Trial wrapping up in case that sparked immigration debate

SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers painted the Mexican man on trial for killing a woman along a San Francisco pier as either a sick individual who brought a gun to the tourist spot in order to harm someone, or as a hapless homeless person who picked up an object he didn’t know was a firearm until it went off accidentally.

Jurors will consider those arguments today as the trial against Jose Ines Garcia Zarate wraps up, more than two years after the killing of Kate Steinle by a man who had been deported five times and wanted for a sixth deportation, sparking a national debate over immigration.

Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump seized upon her death to decry America’s loose borders and even Democrats weighed in, saying San Francisco authorities should have cooperated with federal immigration authorities to keep him in custody. Since taking office, Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from cities with similar immigration laws.

But national politics did not come up in a month-long trial that featured circumstantial evidence and extensive testimony from ballistics experts. Lawyers on both sides spent closing arguments Monday punching holes into each other’s case.

Garcia Zarate sat with his back to the packed courtroom on Monday, listening to a translation of the proceedings through headphones. In the audience were Steinle’s parents.

San Francisco deputy district attorney Diana Garcia called Steinle a “vibrant life” taken too soon by the deliberate actions of Garcia Zarate, but otherwise did not dwell on the victim.

She said Garcia Zarate found a gun somewhere and brought it to the pier, hiding it in his baggy clothes and twirling on a chair for more than 20 minutes before shooting it deliberately toward Steinle.

She told jurors that Garcia Zarate “was playing his own secret version of Russian roulette” and derided the defense’s argument that he accidentally shot a gun he didn’t know was a firearm as implausible.

“He knew exactly what he was doing,” Garcia said.

But defense attorney Matt Gonzalez told jurors Monday that prosecutors were pushing a “wild narrative of a desire to hurt someone he does not know” backed up by skimpy evidence that he was wearing clothes with large pockets.