A puzzle that evokes our fears
Deconstructing the case means focusing on the testimony and the politics
One of the most incisive remarks I’ve ever read about trials is that they don’t reflect reality so much as create their own.
So as I read about the case unfolding against Jose Ines Garcia Zarate in the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle, I’m reminded of both the testimony and the undertow.
The testimony will deal with ballistics and angles of ricochet: Did Garcia Zarate aim in the direction of Steinle when the gun went off on July 1, 2015?
The undertow deals with politics: Were San Francisco authorities wrong in not notifying federal immigration authorities before Garcia Zarate was released?
Can the one be separated from the other? Despite the warnings of judges and attorneys, I’m not sure the answer is yes.
As we try to sort this one out, it helps to take it piece by piece: The gun, the victim, the shooter and the politics. It doesn’t unfold as neatly as we might like:
The gun
The handgun used in the shooting, a Sig Sauer P239, originally was in the custody of a Bureau of Land Management ranger who had stopped in San Francisco and parked his car downtown the week before Steinle’s death.
Perhaps unused to big-city vice — he was based in Imperial County — the ranger reportedly left the gun inside a backpack on the car seat. Not exactly secured.
After the car window was bro-
ken, the Sig Sauer wound up on Pier 14 in the hands of an undocumented man with a long record of drug violations.
I don’t believe the gun fired by itself. The law enforcement sources I know say it’s a well-made gun that would not discharge even if dropped from a substantial height. If the gun is cocked, however, it would fire with a modest trigger pull.
The victim
One reason we care so much about this case is
that Kate Steinle could have been someone we know. She was young (32), beautiful, with a life ahead of her. And she was doing nothing more offensive than strolling with her father along a San Francisco pier. In all probability, you cannot repeat the ricochet shot that killed her.
The random and tragic nature of her death makes us all the more determined to seek a reckoning. The prosecution understands that very well.
It began its case with the testimony by Jim Steinle, Kate’s father, whose understated account haunted the courtroom. “Help me, Dad,” said Kate before she died.
Would another similar killing have the same impact? Maybe, but probably not. It is the setting — and the victim — that matter as much as the dry toll of ballistics.
The shooter
Oddly for a big trial, the profile of Garcia Zarate as a man is not front and center in this trial. That may be because he does not have an attractive profile — a second grade education, a long history of drug abuse, immigration violations, etc.
Even his name has changed as this case has moved forward: Garcia Zarate was originally known in media accounts as
Francisco Lopez Sanchez. Given what has emerged so far, he is more a proxy for our fears rather than a real character.
And yet you want to know what went through his head when the gun fired. Clearly, he had some idea of the consequences: Among other things, he dropped the gun in the bay and fled the scene before he was captured.
The politics
Nothing Donald Trump touches can remain obscure for very long, and so it is with the Steinle case. But there would be plenty of debate over San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” status even without the
twitter feed of our 45th president.
The argument is that if the San Francisco authorities had alerted ICE officials before Garcia Zarate was released two and a half-months before the shooting, Kate Steinle would be alive today. Politically, that statement finds wide affirmation.
And yet that depends on a variety of assumptions. It assumes Garcia Zarate would not have found his way back to the U.S. after being deported. And that in turn raises the issue of how porous the border is.
It also identifies illegal immigration as the core cause of Kate’s death — when it might have been linked to something as universal as drug addiction or a negligence that amounts to a criminal act.
All of us know American-born thugs or idiots who could have done what Garcia Zarate is accused of doing. If one of them were accused in this case, we might well have a trial. We would be paying much less attention.