Embattled San Francisco sheriff loses re-election vote by wide margin

With more than 90,000 votes counted, Hennessy had 62 percent of the tally compared to just 31 percent for Mirkarimi.

This past July, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was shot and killed on Pier 14 in San Francisco.

In March, Mirkarimi’s Sheriff’s Department requested custody of Lopez-Sanchez after he completed a 46-month sentence in federal prison. We’re not talking about huge scandals here, but the local reporting does indicate that he had his driver’s license suspended for a short time when he failed to report a minor auto accident and he failed his marksmanship test earlier in the year.

San Francisco voters finally booted from office the man who released Kate Steinle’s killer and ran the sanctuary city jail. Congresswoman Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), Mayor Ed Lee, the San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association, and a number of other labor unions and community organizations.

The city was forced to pay $3million to settle a lawsuit launched by the victim’s family.

During the San Francisco sheriff’s race, the city’s policies toward illegal immigrants became a focal point of the campaign.

San Francisco declared itself a “sanctuary city” in 1989, and since banning that ordinance, city officials passing an ordinance that bans city officials from enforcing immigration laws or asking about immigration status unless required by law or court order. There are cases, she said, when federal immigration officials should be notified that the jail is about to release an inmate who is in the country illegally.

But this doesn’t mean much if the sheriff’s department can pick and choose which criminal illegal aliens should be held and which should be let go.

He was reinstated as sheriff that October when the 11-member Board of Supervisors did not reach the nine votes necessary under the city charter to remove him from office on the official misconduct charges.

The San Francisco sheriff who championed the city’s controversial sanctuary policy was trounced by a challenger in his re-election bid Tuesday night.