SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) – The courtroom froze — some observers even gasped — as the tiny figure on the screen collapsed. The video may have been grainy and captured from a great distance, but prosecutors said the image was unmistakable: 32-year-old Kate Steinle had just been shot on San Francisco’s Pier 14, a popular tourist spot. Soon it will be up to the jury to decide whether the man on trial unintentionally shot her or committed murder.
As lawyers prepare to give their closing arguments Monday in a trial that began nearly a month ago, jurors will have to evaluate two competing narratives.
Prosecutors said Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, 45, deliberately aimed a gun into an unsuspecting crowd on the pier and pulled the trigger. He then immediately tried to cover his tracks, they argued, by throwing his gun into the San Francisco Bay and fled the scene. And a police interrogation would help prove his guilt, lead prosecutor Diana Garcia tried to convey to the jury.
“He admitted deliberately firing the gun,” Garcia told the panel of six men and six women.
On the other hand, defense lawyers say the evidence points to an accidental shooting, especially since the bullet ricocheted off the ground before striking Steinle nearly 80 feet away. They contend Garcia-Zarate found the gun wrapped in a T-shirt or cloth under his seat on the pier and that it went off by accident, seconds after the discovery. (Authorities said the gun had been stolen from an off-duty Bureau of Land Management agent’s car four days earlier.)
As for rushing away from the scene, it can be chalked up to nervousness, the defense contends. And any apparent confession to police stems from either confusion or problems with an officer’s Spanish translation.
“We think we’ve covered a lot of ground. We think this jury has been very attentive,” said Matt Gonzalez, the attorney and public defender for Garcia Zarate. The lack of an apparent motive may also help the defense.
Prosecutors charged Garcia Zarate with second-degree murder but according to Alex Bastian, spokesman for the district attorney, jurors will be allowed to consider a first-degree murder verdict as well as an involuntary manslaughter conviction.
“Jury Instructions are given based on facts presented at trial. In this case, the facts support instruction on multiple theories of homicide: Second-degree, first-degree and Involuntary manslaughter.”
The prosecution has repeatedly argued that the pistol, a .40 caliber Sig Sauer, would need a firm pull of the trigger to go off. An unintentional discharge, prosecution experts testified, would be far-fetched.
The defense has argued that the Sig Sauer is prone to accidental discharges, and called its own forensic firearms expert, who testified that the facts of the shooting point to an accidental discharge.
The case of Garcia Zarate, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, drew widespread national attention because he’d been deported from the United States five times.
Before the shooting, officials in San Francisco, a so-called sanctuary city, had released him from custody instead of turning him over to immigration authorities. Freya Horne, chief legal counsel to the San Francisco County Sheriff, said in a 2015 interview that he was let go because there was no legal cause to detain the suspect.
Steinle’s family filed a lawsuit in 2016 alleging that San Francisco and its former sheriff were partly to blame for Steinle’s death, because officials never notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement when Garcia Zarate was released from a local jail in April 2015. City officials have said they’re not liable for a former inmate’s actions. A federal judge dismissed the family’s claims against San Francisco and former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi earlier this year.
The case also has become a rallying cry for President Donald Trump and GOP politicians, who have invoked Steinle’s name in decrying sanctuary cities and promoting the construction of a border wall.
In June, the House of Representatives passed “Kate’s law,” a measure named for the victim that would increase maximum prison penalties for immigrants caught repeatedly entering the United States illegally. But it’s unlikely to have enough votes to pass the Senate, which struggled with Kate’s Law last year.
Steinle took a stroll with her father and a friend on the evening of July 1, 2015, when the bullet struck her in the back and ruptured a major artery. Steinle’s last words were “Dad, help me. Help me,” according to the prosecutor.
Steinle’s family has been present for part of the trial. James Steinle testified about the “loud” solo shot that rang out on the pier that killed his daughter.
“I couldn’t figure out what happened,” he said to the jury.
“I gave her mouth to mouth. And waited for the paramedics to show up and asked people to call 911.”
Kate Steinle died a short time later at the hospital.
Garcia Zarate was arrested a short distance from the scene about an hour after a police officer noticed he matched the description of the suspect.
Garcia Zarate was formerly known as Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, one of several aliases he is known to have used. CNN and other media outlets previously identified him as Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez.
One of the key pieces of evidence included a recorded police interview with a Spanish translator present. Garcia Zarate gave conflicting statements but eventually acknowledged firing the shot.
“What were you aiming at?” the detective asked.
“A sea lion,” Garcia answers in Spanish.
But the tape reveals that he also told police that he stepped on the gun, causing it to fire. “I grabbed it and tossed it,” he said referring to the weapon being thrown into the water.
Prosecutors argued his assertion is not credible.
But the defense says the interview is problematic due to translation errors.
In a printed translation of the interview, a police detective asked, “Did you pull the trigger?” Garcia Zarate answered, “Yes.”
But according to the defense, the word “trigger” (or “gatillo” in Spanish) was never used. Instead, they say Garcia Zarate was asked, “Did you fire?” Gonzales contends it’s an important distinction since he argues Garcia Zarate didn’t intentionally pull the trigger.
“The people’s entire theory of the case from the beginning has been he pulled the trigger, it takes a human finger,” Gonzales told reporters.
If jurors were to believe that Garcia Zarate never confessed to actually pulling the trigger, the defense hopes they may be more inclined to decide the shooting was an accident, acquitting him of murder.
