Six times a week or so, I pass by the pier where Kathryn Steinle was killed. Never did I think that beautiful spot would become such fertile ground for campaign demagoguery. Donald Trump has found the perfectly-timed tragedy that kinda sorta supports his racist message. The senseless killing of Steinle in San Francisco by a five-times-deported felon from Mexico has unfortunately become a central part of the current presidential campaign.
Yes, there are some real screw-ups that allowed the alleged killer to freely wander the streets of San Francisco and the city sanctuary policy definitely needs to be clarified, but where is the outrage about gun violence in the United States that happens day in and day out? I don’t seem to remember Donald Trump issuing any statements about the person I saw dying on the sidewalk a few years ago after getting shot outside a burrito shop. There should really be a thirty-day waiting period for political opportunism.
There are so many important issues involved in this awful case of random gun violence, I hope it doesn’t remain solely an applause line in a Donald campaign speech. As awful as he seems to be, I have yet to hear of any previous violent crimes committed by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. (He seems more like a pitiful paint-huffing drug addict to me than one of Trump’s Mexican drug cartel mobsters.) Are we prepared to deport every immigrant here illegally for a $20 marijuana deal or repeated non-violent drug offenses? And let’s not forget, the sanctuary city policies are in place so local policing can be more effective and catch bad guys. We all want to catch bad guys, right? You can help the victim’s family by contributing to their crowd-funding campaign. Mark Fiore