but the words 'help me' have lived with the Steinle family ever
since.”
By
filing the three claims — precursors to lawsuits — the family wants
public officials who issued statements in the wake of Steinle's killing
to “not only stop the finger-pointing,
stop the bickering, but we want to ensure that it does not happen
again,” Pitre said.
The
San Francisco Sheriff's Department had transported Lopez-Sanchez from
federal prison in Victorville to San Francisco to appear in court on a
20-year-old bench warrant
for marijuana possession and sales. But prosecutors declined to pursue
the matter.
Although
immigration officials had issued a detainer request for Lopez-Sanchez,
San Francisco jail officials did not honor it and instead released him.
Several federal courts have deemed the practice of holding inmates beyond their release dates to be unconstitutional.
A
2013 San Francisco city ordinance limited cooperation on detainers to
inmates charged with violent felonies who had a previous violent felony
conviction. Lopez-Sanchez
had no violent prior felonies and faced no current charges.
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San
Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi also issued a department-wide memo in
March restricting communication with ICE in all cases.
The
claim filed Tuesday focuses largely on that memo, contending that it
violates a 1996 federal statute stating that a “local government entity
or official may not prohibit,
or in any way restrict, any government entity or official” from sharing
citizenship or immigration information with immigration enforcement
officials.
The city attorney's office declined to comment.
In
a statement, the Sheriff's Department said, “While Sheriff Mirkarimi
can't comment on potential litigation, he continues to extend his
deepest sympathy to the Steinle
family for their loss.”
A
separate claim against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's
parent agency, states that Mirkarimi and other Sheriff's Department
officials had made clear to ICE
that they would not comply with detainer requests absent a federal
warrant or court order issued by a judge, and ICE failed to obtain one.
More broadly, it states that ICE and DHS had a “duty to detain and deport Lopez-Sanchez, yet failed to do so.”
ICE
officials have previously said that no process is set up to obtain such
warrants or court orders, that ICE is not required to obtain them, and
that Sheriff's Department
officials could have simply notified local ICE officials of
Lopez-Sanchez's pending release and they would have picked him up.
San
Francisco is among many so-called Sanctuary Cities that have attempted
to restrict cooperation between local law enforcement and federal
immigration officials in order
to encourage immigrants in the country illegally to report crimes and
cooperate as witnesses.
A
third claim, against the BLM, contends that the agent's loaded gun was
in a backpack in the back of his car “in plain sight” when it was
stolen. Bureau policy requires
that when not in use, weapons be unloaded and “stored in a secure
place, out of sight, under lock and key.”
In
a statement, a spokeswoman said: “The Bureau of Land Management takes
seriously the loss of any human life and we are continuing to fully
cooperate with the ongoing
investigations.”
Steinle's
parents and brother said during Tuesday's news conference that Kate was
committed to social justice and would have wanted them to press for
change.
Brad
Steinle, her brother, said the city and Sheriff's Department have “done
nothing” to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring. His voice
cracking, he said he hopes
the legal actions will ensure “that nobody has to endure the pain my
mom and dad and I go through every day because the system failed my
sister.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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