Thread: Kate Steinle's parents sue San Francisco, immigration officials over her death

Published May 27, 2016Fox News Latino

The parents of Kate Steinle, who was killed last year while walking on a San Francisco pier, have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and two federal agencies.

Steinle’s parents say in the suit that the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department helped contribute to their daughter’s murder by failing to tell immigration officials that it was releasing the alleged killer, Juan Francisco López-Sánchez, from jail after prosecutors opted not to act against him in connection to a 20-year-old bench warrant for marijuana possession and sales.

López-Sánchez, who was in the United States illegally from Mexico, was released by San Francisco authorities despite having served three prison terms for felony re-entry into the country.

López-Sánchez admitted to having shot Steinle, although he claimed it was unintentional. He says he found the gun, and it fired when he picked it up, striking Steinle in the back.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the gun had been reported stolen from a Bureau of Land Management official’s car four days before Steinle’s death.

Her parents are suing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Land Management as well as the Sheriff's Department.

Immigration officials had issued a hold request for López-Sánchez, but San Francisco jailers declined to comply with it.

San Francisco is one of numerous cities across the nation that restrict the cooperation between public employees and federal immigration officials, arguing that such activity alienates immigrant communities from police.

The city allows for its employees to comply with an immigration detainer – which involves holding a person who has been arrested until immigration officials can assume custody – but only in cases where the detainee has been charged with violent felonies. The Times reported that López-Sánchez did not have any violent felony convictions or pending charges.

“By prohibiting notification to [immigration officials] necessary for custody, detention, deportation and/or removal of undocumented convicted felons, the March memo deprived Kate of life and liberty without due process,” the lawsuit reads, according to the Times.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...ver-her-death/

Wow, this is huge. The drawback is that it would eventually be heard in the Ninth Circuit.

Kate Steinle's Family Sues Federal Agencies After Alleged Murder By Undocumented Immigrant

By JULIA JACOBO May 27, 2016, 10:33 PM ET

Courtesy of Steinle familySan Francisco shooting victim Kate Steinle is seen in an undated handout photo.

The family of Kate Steinle, the woman who was allegedly shot and killed by an undocumented immigrant on a San Francisco pier last summer, has filed a lawsuit against two federal agencies and a San Francisco sheriff for not preventing her death.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a federal court in San Francisco, seeks to hold the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the City and County of San Francisco and Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi of the San Francisco Sheriff's

Department for providing "the means and opportunity for a repeat drug felon to secure a gun and kill" the 31-year-old, the complaint reads.

The alleged shooter, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, is also named in the lawsuit.

The case ignited a firestorm at the time because of the suspect's immigration history and San Francisco's status as a sanctuary city -- notifying ICE about suspected undocumented immigrants only in the case of violent crimes.

Pool/AP Photo
In this July 7, 2015 file photo, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, right, is lead into the courtroom for his arraignment at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco.more +

"Kate's death was both foreseeable and preventable had the law enforcement agencies, officials and/or officers involved simply followed the laws...which they swore to uphold," the complaint said.

Steinle's parents, James and Elizabeth Steinle, are seeking unspecified damages for wrongful death and deprivation of federal civil rights.

"The Steinle Family hopes that their actions today will serve to highlight the lax enforcement of gun safety regulations among the law enforcement agencies involved and bureaucratic confusion so that this will not happen to others," said Frank Pitre of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, the law firm representing the Steinle family.

The gun used to kill Steinle was stolen from an unsecured car, according to the complaint. The gun was government property and belonged to a Bureau of Land Management enforcement ranger, who was on "official government travel" at the time of the theft, June 27, the agency said at the time.

Getty Images

A well-wisher drops off flowers at the site where 32-year-old Kate Steinle was killed on July 6, 2015 in San Francisco.

Steinle was killed on July 1 while walking with her father on Pier 14 of San Francisco's picturesque Embarcadero waterfront when Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant and career drug felon, allegedly shot her with a .40 caliber government-issued firearm, according to the complaint. She had a "thriving career" in medical sales when she died, the complaint stated.

On March 26 of that year, Sanchez finished serving a 46-month sentence at a Los Angeles federal prison and was released to SFSD custody, the complaint said. Led by Mirkarimi at the time, the SFSD did not honor an immigration detainer for Sanchez from ICE, saying it had no "legal basis" to hold him because they did not have an active warrant for him.

That same month, ICE had issued a memo creating an official policy to eliminate all communication regarding undocumented immigrants in "direct contravention" with federal and state law, according to the complaint. Despite this memo, ICE specifically asked the SFSD to be notified of Sanchez's release.

Courtesy Steinle Family
Kate Steinle is seen in an undated handout photo released by the Steinle family.

Sanchez was released the next month, and no notification was provided to ICE, according to the complaint. In January, he pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, the Associated Press reported. At the time, his public defender, Matt Gonzalez, said the charge was too harsh because the shooting was inadvertent.

Gonzalez, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

ICE told ABC News it was unable to comment on the lawsuit due to pending litigation. The Bureau of Land Management did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

Family of Woman Allegedly Killed by Undocumented Immigrant Sues

San Francisco death: Kate Steinle's family files lawsuit

By Ray Sanchez, CNN Updated 0446 GMT (1246 HKT) May 28, 2016

(CNN)The fatal shooting of Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier last summer -- allegedly at the hands of an undocumented immigrant deported five times from the United States -- became a focal point of an angry national debate over illegal immigration.

On Friday, her family filed a federal lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, San Francisco County's former sheriff, the federal Bureau of Land Management and the man who allegedly fired the deadly shot.

"Kate's death was both foreseeable and preventable had the law enforcement agencies, officials and/or officers involved simply followed the laws, regulations and/or procedures which they swore to uphold," the lawsuit said.

On the evening of July 1, 2015, Steinle was walking on a busy pier of the Embarcadero with her father when there was a single popping sound in the air. The 32-year-old medical device sales representative was shot in the chest, a bullet piercing her aorta, according to the lawsuit.

Her father, James, held her in his arms. "Help me Daddy," were her last words to him, the lawsuit said. She died later at a hospital.

The man accused of firing the deadly shot -- 45-year-old Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez -- is an undocumented immigrant and a repeat felon who has been deported five times to Mexico, according to the suit.

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, names the city and county of San Francisco, former county Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi and the United States "for their failures to perform mandatory duties and/or for the unconstitutional and/or negligent acts and/or omissions of their officers, officials, agents and/or employees."

It also names Lopez-Sanchez, a seven-time felon who had recently been released from county custody and was in possession of a stolen .40-caliber government-issued firearm, said the lawsuit, which alleges wrongful death, negligence and civil rights violations.

"Kate's fate was sealed when a U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management Ranger failed to properly secure and/or store a government-issued firearm while it was left in an unoccupied vehicle in a high auto-theft neighborhood," the lawsuit said.

ICE declined to comment on pending litigation but said in a statement that agency director Sarah Saldaña met with members of the Steinle family last year "to express the agency's profound sympathy for their loss and assert the agency's continued commitment to working cooperatively with law enforcement in California and nationwide to promote our shared goals of protecting communities and upholding public safety."

The Bureau of Land Management declined comment.

Attempts to reach the former sheriff and an attorney for Lopez-Sanchez for comment were not immediately successful.

The suit alleges that the shooting was set in motion in March 2015, when the county and former sheriff issued a memo approving a policy that eliminated communication about undocumented immigrants with immigration authorities. The policy was in "direct contravention" of federal and state laws, according to the lawsuit.

Weeks after the memo's release, the sheriff's department transported Lopez-Sanchez from a federal prison to San Francisco to appear in court on a bench warrant for marijuana possession and sales. The drug case was dismissed.

Immigration officials had a detainer request for Lopez-Sanchez but the sheriff's department released him, according to the lawsuit.

"By prohibiting the notification to ICE necessary for custody, detention, deportation and/or removal of undocumented convicted felons, the March Memo deprived KATE of life and liberty without due process, as required under the United States Constitution," the lawsuit said.

"The March Memo amounts to deliberate indifference to federal, state, and/or local law which safeguarded KATE's constitutional rights and is the moving force behind the constitutional violation of her rights."

Lopez-Sanchez was arrested and charged with the murder on July 6, 2015.

The uproar caused extensive finger pointing, with Mirkarimi blaming federal officials for not keeping the suspect in custody.

San Francisco death: Kate Steinle's family files lawsuit

Cut off ALL Federal Funding to ALL sanctuary cities and all Churches aiding and abetting illegals and harboring these criminal trespassers need to loose their tax-exempt status and be shut down. Cut off all taxpayer funded programs, including public school.

We are a Nation of Laws! Just look what this invasion is doing to OUR country...tearing AMERICAN families apart.

Deport them all! No papers...no entry!

I agree, Beezer. Sounds like something similar to a nationwide proposition 187, but better.