“Lopez-Sanchez confessed to the shooting but said it was an accident. He said that he found the gun, wrapped in a T-shirt, under a bench and that it went off three times when he picked it up.”
The gun went off THREE times accidentally? How is it possible that anyone believes this? That a prosecutor was unable to prove that this isn’t even possible?
The tragedy unfolded as Steinle, a medical device sales representative who recently moved to the city from nearby Pleasanton, was posing for photos at Pier 14 with her father, who had his arm around her.
“There was a pop, and Kate went down,” 68-year-old Jim Steinle told the San Francisco Chronicle. She died later at San Francisco General Hospital.
Police said that the suspect never exchanged words with Steinle and that the shooting appears random.
In an interview Sunday with KGO, Lopez-Sanchez confessed to the shooting but said it was an accident. He said that he found the gun, wrapped in a T-shirt, under a bench and that it went off three times when he picked it up.
He said he then kicked the gun into San Francisco Bay and walked off, not knowing he had shot someone until police arrested him an hour later on a nearby street corner. He reportedly first told police he had been shooting at sea lions.
Lopez-Sanchez also told an interviewer he was high on sleeping pills and marijuana at the time.
Police were helped in their search for the suspect by photos taken by bystanders.
The next day, a gun believed to have been used in the shooting was recovered from the water next to the pier by police dive teams using sonar equipment.
by Michael Winter and Matthew Diebel, USA TODAY
