As San Francisco District Attorney, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) refused to seek the death penalty in one of the city’s most high-profile murder cases, where an illegal alien MS-13 gang member killed a father and two of his sons.
On June 22, 2008, 48-year-old Anthony Bologna and his three sons — 20-year-old Michael, 18-year-old Andrew, and 16-year-old Matthew — were driving home from a family barbeque in San Francisco, California, when illegal alien MS-13 gang member Edwin Ramos, driving alongside them, randomly opened fire.
Ramos killed Anthony, Michael, and Matthew in the shooting. Prosecutors said Ramos shot the Bolognas because he misidentified them as rival gang members who were involved in a gang murder that day.
The murder case rose to prominence as Harris, who is now Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s running mate, was San Francisco District Attorney. Harris later became California Attorney General.
Ramos, it was soon revealed, had been arrested and convicted on a number of previous violent crimes, but San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy shielded him from ever being turned over to federal immigration officials.
After Ramos was charged with three counts of murder, Angel Mom Danielle Bologna pleaded publicly with Harris to seek the death penalty. Harris had previously committed to never seek the death penalty as district attorney.
“The district attorney really needs to pay attention — she doesn’t have kids, she doesn’t know what this means,” Bologna told the San Francisco Gate at the time.
Bologna continued:
“Seeking the death penalty, this will make a statement so people won’t just kill families for no reason,” said Bologna, who is left to raise a son and daughter on her own. “They have the power to stop this. They have to stop with the excuses — this is not her family, this is my family.” [Emphasis added]
Violence in the city, Bologna said, “has gone too far. Nothing is getting done. Why did we put her here, if she is not going to stop this? This is huge. I have lost a husband and two kids.” [Emphasis added]
A year and three months after the Bologna murders, Harris announced that she would not seek the death penalty for Ramos despite overwhelming evidence — including a surviving eyewitness to the murders — of his premeditation in the case.
Angel Mom Danielle Bologna was devastated by the news.
“She feels that not only did she lose half her family, she lost her home because she was forced to move so she could protect the rest of her family,” a family spokesman said at the time. “With this decision, it will just never end.”
Instead of the death penalty, Ramos was sentenced to three life terms in prison without the possibility of parole in June 2012.
Harris’ opposition to the death penalty was thrown out when she sought the votes of California voters in her run for attorney general. After having been elected by saying she would enforce capital punishment, Harris defended the death penalty in court in 2014.
In the United States Senate, Harris has opposed the death penalty. Last year, she applauded California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) when he placed a moratorium on the state’s capital punishment laws.
Harris, in her statement, called the death penalty “immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Now, as Biden’s running mate, she and the former vice president’s agenda includes eliminating the death penalty altogether. On immigration, Biden and Harris have vowed a nationwide sanctuary policy that fights states and localities who committed to cooperating with federal immigration officials.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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