A national disgrace.
A San Francisco jury reached a not guilty verdict Thursday afternoon in the trial of a homeless undocumented immigrant in the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle as she strolled with her father on Pier 14 to take in a view of San Francisco Bay.
The jury was expected to issue the verdict at about 4 p.m. after several days of deliberations.
Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old Mexican citizen who was released from San Francisco jail before the killing despite a federal request that he be held for his sixth deportation, was charged with murder, and prosecutors gave the jury the option of convicting him of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter. He was also charged with assault with a firearm and being a felon in possession of a gun in connection with Steinle’s death.
Steinle, 32, had been walking with her arm around her father when she was struck in the back by a single bullet on July 1, 2015. The round had skipped off the concrete ground after being fired from a pistol that had been stolen, four days earlier, from the nearby parked car of a federal ranger.
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