But the suspect, 45-year-old Francisco Sanchez, who had seven prior felony convictions, returned to the United States each time and was not in sheriff’s department custody when Kate Steinle as she walked with her father and a family friend at Pier 14 on the Embarcadero.
Steinle, 32, had grown up in Pleasanton and lived her entire life in the suburban East Bay city until moving to San Francisco just recently.
She was shot in the back at around 6 p.m. as she walked along the pier, which has been restored into a popular walking path just north of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and died around 8:30 p.m. at San Francisco General Hospital, according to the San Jose Mercury News newspaper.
The shot damaged Steinle’s heart and she died despite the efforts of her father, who applied CPR, and responding paramedics, the newspaper said.
San Francisco police found Sanchez along the waterfront about a mile away near Townsend Street with the help of cell phone photographs supplied by passersby, the newspaper said.
Sanchez had been in sheriff’s department custody until April 15
But San Francisco authorities released Sanchez after the most-recent drug charges against him had been dismissed.
The city does not enforce federal immigration holds as a matter of policy but will if it is accompanied by a court order or a warrant, the newspaper said.
Officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had asked to be notified if Sanchez was released so they could rearrest him but that notification never happened, ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told the newspaper.
Sanchez was held by police for two weeks while he was checked for other crimes or immigration violations and none were found, the newspaper said.
