Trump Slams 'Disgraceful' Verdict in SF Pier Shooting

Jury acquits Mexican man of murder, manslaughter in Kate Steinle case
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2017 12:40 AM CST
Updated Dec 1, 2017 6:03 AM CST
Mexican Man Not Guilty of Murder in SF Pier Shooting
This July 17, 2015 photo shows flowers and a portrait of Kate Steinle displayed at a memorial site on Pier 14 in San Francisco, Calif.   (Paul Chinn /San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)

President Trump slammed the "disgraceful" verdict Thursday after a Mexican citizen was found not guilty of murder in the 2015 shooting death of Kate Steinle at a San Francisco pier. "No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration," Trump tweeted Thursday night, and he kept up his criticism Friday morning. "BUILD THE WALL!" he wrote. Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old undocumented immigrant who had already been deported from the US five times, was also acquitted by a jury on charges of involuntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon, CNN reports. Steinle was fatally shot on July 1, 2015, as she walked on Pier 14. Zarate's defense attorneys said he found a handgun wrapped in a shirt under a chair and it accidentally went off as he picked it up, NBC reports.

The gun turned out to have been stolen from a federal agent days earlier, and prosecutors argued that Zarate deliberately pointed it at the 32-year-old Steinle. Zarate—who was wanted for a sixth deportation when he was arrested for the shooting—was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm and will be sentenced at a later date. Months before the shooting, Zarate was released under San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy, and Trump complained Friday that he "came back and back over the weakly protected Obama border." He added that the "Schumer/Pelosi Democrats" are weak on crime and "will pay a big price in the 2018 and 2020 elections." Steinle died in the arms of her father, Jim Steinle, who tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the family is shocked and saddened by the verdict. "Justice was rendered but not served," he says. (More San Francisco stories.)

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