Kate Steinle’s Family Files Claim Against San Francisco, ICE, Bureau of Land
ICE knowingly released Lopez-Sanchez to authorities in San Francisco, knowing that the city was a “Sanctuary City”, and had been told on “several occasions” that officials would not honor ICE detainers.
The claims are a standard precursor to a lawsuit.
Steinle, 32, was shot and killed July 1 while walking with her father and a friend along Pier 14.
Within an hour of the shooting, police arrested Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant who had been deported five times and has seven prior felony convictions, including four involving narcotics.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had sent Lopez-Sanchez to San Francisco jail to serve out a decades old marijuana case, and had asked the sheriff to alert them when he was released. In an email, a spokeswoman said doing so would violate the department’s own policy as well as a city ordinance that requires due process for all residents.
She is asking the board of supervisors to take a second look at their policy.
Her dying triggered calls from even California’s two liberal senators for elevated cooperation between communities and ICE relating to unlawful immigrants with in depth legal data and a historical past of being deported.
“We need to be careful that it’s people who would put the community in fear of imminent physical harm”, Supervisor Dave Cortese said.
“Public security requires that the county notify ICE earlier than releasing critical and violent criminals again into our group”, Rosen stated final week in a written assertion. Follow her at Twitter.com @tkaplanreport.