Last week Judicial Watch filed a California Public Records
Request with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department to obtain arrest and
booking records related to Edwin Ramos, an illegal alien charged with a June
22, 2008, triple murder of three innocent American citizens.
We want “All public records concerning or relating
to any arrest and/or booking of Edwin Ramos.”
For those of you unfamiliar with this story, Ramos gunned
down Tony Bologna and his sons Michael and Matthew with an AK-47 following a
minor traffic incident on June 22. According to press reports Ramos, an
illegal alien from El Salvador, had been arrested on three prior occasions, and
convicted of two felonies, but was never turned over to federal immigration
authorities “largely as a result of San Francisco's self-imposed
sanctuary status.” San Francisco law
prohibits local officials from cooperating with federal officials in deporting
illegal aliens.
As recently as March 2008, Ramos was arrested after police
discovered a gun that had been used in a double homicide in his car. The
district attorney’s office did not press charges and Ramos was
released. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated that the agency was
never notified of the arrest.
(If all of this sounds
tragically familiar, it should. You may recall that Judicial Watch
recently launched an investigation into the arrest of Pedro Espinoza, the
illegal alien gang member who murdered high school student Jamiel Shaw on March
2nd in Los Angeles. Espinoza had been released from a Culver City, California,
jail the day before the murder. Judicial Watch obtained Espinoza’s
booking record. Check it out here.
Culver City, by the way, is also a sanctuary city. Los Angeles is
stonewalling our records request for its documents on Espinoza.)
The murder of these three innocents in San
Francisco is a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of
illegal alien sanctuary policies. Ramos should have been deported long
ago. Instead, San Francisco
authorities put him back on the streets, and now three people are dead. We
suspect the documents about Ramos’ earlier arrests will show that San
Francisco’s sanctuary policy was in part responsible for
these terrible crimes.
As some of you may recall, Judicial Watch already has an
important appeal of a taxpayer lawsuit against San Francisco related
to its self-imposed status as an illegal alien sanctuary city (Fonseca v. Fong, Case No. A120206).
Judicial Watch also recently launched a brand new Internet
site dedicated to fighting illegal alien sanctuary policies across the United
States. You’ll be hearing more about this in the
next few days, but in the meantime you can go to: www.sanctuarybusters.org.