Edwin Ramos
Encyclopedia
Edwin U. Ramos is a Salvadoran gang member, convicted felon, and murder suspect. An illegal immigrant from El Salvador
and member of the Mara Salvatrucha
(MS-13) and Sureño street gangs, he is the suspect in the June 22, 2008 triple murder of Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, in San Francisco. If convicted, Ramos faces life imprisonment without parole. Ramos was born in El Salvador, grew up in San Francisco, and later moved to El Sobrante, California
. As a teenager, Ramos twice served probation for violent crimes but was not deported. Ramos's case brought much attention and outrage over San Francisco's sanctuary city
policy that prevented city officials from enforcing federal immigration law. Shortly after the murders, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
revised the policy to allow the city to refer undocumented juvenile felons to federal authorities.
, where he was raised by his grandmother. He illegally entered the United States when he was 13 to live with his mother and two siblings. In 2003, Ramos's mother reported him missing, and Ramos returned 11 days after his mother reported. On October 22 that year, Ramos was also one of three MS-13 members suspected of assaulting a man on a Muni
bus for claiming not to be a gang member. Juvenile Court convicted Ramos of assault and street gang membership and put him in a shelter. On probation, Ramos was released to his mother's custody on April 2, 2004, but four days later he assaulted a pregnant woman and her brother. Ramos was convicted of attempted robbery, a felony offense, but was cleared of assault and served probation at the city-run Log Cabin Ranch where he lived from June 2004 to February 2005. ("The purpose of the facility is provide a twenty-four a day residential program for juveniles of San Francisco who have been adjudicated delinquent by the Juvenile Courts and sent to Log Cabin for treatment and rehabilitation.")
After his release, he lived with his mother's sister. He applied to temporary residency but was declined; by then federal authorities then learned that Ramos was in the U.S. illegally and considered Ramos deportable. After marrying a woman who was a U.S. citizen, Ramos applied again for citizenship; his application was still pending as of 2008. The San Francisco Chronicle identified Ramos's wife as having the given name
Amelia and reported that the couple had a daughter named Jasmine in 2007. Amelia's mother, Rosa Martinez, knew that Ramos worked at City Auto Supply in South San Francisco and believed that Ramos was a gang member, thus warning Amelia not to marry Ramos.
Having been a member of the 20th Street MS-13 gang in San Francisco, Ramos later moved to El Sobrante and joined MS-13 ally Pasadena Loco Sureños (PLS). On March 30, 2008, Ramos was arrested after police discovered his car had illegally tinted windows, no license plate, and a passenger named Erick Lopez who tried to conceal a gun that police found was used in a double killing. According to the police report, Ramos cooperated with police, but Lopez ran away but was later caught and arrested. Police had "numerous documented contacts" with Ramos and Lopez and identified both as active MS-13 gang members. Prosecutors declined to charge Ramos due to lack of evidence that he knew about the gun. San Francisco sheriff's deputies called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine if the department wanted to hold Ramos in custody, but ICE declined.
district of San Francisco as they returned home in the afternoon from a family barbecue in Fairfield
. Bologna was on his way home to rest before reporting to his job as night manager at a supermarket later that afternoon. Another one of Tony's sons was critically injured. Jaxon Van Derbeken of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the incident initially as one of road rage
. Ramos was arrested and booked on murder charges three days later without bail.
Preliminary hearings were held in June 2009. The only survivor of the shooting identified Ramos as the shooter. In September 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Douglas Largaespada, an alleged MS-13 member, claimed that Ramos killed the Bolognas. Marvin Medina, who was injured in a shooting hours before the Bolognas were shot, testified in court in exchange for prosecutorial immunity. He repeatedly denied knowing Ramos or other MS-13 gang members; prosecutors questioned Medina to determine whether Ramos was seeking retaliation for the shooting of Medina in killing the Bolognas. However, Medina could not explain why he was driving around the San Francisco Mission District for two hours the day before he was shot and why he called several people but not 911 after being shot. On June 24, Sergeant Mario Molina, a San Francisco police officer
who was an expert on Latino gangs, testified that Ramos thought the Bolognas were rival Norteños
gang members. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Teri Jackson ruled on June 29 that Ramos would stand trial for three counts of murder, and Ramos pled not guilty on July 13. According to Sgt. Molina, Ramos stated that his friend Wilfredo "Flaco" Reyesruano, who police identified as a leader of MS-13, shot the Bolognas. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris
sought a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole
rather than the death penalty should Ramos be convicted. Mayor Newsom supported Harris's decision.
Harry Dorfman and George Butterworth represent the prosecution; Marla Zamora is representing Ramos in court. Judge Jackson removed Ramos's previous lead defense attorney Robert Amparan on January 7 because Amparan was representing Douglas Largaespada at the time.
Marvin Medina admitted on December 1, 2009 that he lied on the stand six months earlier and could not explain how Ramos obtained his cell-phone number. Additionally, Medina identified Reyesruano as the shooter of the Bolognas. When prosecutors attempted to check for a gang-related tattoo, Medina admitted that he was a former MS-13 member. As a result, Medina pled guilty to three counts of perjury regarding his claims that he did not know Reyesruano, he only met Ramos once before the preliminary hearings, and he was alone when he was shot in 2008. Having been in jail since the preliminary hearings ended, Medina was sentenced to three years of probation on January 12, 2010 with credit for time served but remained held on $1 million bail as a material witness.
policies for the crime. The policy "bars city officials from cooperating with federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants". On July 2, nearly a week after the murder of the Bolognas, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
amended the sanctuary city policy to allow the city to refer juvenile illegal immigrant felons to federal authorities for deportation. Members of the Minuteman Project, a group of private citizens who patrol the Mexico – United States border against illegal immigrants, held a protest at San Francisco City Hall
on July 30 denouncing the sanctuary city policy and calling for Mayor Newsom to resign. Cinnamon Stillwell wrote a column criticizing the policy. Jesse McKinley of The New York Times
cited the Ramos case as among several negative consequences of San Francisco's sanctuary policy. Danielle Bologna advocated for District Attorney Kamala Harris
to seek the death penalty for Ramos; among her campaign promises, Harris pledged never to seek capital punishment for any criminal case.
ruled on September 14, 2009 that Bologna could sue San Francisco in state court. Judge Charlotte Woolard of San Francisco Superior Court ruled on February 22, 2010 that the city cannot be liable for any crimes that Edwin Ramos committed post-release because the city had no information that Ramos posed a specific threat to the Bolognas and that the sanctuary city policy was intended "to improve immigration controls" rather than prevent crime.
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
and member of the Mara Salvatrucha
Mara Salvatrucha
Mara Salvatrucha is a transnational criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. The majority of the gang is ethnically composed of Central Americans and active in urban and suburban areas...
(MS-13) and Sureño street gangs, he is the suspect in the June 22, 2008 triple murder of Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, in San Francisco. If convicted, Ramos faces life imprisonment without parole. Ramos was born in El Salvador, grew up in San Francisco, and later moved to El Sobrante, California
El Sobrante, California
El Sobrante is a census-designated place in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 12,669 at the 2010 census...
. As a teenager, Ramos twice served probation for violent crimes but was not deported. Ramos's case brought much attention and outrage over San Francisco's sanctuary city
Sanctuary city
Sanctuary city is a term given to a city in the United States that follows certain practices that protect illegal immigrants. These practices can be by law or they can be by habit...
policy that prevented city officials from enforcing federal immigration law. Shortly after the murders, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007...
revised the policy to allow the city to refer undocumented juvenile felons to federal authorities.
Biography
Ramos was born in El SalvadorEl Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, where he was raised by his grandmother. He illegally entered the United States when he was 13 to live with his mother and two siblings. In 2003, Ramos's mother reported him missing, and Ramos returned 11 days after his mother reported. On October 22 that year, Ramos was also one of three MS-13 members suspected of assaulting a man on a Muni
San Francisco Municipal Railway
The San Francisco Municipal Railway is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California. In 2006, it served with an operating budget of about $700 million...
bus for claiming not to be a gang member. Juvenile Court convicted Ramos of assault and street gang membership and put him in a shelter. On probation, Ramos was released to his mother's custody on April 2, 2004, but four days later he assaulted a pregnant woman and her brother. Ramos was convicted of attempted robbery, a felony offense, but was cleared of assault and served probation at the city-run Log Cabin Ranch where he lived from June 2004 to February 2005. ("The purpose of the facility is provide a twenty-four a day residential program for juveniles of San Francisco who have been adjudicated delinquent by the Juvenile Courts and sent to Log Cabin for treatment and rehabilitation.")
After his release, he lived with his mother's sister. He applied to temporary residency but was declined; by then federal authorities then learned that Ramos was in the U.S. illegally and considered Ramos deportable. After marrying a woman who was a U.S. citizen, Ramos applied again for citizenship; his application was still pending as of 2008. The San Francisco Chronicle identified Ramos's wife as having the given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
Amelia and reported that the couple had a daughter named Jasmine in 2007. Amelia's mother, Rosa Martinez, knew that Ramos worked at City Auto Supply in South San Francisco and believed that Ramos was a gang member, thus warning Amelia not to marry Ramos.
Having been a member of the 20th Street MS-13 gang in San Francisco, Ramos later moved to El Sobrante and joined MS-13 ally Pasadena Loco Sureños (PLS). On March 30, 2008, Ramos was arrested after police discovered his car had illegally tinted windows, no license plate, and a passenger named Erick Lopez who tried to conceal a gun that police found was used in a double killing. According to the police report, Ramos cooperated with police, but Lopez ran away but was later caught and arrested. Police had "numerous documented contacts" with Ramos and Lopez and identified both as active MS-13 gang members. Prosecutors declined to charge Ramos due to lack of evidence that he knew about the gun. San Francisco sheriff's deputies called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine if the department wanted to hold Ramos in custody, but ICE declined.
Murder case and trial
On June 22, 2008, Tony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, were shot dead near their residence in the ExcelsiorExcelsior District, San Francisco, California
-Location:The Excelsior District is located along Mission Street, east of San Jose Ave, south of Interstate 280 Southern Fwy, west of John McLaren Park, and north of Geneva Avenue,This link includes a map including all areas considered part of the Excelsior....
district of San Francisco as they returned home in the afternoon from a family barbecue in Fairfield
Fairfield, California
Fairfield is a city located in Solano County in Northern California, USA. It is generally considered the midpoint between the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, approximately from the city center of both cities, approximately from the city center of Oakland, less than from Napa Valley, 18...
. Bologna was on his way home to rest before reporting to his job as night manager at a supermarket later that afternoon. Another one of Tony's sons was critically injured. Jaxon Van Derbeken of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the incident initially as one of road rage
Road rage
Road rage is an aggressive or angry behavior by a driver of an automobile or other motor vehicle. Such behavior might include rude gestures, verbal insults, deliberately driving in an unsafe or threatening manner, or making threats. Road rage can lead to altercations, assaults, and collisions...
. Ramos was arrested and booked on murder charges three days later without bail.
Preliminary hearings were held in June 2009. The only survivor of the shooting identified Ramos as the shooter. In September 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Douglas Largaespada, an alleged MS-13 member, claimed that Ramos killed the Bolognas. Marvin Medina, who was injured in a shooting hours before the Bolognas were shot, testified in court in exchange for prosecutorial immunity. He repeatedly denied knowing Ramos or other MS-13 gang members; prosecutors questioned Medina to determine whether Ramos was seeking retaliation for the shooting of Medina in killing the Bolognas. However, Medina could not explain why he was driving around the San Francisco Mission District for two hours the day before he was shot and why he called several people but not 911 after being shot. On June 24, Sergeant Mario Molina, a San Francisco police officer
San Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
who was an expert on Latino gangs, testified that Ramos thought the Bolognas were rival Norteños
Norteños
The Norteños , also Norte, are affiliated with Nuestra Familia , are a coalition of traditionally Latino gangs in Northern California A member of these gangs is a Norteño or Norteña based on Spanish usage...
gang members. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Teri Jackson ruled on June 29 that Ramos would stand trial for three counts of murder, and Ramos pled not guilty on July 13. According to Sgt. Molina, Ramos stated that his friend Wilfredo "Flaco" Reyesruano, who police identified as a leader of MS-13, shot the Bolognas. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris is an American attorney. She is the 32nd and current Attorney General of California following the 2010 California state elections. Harris has worked as an author and a politician and has served as District Attorney of San Francisco since 2004...
sought a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
rather than the death penalty should Ramos be convicted. Mayor Newsom supported Harris's decision.
Harry Dorfman and George Butterworth represent the prosecution; Marla Zamora is representing Ramos in court. Judge Jackson removed Ramos's previous lead defense attorney Robert Amparan on January 7 because Amparan was representing Douglas Largaespada at the time.
Marvin Medina admitted on December 1, 2009 that he lied on the stand six months earlier and could not explain how Ramos obtained his cell-phone number. Additionally, Medina identified Reyesruano as the shooter of the Bolognas. When prosecutors attempted to check for a gang-related tattoo, Medina admitted that he was a former MS-13 member. As a result, Medina pled guilty to three counts of perjury regarding his claims that he did not know Reyesruano, he only met Ramos once before the preliminary hearings, and he was alone when he was shot in 2008. Having been in jail since the preliminary hearings ended, Medina was sentenced to three years of probation on January 12, 2010 with credit for time served but remained held on $1 million bail as a material witness.
Impact on sanctuary city policy
Tony Bologna's widow Danielle and other relatives of the slain family members blamed San Francisco's sanctuary citySanctuary city
Sanctuary city is a term given to a city in the United States that follows certain practices that protect illegal immigrants. These practices can be by law or they can be by habit...
policies for the crime. The policy "bars city officials from cooperating with federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants". On July 2, nearly a week after the murder of the Bolognas, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007...
amended the sanctuary city policy to allow the city to refer juvenile illegal immigrant felons to federal authorities for deportation. Members of the Minuteman Project, a group of private citizens who patrol the Mexico – United States border against illegal immigrants, held a protest at San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world...
on July 30 denouncing the sanctuary city policy and calling for Mayor Newsom to resign. Cinnamon Stillwell wrote a column criticizing the policy. Jesse McKinley of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
cited the Ramos case as among several negative consequences of San Francisco's sanctuary policy. Danielle Bologna advocated for District Attorney Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris is an American attorney. She is the 32nd and current Attorney General of California following the 2010 California state elections. Harris has worked as an author and a politician and has served as District Attorney of San Francisco since 2004...
to seek the death penalty for Ramos; among her campaign promises, Harris pledged never to seek capital punishment for any criminal case.
Bologna's civil suit against San Francisco
On August 22, 2008, Danielle Bologna and other family members sued San Francisco, claiming that its sanctuary city policy contributed significantly to the three deaths. The city removed Bologna's civil suit to federal court because Bologna's case involved violations of federal constitutional rights, and Judge Susan IllstonSusan Illston
Susan Yvonne Illston is a San Francisco, California-based judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.-Biography:...
ruled on September 14, 2009 that Bologna could sue San Francisco in state court. Judge Charlotte Woolard of San Francisco Superior Court ruled on February 22, 2010 that the city cannot be liable for any crimes that Edwin Ramos committed post-release because the city had no information that Ramos posed a specific threat to the Bolognas and that the sanctuary city policy was intended "to improve immigration controls" rather than prevent crime.