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[h=4]Reports: Federal agent's gun used in S.F. pier shooting[/h]Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez​, a Mexican felon accused of killing a young woman last week on San Francisco's scenic Embarcadero waterfront, was ordered held Tuesday on $5 million bail after he pleaded not guilty.
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The suspect in the fatal shooting of a woman at a San Francisco sightseeing pier, was in this country illegally and had been deported five times. The city promotes itself as a "sanctuary" for illegal immigrants. USA TODAY
Francisco Sanchez walks into the court for his arraignment at the Hall of Justice on July 7, 2015, in San Francisco.(Photo: Michael Macor, AP)
SAN FRANCISCO — An undocumented Mexican felon deported five times but released from a city jail in April was ordered held Tuesday on $5 million bail after he pleaded not guilty to killing a young woman on San Francisco's scenic Embarcadero waterfront.
​Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez​ is charged with murder for allegedly shooting 32-year-old Kathryn "Kate" Steinle in the back on July 1 as she was walking with her father. He replied "not guilty" in English and Spanish, regardless of the questions the judge was asking him, according to news reports.
His lawyer, Matt Gonzalez, the city's No. 2 public defender and a former member of the Board of Supervisors, said "very likely this was an accidental shooting."
But in arguing against bail, Assistant District Attorney Diana Garcia called the killing "an act of random violence, shooting an innocent victim in the back."
Citing sources,the San Francisco Chronicle, KGO-TV and KNTV-TV reported Tuesday night that the gun used in the shooting was stolen from a federal agent but that it was not clear how Lopez-Sanchez got it.
Sources told the Chronicle that the weapon, a .40-caliber pistol, was the agent's personal firearm and had been stolen in a downtown auto burglary not long before the shooting.
The case has divided law enforcement agencies, with federal immigration authorities lashing out at local police for having ignored a request to hold Lopez-Sanchez so that he could be deported. The slaying also has inflamed the politics of immigration and worked its way into the 2016 presidential campaign.
The tragedy unfolded as Steinle, a medical device sales representative who recently moved to the city from nearby Pleasanton, was posing for photos at Pier 14 with her father, who had his arm around her.
"There was a pop, and Kate went down," 68-year-old Jim Steinle told the San Francisco Chronicle. She died later at San Francisco General Hospital.
Police said that the suspect never exchanged words with Steinle and that the shooting appears random.
In an interview Sunday with KGO, Lopez-Sanchez confessed to the shooting but said it was an accident. He said that he found the gun, wrapped in a T-shirt, under a bench and that it went off three times when he picked it up.
He said he then kicked the gun into San Francisco Bay and walked off, not knowing he had shot someone until police arrested him an hour later on a nearby street corner. He reportedly first told police he had been shooting at sea lions.
Lopez-Sanchez also told an interviewer he was high on sleeping pills and marijuana at the time.
Police were helped in their search for the suspect by photos taken by bystanders.
The next day, a gun believed to have been used in the shooting was recovered from the water next to the pier by police dive teams using sonar equipment.
Liz Sullivan and Jim Steinle, parents of Kathryn Steinle, talk to members of the media outside their home in Pleasanton, Calif., July 2, 2015. Kathryn Steinle was shot to death while walking with her father along a popular pedestrian pier on the San Francisco waterfront.Â<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Lea Suzuki, San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
San Francisco police said at the time of his arrest that Lopez-Sanchez was on "active probation" from Texas.
He is listed by police as being 45, but jail records say he is 52.
Speaking Spanish, Lopez-Sanchez told KGO he wants the harshest punishment so he can tell Steinle's parents in court that he "no longer wants to live," the station reported.
Gillian Christensen, spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said Lopez-Sanchez had been deported five times, most recently in 2009, and has a criminal history dating to 1991 that includes seven nonviolent felony convictions, including four narcotics charges.
He most recently served five years in a federal prison in Victorville, Calif., before being sent to San Francisco on March 26 for a 1995 warrant accusing him of selling $20 worth of marijuana. The charges were dropped the next day, and on April 15 Lopez-Sanchez was freed from the San Francisco County Jail, which is run by the sheriff.
ICE officials requested that they be informed whenever the suspect was set to be released, but "the detainer was not honored," Christensen said.
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"ICE places detainers on aliens arrested on criminal charges to ensure dangerous criminals are not released from prisons or jails into our communities," she said. "The agency remains committed to working collaboratively with its law enforcement partners to ensure the public's safety."
While acknowledging the immigration detainer request, the Sheriff's Department said that at the time Lopez-Sanchez was booked into the jail "there was no active (CE) warrant or judicial order of removal for him."
Once the local charges were dropped, a 2013 city ordinance and Sheriff's Department policy on immigration detainers "deemed him ineligible for extended detention."
​Under the sheriff's policy, undocumented immigrants will be detained only if two requirements are met: a violent felony conviction within seven years, and an active violent felony charge that has advanced beyond a preliminary hearing.
Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, a former city supervisor, defended releasing Lopez-Sanchez, who was held two weeks longer than required by the department's rules.
​"ICE knew that he had been deported five times," he said. "You would have thought he met a threshold that he required a court order or a warrant. They did not do that."
Immigration "detainers," or "holds," have become controversial in recent years as some local law enforcement agencies have fought back against the federal government's requests to hold suspects based on their immigration status, arguing that the practice costs them money and damages their credibility with the communities they serve.
In addition, federal courts have struck down cases involving "holds," stating that these detentions are not voluntary and violate the Fourth Amendment, according to civil rights organizations.
During his interview with KGO-TV, Lopez-Sanchez said he came to San Francisco knowing it was a so-called sanctuary city, where he knew local policies helped shield him from immigration agents.
San Francisco became a sanctuary city in 1989. A local ordinance prohibits city employees from helping ICE with immigration investigations or arrests "unless such help is required by federal or state law or a warrant." The move was intended to stand "firmly against repressive immigration proposals in Congress and immigration raids that separate families."
USA TODAY
San Francisco shooting case shows disconnect on immigration
And in 2013, the California State Assembly passed the Trust Act, which allows local agencies to treat ICE detainer requests as voluntary. Only people facing serious felonies must be held for ICE agents.
After the law went into effect in 2014, California Attorney General Kamala Harris explained the state's problems with ICE holds.
"When local law enforcement officials are seen as de facto immigration enforcers, it erodes the trust between our peace officers and the communities they serve," she wrote in a bulletin to state law enforcement agencies.
Contributing: USA TODAY's Doug Stanglin and Alan Gomez.
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