Victims' family loses round in sanctuary suit
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, August 15, 2009


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(08-14) 18:06 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The family of a father and two sons who were gunned down on a San Francisco street last year has failed to convince a federal judge that the city violated the victims' constitutional rights by shielding their alleged murderer from deportation.

But a lawyer for Tony Bologna's widow and daughter said he'll return to a state court with claims that San Francisco acted negligently by not notifying federal authorities of Edwin Ramos' immigration status when police arrested him in separate incidents in 2003 and 2004.

The city's lawyer said he'll seek dismissal of those claims as well.

Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot to death near their home in the Excelsior district in June 2008. Ramos, 22, is charged with murdering them.

Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors describe as a gang member, was arrested twice as a juvenile, for an assault on a Muni passenger in October 2003 and an attempted purse-snatching in April 2004. Juvenile courts sent him to a shelter after the first incident and to the city-run Log Cabin Ranch after the second.

Case records don't show whether police or juvenile courts knew at the time that Ramos had entered the United States illegally. But under juvenile justice authorities' interpretation of the city's sanctuary policy, they would not have passed along such information to federal immigration authorities.

Federal officials learned of Ramos' status later, after he applied unsuccessfully for legal residency. They did not take him into custody for deportation proceedings, however, and his application for residency, based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen, was pending in 2008 when the Bolognas were killed.

The family's lawsuit says the city was responsible for the shootings because its policy - which the suit claims violated both state and federal law - allowed Ramos to go free rather than be deported.

In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston dismissed the family's claim that the city's actions violated the victims' constitutional right to due process of law.

Illston said a government agency that exposes someone to a "known or obvious danger" can be held responsible for the harm that follows.

San Francisco might be held to account, she said, if there was evidence that it knew Ramos posed a danger to the Bolognas. But Illston said the family's suit claimed only that Ramos' release endangered the entire city, or all black and Latino residents who were presumed to be the targets of his gang.

"Due process claims simply do not stretch so far," she said.

Illston did not rule on the family's claims that the city's negligence had caused the Bolognas' deaths, and said she planned to return those claims to San Francisco Superior Court, where the suit was originally filed.

Matthew Davis, the family's lawyer, said Illston's ruling was procedural and did not affect the negligence claims, which he considers the strongest part of the case.

Deputy City Attorney Scott Wiener said the city would ask Illston to rule on those claims as well, but is prepared to defend against them in either court.

"Edwin Ramos murdered these victims and he is being prosecuted for that," Wiener said. "That doesn't mean that the city is liable for that act of violence."

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