Suspect In Killing of San Francisco Woman Had Been Deported Five Times

RadioOnFire.com - San Francisco - Kate Steinle was walking on a busy pier in San Francisco with her father when there was a single popping sound in the air.

She fell to the ground, struck by a bullet, the victim of what police say appears to be a random killing.

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

It would have been six, a federal law enforcement source told CNN, except authorities in San Francisco wanted him on a drug-related warrant.

So U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which had Lopez-Sanchez in its custody in March after his release from federal prison, turned him over to San Francisco deputies. ICE said they requested an immigration detainer, asking that the agency be notified before Lopez-Sanchez was released.

But San Francisco is a city that doesn't honor such requests and the sheriff's department released him. Freya Horne, chief legal counsel to the San Francisco County Sheriff, told CNN that he was let go because there was no legal cause to detain the suspect.

On Wednesday evening, he shot the 31-year-old Steinle at Pier 14 once in her upper body, according to police. He was found about a mile away an hour later and arrested. CNN could not determine on Friday if he has an attorney.

Source CNN