Appeals court rules SF not repsonsible for deaths (murder case where illegal immigrant is suspect)

[alp227]

(01-31) 20:13 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco cannot be held responsible for the deaths of a father and two sons allegedly gunned down in 2008 by a man city officials refused to report to immigration authorities, the state Court of Appeals decided Monday.

The ruling upholds a February 2010 Superior Court decision.

Tony Bologna, 48, and his two sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot to death in a car near their Excelsior district home in June 2008. A third son in the car was not injured.

Relatives sued the city, claiming San Francisco's sanctuary policy protecting illegal immigrants kept the alleged gunman, Edwin Ramos, in the country and played a major role in the slayings.

Yet both the lower court and the appellate court agreed that the city isn't legally to blame for any crimes Ramos committed following his earlier arrests as a juvenile for assault and attempted purse-snatching.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/31/BAII1HGUMU.DTL

Ramos had been arrested in March 2008, and the county sheriff notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but ICE declined to place a hold on Ramos.

In March, three months before the killings, Ramos was arrested in San Francisco after police pulled him over because his car had illegally tinted windows and no front license plate. An alleged gang member in the car tried to discard a gun, but police recovered it and later concluded that it had been used in a double killing, authorities said.

The police report of the incident cited "numerous documented contacts" that officers had with Ramos and the man who allegedly discarded the gun, and said both were active members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) street gang.

San Francisco prosecutors, however, declined to file charges against Ramos, saying they couldn't prove that he knew his companion had the gun.

When Ramos was arrested, sheriff's deputies checked his immigration status on a national database and learned that he was considered deportable, immigration and sheriff's officials say. Eileen Hirst, chief of staff for Sheriff Michael Hennessey, said deputies had asked whether federal officials wanted to place a hold on Ramos so he could be taken into immigration custody.

"In our communication with ICE, they specifically told us they were not placing a detainer on him," Hirst said. "We cannot hold people in custody without a documented reason to hold them."

There was a DU thread about this case from July 2008 referring to a television news article similar to the SF Chronicle article I quoted above, except the thread didn't include Ramos's full name.

[midnight]

1. K&R.

[RandySF]

2. Some background on the case

Ramos was arrested as a juvenile after assaulting a pregnant woman on a bus and tried as such. Then, in 2008, he or his companion mistook Mr. Bologna and his sons for rival gang members and gunned them down.

[alp227]

3. and SF interpreted its sanctuary city policy to mean ignore immigration status

when arresting and prosecuting juvenile offenders. that's why Mrs. Bologna sued SF.

[RandySF]

4. I always had a different notion of what a sanctuary city should be.

My idea was a resident may work, play and educate themselves and their children without local officials looking over their shoulders. It's especially useful when one is a crime victim or witness. But it should not apply to people who commit violent crimes. Ramos, in my opinion, should have been on his way out when he, in front of a bus-full of witnesses, assaulted that woman.

[alp227]

5. actually the bus incident involved a man

I've been following this case since learning about the summer 2009 preliminary hearings in local news. I dug further in the case, expanded the Wikipedia article about Ramos, and discovered this incident through the SF Chron in-depth report on Ramos's criminal past:

According to records, his first contact with San Francisco police came Oct. 22, 2003, when officers were summoned to investigate an attack on a Muni bus at 21st and Mission streets.

Ramos, who had just turned 17, had allegedly flashed gang signs and banged on the bus' windows with two other gang members. The three then yelled, "Who are you with?" at a passenger, who responded that he did not belong to a gang, police said.

At that point, Ramos and the other two boarded the bus and beat and kicked the man, an attack that was recorded by the bus' video camera, authorities said.

As the SFGate comment sections reflect, this case is why people enjoy bashing liberalism and SF politics and gave bigots an opportunity to go immigrant-bashing. And I agree with you regarding sanctuary city: it should NOT protect criminals, which unfortunately SF did by giving some juvenile offenders who were not legal residents free flights home.

[RandySF]

6. Oh here is what I was thinking of.

"On probation, Ramos was released to his mother's custody on April 2, 2004, but four days later he assaulted a pregnant woman and her brother. Ramos was convicted of attempted robbery, a felony offense, but was cleared of assault and served probation at the city-run Log Cabin Ranch,^ where he lived from June 2004 to February 2005. After his release, he lived with his mother's sister. He applied to temporary residency but was declined; by then federal authorities then learned that Ramos was in the U.S. illegally and considered Ramos deportable. After marrying a woman who was a U.S. citizen, Ramos applied again for citizenship; his application was still pending as of 2008.<1>"

[alp227]

7. and it's not like ONLY illegal immigrants do this shit

There was this case in SF of a parolee named Gary Scott Holland who killed a woman after impersonating a utility worker. Although a resident of Fresno, the state released him in San Francisco to keep him a distance from his victim.