FAMILY OF 3 VICTIMS BLAMES S.F.POLICY

Update on Bologna Murders (Vanity)

Citizens Against Homicide (CAH) is a fantastic organization that assists the families and friends of victims of homicide. They assist in letter writing campaigns to parole boards, prosecutors and the media and are one of the best advocacy groups out there for the victims left after murder. I hope you all will take the time to visit their website and learn more www.citizensagainsthomicide.org. Many of you may have seen true life crime shows about one of their founders, Jane Alexander. Her aunt was viciously murdered by her then fiancé. At age 61 at the time of the crime, she spent almost a decade seeing that her former fiancé paid for his crimes. Now at age 86, she is still going strong, a feisty advocate who many prosecutors jump when they hear her name.

CAH’s September 2008 newsletter has an update on the lawsuit filed by the Bologna family after the horrific murder of a husband and two sons by an illegal alien. Please take the time to read this; we all as Americans need to get involved to stop the current practice of sanctuary cities.

FAMILY OF 3 VICTIMS BLAMES S.F. POLICY

By Jaxon Van Derbeken

August 23, 2008

Reprinted by permission

San Francisco’s immigrant sanctuary policies played a “substantial” role in the slayings of a father and two of his sons by allowing city officials to shield the alleged killer from deportation, despite his violent history, according to a legal claim filed Friday on behalf of the victims’ family.

The claim is likely to be followed by a wrongful death lawsuit in which the family of Tony Bologna and his sons could seek millions of dollars from the city.

Bologna, 48, an his sons Michael, 20 and Matthew, 16, were shot to death on a street in the Excelsior district June 22 by Edwin Ramos, 21 of El Sobrante, who authorities say is a member of a street gang, has been charged with three counts of murder.

Tony Bologna’s wife Danielle, and other relatives denounced the city’s sanctuary practices after The Chronicle reported that Ramos, a Salvadoran native suspected of being in this country illegally, had committed felony attempted robbery and assault as a juvenile.

The Chronicle reported that officials with the Juvenile Probation Department, relying on their interpretation of San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance, had not referred Ramos to federal immigration authorities for possible deportation. The ordinance bars city officials from cooperating with federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants.

After other Chronicle stories on the city’s practices appeared, however, City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office reiterated a 1994 legal opinion that nothing in the law prevented the city from handing over juveniles to federal immigration authorities, if the minors have committed felonies.

The city attorneys has 45 days to respond to the Bologna family’s claim. The city typically rejects such claims, after which plaintiffs are free to file suit.

A spokesman for Herrara declined to comment on the matter Friday, saying attorneys had not yet reviewed the claim.

In response to the claim, Mayor Gavin Newsom released a statement saying, “I am deeply saddened by the Bologna family’s terrible loss. My hear goes out to the family during this difficult time:.

Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s communications director, said it would be inappropriate for Newsom to comment on the specifics of the legal claim.

The claim does not make a specific request for damages. Lawyers for Bologna’s wife and his two surviving children assert in the claim that the city’s sanctuary policy was illegal, reckless and a “substantial factor” in the slayings.

The claim says the city new that Ramos was an illegal immigrant and was part of a gang, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), that attacked Latinos and African American men who were not members of the gang.

Police have theorized that Ramos shot the Bologna’s because he mistook them for rival gang members. The father and his sons were shot in their car as they returned home from a Sunday afternoon family barbecue.

Ramos’s attorney, Robert Amparan, has denied his client was a gang member or an illegal immigrant. Ramos has pleaded not guilty to the murder counts.

The Bolognas’s claim asserts that the city knew that federal immigration and customs enforcement officials were targeting illegal immigrant gang members for removal from the United States and would have sought to depot Ramos immediately had they known of his juvenile record.

“It is highly foreseeable that Ramos, upon his return to the streets of San Francisco, would murder men who appeared to be Latinos or African Americans,” the claim says.

The claim places blame on the city’s Juvenile Probation Department for adopting “official and unofficial policies” that amounted to unlawfully harboring illegal immigrants who committed violent crimes.

The claim says the city’s sanctuary policies and practices violated federal laws that grant “unfettered discretion” to local authorities to report to immigration officials any “dangerous person” not in this country legally.

“There are clearly many, many restrictions on when and whether (San Francisco) police officers can communicate with the federal government on an individual’s immigration status—and those restrictions played a role, in a significant way, to horrible events, that unfolded on June 22” said one of the family’s lawyers, Kris Kobach, a one-time counsel to former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

“it was just a horrific tragedy because it was preventable,” Kobach said. “If the city had followed the law, Anthony, Matthew and Michael Bologna would most certainly be alive today.”

The claim cites a 2006 bulletin to police officers signed by Chief Heather Fong limiting how and when officers could communicate with immigration authorities.

It also cites a directive issued by Newsom in March 2007, which prohibited “dissemination” of immigration information by police or other city departments to the federal government unless the agencies were required to do so by U.S. law.

The claim says the city created an environment that was hostile to anyone who would report offenders for deportation.

:All of these official enactments, orders, mandates and enforcements of...sanctuary policies were reinforced by an unwritten but enforced policy that discouraged police officers from reporting any illegal alien.” the claim says.

Citizens Against Homicide says…

This is only one of the hundreds of terrible tragedies that occur each year in every one of our “Sanctuary Cities” across this nation. It is sad and it is disappointing.

It is going to be up to each and every law abiding citizen to get involved. When someone that has been elected to an office and they take the oath to up hold the laws of their city and their State and then they turn around and kick sand in all of our faces...they say they will do what they want to do...that is the day impeachment MUST start. If we did this just a few times, the people in office will realize that they WORK for us..we PAY their salaries. We are the boss...but we are now all absentee bosses...we must come to the realization that we must care enough or there will be more and more murders that innocent families will have to endure The cost to the Citizens of these “Sanctuary Cities” and to the citizens of all of the surrounding cities and counties is not just murder. It is rape, assault, robbery etc, etc. At CAH we are addressing the topic of murder since that is the area of the criminal justice system that we are involved with.