SAN JOSE — City officials on Wednesday decried the deadly weekend stabbing spree at a downtown San Jose church shelter as “preventable,” blasting the court system and a permissive county sanctuary policy for allowing a suspect with a violent recent history to return to the streets.
In many other counties, and under state law, it’s possible three-time deportee Fernando Jesus Lopez could have ended up in the custody of federal immigration authorities upon his June release from county jail.
Instead, on Sunday, Lopez, 32, stabbed five people at the homeless shelter operated at Grace Baptist Church, killing a man and woman and injuring three men, police say. A volunteer, who also works for the city, and a church employee were among the injured.
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One of the people killed was identified Wednesday as 45-year-old John Paulson, who was homeless. Police said four of the five victims were unhoused people either staying or working at the shelter.
Mayor Sam Liccardo and Police Chief Eddie Garcia both referenced Lopez’s criminal past and assailed the county’s policy of non-cooperation with federal immigration authorities at a Wednesday news conference. City leaders took a similarly critical stance last year after Bambi Larson’s slaying in San Jose, allegedly at the hands of an undocumented immigrant who was the subject of several civil detention requests from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents beforehand.
At the time of the Sunday stabbing, Lopez had a pending misdemeanor domestic-violence charge in Santa Clara County following a June 25 arrest, while he was on probation for a felony domestic-violence conviction in San Joaquin County from earlier that month. Court records show that Judge Drew Takaichi granted him supervised release on June 30, but that release was revoked Aug. 31 after Lopez failed to show up to court.
In 2011, he was convicted in the South Bay for assault with a deadly weapon and issued a two-year prison term, according to court records and authorities. He had been deported three times before, authorities said.
Santa Clara County’s sanctuary policy — which was reaffirmed last year after heated debate following Larson’s killing — bars county law enforcement from alerting ICE about the pending jail release of an undocumented immigrant being sought for deportation. The county’s policy is stricter than the state’s sanctuary law, which prohibits the detainment of released inmates for ICE absent a judicial warrant but allows for notifications about an imminent jail release.
“In those very rare circumstances where an undocumented offender has a record of violent or serious prior convictions, the county should be acting in accordance with the state’s Values Act,” Liccardo said. “The state has set out a balanced approach to both protect our immigrant community and public safety. The county should do the same.”
Liccardo also spoke to concerns voiced by many over the past few days that the attack would be used to fuel sentiment against and unhoused people.
“Nothing about this brutal attack should cause anyone to generalize or cast aspersions over our unhoused neighbors who are brutally challenged every day to survive the streets of our city,” he said, “nor on our immigrant community, the overwhelming majority of which consists of neighbors who are working hard every day to support their families.”
The county’s policy rationale has been that assessing an inmate’s immigration status is beyond its scope and responsibility, and that ICE agents are free to detain people themselves or obtain a warrant. County Executive Jeff Smith agreed with Liccardo that homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse were problems further highlighted and exposed by Sunday’s tragedy but called it “disappointing they would have a press conference and take advantage of these two deaths to promote their political agenda.”
County Public Defender Molly O’Neal said “blaming the county’s non-cooperation policy with ICE for what happened is just another attempt to scapegoat the immigrant community.”
“The reasons are many why the sanctuary policy remains sound and should be left alone,” she added. “The county and law enforcement in general shouldn’t be in the business of acting as ICE agents — that results in less cooperation by the immigrant community and confuses the public on the role of local government.”
Opponents of the policy, including most of the county’s law-enforcement agencies, argue for a carve-out for violent criminals.
David Jennings, the San Francisco field office director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, said his agency repeatedly failed to get notifications for Lopez’s jail releases in San Joaquin and Santa Clara counties, creating a situation where “the only person this policy protected was a criminal.”
Elisa Della-Piana, legal director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, called attempts to tie the killings to immigration policy a “red herring. She referenced studies showing no link between immigration status and crime, and warned that without sanctuary policies, many crimes would not be reported if they involve undocumented victims.
“We live in a time of unprecedented animus and hatred against immigrants because they’re immigrants,” Della-Piana said. “And in this case, and in all cases, people are individuals and they make individual choices. And one of the primary tenets of our country is we don’t decide in advance about someone because of their status.”
Garcia and Liccardo both lamented how Lopez was granted supervised release for his domestic-violence charge, despite being on active probation for the out-of-county conviction for the same crime. Records also show he had at least two prior domestic-violence arrests in the South Bay.
“It’s the judge’s prerogative, but I still want to know exactly why he was released when he has an extensive domestic-violence criminal history at a time when we know it’s such an important issue,” Garcia said in an interview. “If this individual wouldn’t be in custody, who would be?”
Lopez was arrested Sunday night following the stabbings, which were reported at 7:54 p.m. Sunday at the Grace Baptist church grounds at 10th and San Fernando streets across from San Jose State University.
Responding officers found five victims. Paulson died at the scene, and the woman who was gravely injured died at a local hospital. Her name has not been released by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office pending her formal identification and notification of her next of kin.
Shelter workers and volunteers described Lopez as friendly, upbeat and helpful while he stayed at the shelter to escape frigid nighttime temperatures. Since the attacks, they have struggled to reconcile the person they say they knew with the acts he is alleged to have committed.
Grace Baptist Pastor Dave Robinson said he is upset that Sunday’s tragedy is being used as ammunition against the county’s sanctuary policy.
“It’s tragic that this happened,” he said. “But this is not representative of immigration policies like that. I see it as far more representative of the traumatized nature of people living on the streets and our lack of resources that are being provided to folks.”
But the stabbings have prompted Garcia to wonder aloud what threshold has to be reached to warrant a new approach.
“I understand the arguments that have been made with regards to one incident can’t dictate policy change. … How many incidents does it take?” Garcia said. “It’s obvious that things need to change, and we’re going to have to do it together.”
