SAN FRANCISCO – The scene repeats itself every day on city streets: A driver gets stuck bumper-to-bumper, blocking the intersection and another car's ability to complete a left turn.
Authorities say that was enough to prompt Edwin Ramos to unload an AK-47 assault rifle on a man and his two sons, killing them.
The killings sparked public outrage, which intensified when authorities revealed that Ramos, 21, is an illegal immigrant who had avoided deportation despite previous brushes with the law.
The case has put San Francisco's liberal politics to the test, igniting a nationwide debate over its sanctuary law, which shields illegal immigrants from deportation, and putting pressure on the district attorney to break her anti-death-penalty pledge.
Ramos pleaded not guilty Wednesday to three counts of murder in the deaths of Anthony Bologna, 49, and his sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16.
Bologna, a supervisor at a San Mateo grocery store and a youth sports coach, and his older son died in the intersection June 22. His younger son died a few days later at a hospital. Shortly after that, police arrested Ramos, an El Salvador native and a reputed member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13. Investigators said he was the gunman, although two other men were seen in the car with him.
The heinousness of the crime has put considerable pressure on San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris to seek the death penalty against Ramos. Harris, who campaigned on an anti-death-penalty platform and hasn't pursued capital punishment during her more than four years in office, has declined to directly address how she intends to proceed.
Harris' spokeswoman would confirm only that the case has been charged as a special-circumstance case, making Ramos eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
Ramos' attorney, Robert Amparan, said his client wasn't the shooter. “They have the wrong person,” he said.
The victims' family learned that Ramos had been arrested at least three times before the shooting and evaded deportation, largely as a result of San Francisco's self-imposed sanctuary status.
The policy, adopted in 1989 by the city's elected Board of Supervisors, barred local officials from cooperating with federal authorities in their efforts to deport illegal immigrants.
Officials in the juvenile offenders agency interpreted the law to also shield underage felons from deportation by refusing to report their undocumented status. Mayor Gavin Newsom said he rescinded the nearly two-decade policy regarding juvenile offenders after learning about it in May.
Bologna family members said Ramos apparently benefited from this policy for juveniles when he reportedly was convicted twice of felonies in 2003 and 2004, but wasn't turned over for deportation.
“All San Francisco's sanctuary ordinance has done is bring violence and death to this once-great city,” Bologna's brother-in-law Frank Kennedy said after court Wednesday. “We want other sanctuary cities in the country to observe this closely and end their policies of noncooperation.”
Kennedy is married to Anthony Bologna's sister, and it was his Fairfield home where the three victims spent their last hours before embarking on the fatal road trip home. He called for an investigation of the city's sanctuary policy and demanded “prosecutions for violating the law.”
The case has since garnered national attention, prompting Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and an anti-immigration group called Californians for Population Stabilization to ask the U.S. Justice Department to take over because of San Francisco's alleged mishandling of the case.
“Because San Francisco's political leaders have already demonstrated their willingness to act in flagrant violation of federal law, I do not believe that local judicial institutions can be trusted to fairly try the case or mete out an appropriate punishment,” Tancredo said in a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
Diana Hull, president of the anti-immigration group, also called on about a dozen cities nationwide that have similar sanctuary policies to end those programs.
Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said he wasn't aware of the San Francisco case or the congressman's request. Miller said it's routine for the attorney general to respond privately to requests such as Tancredo's.
Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Newsom, said the mayor “still supports the worthwhile aims of denying the federal government” assistance in deporting otherwise law-abiding illegal residents.
