USA TODAY EDITORIALIZES: S.F. ‘sanctuary’ policy violates common sense: Killing of Kathryn Steinle reflects costs of lack of cooperation with immigration authorities.

Lopez-Sanchez was in the San Francisco County jail in April and should have been deported yet again. Federal immigration authorities had lodged a “detainer,” seeking to get custody and do just that. All they needed was a call or other contact from the sheriff’s office.

The contact was never made, not because of some ghastly mistake or miscommunication but because of a city ordinance that prohibits police from honoring detainers except in rare cases. And, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, because of a policy by the local sheriff that bars contact with immigration authorities. After a local charge against Lopez-Sanchez was dropped, he was held for three weeks, then put on the street.

On July 1, less than three months later, Steinle, 32, was dead, collateral damage in a long-running feud between the local and federal governments over deportation.

Say, have we ever found out the name of the federal agent whose gun Lopez-Sanchez used? The best I could find was that it was an unnamed agent of the BLM. I’m guessing that if it were a gun stolen from or lost by a private citizen we’d know who it was. But if it’s one of the anointed, the rules are different.