Mirkarimi, 54, was defeated vanquished by Vicki Hennessy, a former sheriff’s official who had the endorsement of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee & the sheriff deputies affiliation. Mirkarimi received 33 percent, and a third candidate garnered 6 percent of the vote. Later pleading to false imprisonment, the Sheriff worked to have his criminal record expunged around the time Steinle’s future killer, illegal alien Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, was released from jail. The man had been released from Mirkarimi’s jail even though federal immigration officials had requested that he be detained. After the shooting, he had his drivers license suspended over an incident related to driving a department-issued vehicle.
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San Francisco has a brand new sheriff in town.
The city was forced to pay $3million to settle a lawsuit launched by the victim’s family.
After holding the illegal immigrant for three weeks, he was released onto the streets of San Francisco without informing federal authorities, which was consistent with a “gag order” policy Mirkarimi had in place.
During the San Francisco sheriff’s race, the city’s policies toward illegal immigrants became a focal point of the campaign.
But this is San Francisco whose mayor, city council, and all of law enforcement is basically on board with the notion of Sanctuary Cities. There are cases, she said, when federal immigration officials should be notified that the jail is about to release an inmate who is in the country illegally.
A little common sense can go a long way in safeguarding the public.
Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi was a big booster of Sanctuary Cities, but it was other scandals – both personal and professional – that ultimately brought him down. And she or he’s a lady – the 1st female sheriff to steer the city within the department’s 164-year historical past.
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There’s something unusual going on in the City by the Bay after yesterday’s municipal elections, but I suspect that it’s far too early to get very excited about it. San Francisco voters went to the polls and rejected their sheriff who had become something of the face of the so called “sanctuary city” and they did so by a wide margin.
