A jury has acquitted Jose Ines Garcia Zarate of murder and involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco two years ago. Garcia Zarate, who is an undocumented immigrant, was found guilty of illegal firearms possession and could face a prison sentence of up to three years. Steinle’s killing was a horrible tragedy compounded by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, who, ignoring her family’s objections, bastardized her death into a political opportunity to ramp up his anti-immigrant agenda. Following the jury’s verdict, the tweeter in chief stayed true to form. “A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case,” he fumed, using her death to call for his wall. “No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration”:
A lie. “Garcia Zarate did have a history of drug charges,” noted Splinter, “but didn’t have a violent criminal record and spent most of his life in prison.”
Trump and other anti-immigrant critics continually misrepresented Garcia Zarate as shooting Steinle in malice, when in fact the defense successfully argued the shooting was most likely accidental, since the bullet from the gun he had found actually ricocheted off the ground and then struck Steinle. “The defense also presented evidence regarding the SIG Sauer’s propensity to accidentally fire,” noted a surprisingly sober read from RedState. A tragedy nonetheless, but certainly not the cold-blooded killing Trump attempted to portray in order to further foment hate.
Not that Trump really cared anyway. He only seems speak out when it’s one kind of gunshot victim—“For Donald Trump, we were just what he needed,” Steinle’s mom Liz Sullivan said last year, “beautiful girl, San Francisco, illegal immigrant, arrested a million times, a violent crime and yadda, yadda, yadda. We were the perfect storm for that man”—and one kind of person pulling the trigger. Meanwhile, what’s he done about the mass shooting in Las Vegas? What’s he done about all the black men and women shot dead, in front of their loved ones and on camera, by police? Unless it fits his agenda, Donald Trump doesn’t care.
Steinle’s death is one tragedy, and the Trump administration’s continued exploitation of her death to demonize immigrants for political gain is the second. Already, Fox and Friends is urging regular viewer Trump to “take advantage” of the jury’s verdict to build his fucking wall. The White House later issued a statement calling for more border resources and saying that “had San Francisco enforced our Nation’s immigration laws, the Steinle family would be celebrating this holiday with all of their loved ones.” But in 2015, the family was deeply upset their personal tragedy was thrust into a national political debate by Trump and his campaign and later declined opportunities to meet with him:
“All of a sudden now we’re against sanctuary cities,” [father Jim] Steinle said. “Well we never said that. What else are we going to get involved in?”
Sullivan went on Greta Van Susteren’s TV show to praise Hispanic families who are in this country without documentation. Someone else asked Steinle if he thought such people working in the Central Valley should be deported, he scoffed.
“If you deport them, what are you going to eat? Rocks?” he said. “I mean, they feed the United States.”
“We just want to get this over with and move on with our lives, and think about Kate on our terms,” Steinle said following the verdict this week. “Nothing’s been on our terms. It’s been on everyone else’s terms.”