Los Angeles Times
By Matt Hamilton
July 13, 2015
The
parents of Kathryn Steinle, the woman who was allegedly shot and killed
by a Mexican national who had been deported multiple times, expressed
support during a televised
interview Monday for a proposed law that would require prison time
those who return to the U.S. illegally after being deported.
Steinle,
32, was walking along San Francisco’s waterfront with her father on
July 1 when police say she was shot in the upper body by Juan Francisco
Lopez-Sanchez, a man
who has seven felony convictions and had been deported five times.
Jim
Steinle and Liz Sullivan, both of Pleasanton, Calif., told Fox News
host Bill O’Reilly that their daughter’s death has energized them to
prevent future crimes by those
in the U.S. without documentation.
“We
feel the federal, state and cities their laws are here to protect us,
but we feel that this particular set of circumstances and the people
involved, the different
agencies let us down,” Jim Steinle said on "The O’Reilly Factor."
Both
expressed support for O’Reilly’s proposed “Kate’s Law,” which would
impose a five-year federal prison term on those who return to the U.S.
illegally after being deported.
O’Reilly is collecting signatures for the measure.
“You
want to make it so much better for everybody in the United States that
this -- as you say, would never happen again,” Sullivan said.
The
interview shed new details about the moments before Kathryn Steinle was
fatally shot. Jim Steinle said he heard a pop, then his daughter -- who
had recently moved
to San Franciso for a job -- fell to the ground.
“What did she say before she went down?” O’Reilly asked Jim Steinle.
“Help
me, Dad,” he said. Later, he recalled, “We had some kind souls come
over, you know, gave her mouth to mouth and did all they could.”
Lopez-Sanchez,
52, pleaded not guilty last week to one count of murder with a firearms
enhancements. His attorneys contend the shooting was accidental.
In
an interview with KGO-TV, Lopez-Sanchez said that he had found the gun
wrapped in a T-shirt on the ground near a bench and that it had
accidentally fired when he touched
it. He also said he had taken powerful sleeping pills.
Officials
from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management confirmed last week that the
gun used in the shooting had been reported stolen from the vehicle of a
federal law enforcement
officer four days before Kathryn Steinle’s killing.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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