San Diego Criminal Lawyers Blog
The family of Kathryn Steinle, the woman who was gunned down and killed while walking along San Francisco Pier last year, has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the city of San Francisco and other government agencies after the city re-affirmed its “sanctuary city” policy to shelter illegal aliens, including criminals, from deportation. Last July, 32-year-old Stein was walking with her father when she was shot and killed by an illegal alien, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez who was under the influence of drugs. Sanchez had already been convicted of seven felonies and deported five times to Mexico at the time of the murder.
It is reported that the city, former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are the named parties of the lawsuit. It alleges that officials allowed Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant to repeatedly go free, obtain a gun, and kill her. It is also reported that the lawsuit focuses largely on a memorandum issued in March 2015 by ex-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who prevented local authorities from communicating with ICE. The city’s Sheriff’s Department had released Sanchez without notifying immigration officials after his prior arrests and convictions.
Sanchez has been charged with murder, but it is reported that his defense attorneys will be arguing the shooting was the result of an accidental ricochet.