An undocumented immigrant accused of fatally shooting a woman on San Francisco’s waterfront said in a jailhouse interview Monday that it was an accident and he was sorry.
In the interview with ABC7 affiliate KGO-TV, Francisco Sanchez, a convicted felon, also said he returned to San Francisco after being deported five times because of its status as a "sanctuary city."
The fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle, 32, as she took a stroll with her father last week set off a national debate about San Francisco’s policy to only honor immigration holds for people with violent records or who have an outstanding arrest warrant.
Sanchez, 45, was taken into custody earlier this year on a drug warrant and then released in April, despite a request from Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials to transfer him into their custody for deportation.
San Francisco officials said there was no basis to hold Sanchez since he didn’t have any violent crime convictions or a warrant out for his arrest.
In the interview that aired Monday, Sanchez said he found the gun wrapped inside a T-shirt and that it went off three times as he tried to unwrap it.
“I feel sorry for the everybody,” Sanchez said in broken English.
“I want them to punish me like I deserve and as quickly as possible,” he later said in Spanish.
LINK: twitter.com
Sanchez said he didn’t remember much of what occurred when he shot Steinle because he took a sleeping pill from a bottle he found on the street.
Later, he said he stepped on the T-shirt when he sat on a bench and noticed there was something heavy inside of it, which led him to unwrap the gun and subsequently set it off.
However, Sanchez also told the reporter that he told police he was trying to shoot a sea lion or a seal were true. He also said he remembers throwing the gun into the water before walking away.
Because of his limited English, it wasn’t always clear in the video if Sanchez understood the questions he was asked since he often gave conflicting accounts.
At the end of the interview, Sanchez said he wants police to put him in solitary confinement because he was told by law enforcement that inmates wanted to kill him.
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