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SAN FRANCISCO — In a stunning verdict that quickly reignited a national firestorm over illegal immigration, a San Francisco jury on Thursday found an undocumented immigrant not guilty in the shooting death of Kate Steinle two years ago on a San Francisco pier.

The jury, which included three immigrants, found 54-year-old Jose Ines Garcia Zarate guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm, but after nearly a week of deliberations it acquitted the five-time-deported Mexican national on first-degree and second-degree murder charges as well as involuntary manslaughter.

“A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case!” President Donald Trump tweeted late Thursday night. “No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration.”

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office had argued that Garcia Zarate intentionally aimed a gun at Steinle and fired at her, before throwing the weapon into San Francisco Bay and running away. But the defense argued that Steinle’s death was a freak accident, saying that the gun had accidentally fired after the homeless man found it wrapped in a towel. The shot ricocheted off Pier 14 in San Francisco’s Embarcadero district, the defense argued, and tragically struck the 32-year-old Pleasanton woman in the back before she died in her father’s arms during an evening stroll.

Garcia Zarate, wearing a light white striped shirt and dark slacks, showed no reaction as the verdicts were read, shifting forward only once when the court clerk read that he was not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

The jury of six men and six women stared straight ahead, emotionless and not reacting. And Judge Samuel Feng’s courtroom was mostly silent during the verdict, a stark contrast to the frenzy created by reporters waiting in hallways outside for news of the verdict.

Steinle’s family was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read, but family members told the San Francisco Chronicle that they were stunned.

“We’re just shocked — saddened and shocked. … That’s about it,” said Steinle’s father, Jim. “There’s no other way you can coin it. Justice was rendered, but it was not served.”

Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office, said it was a “verdict we were not hoping for.”

“We will respect that decision,” he said. “This is really about the Steinle family. Our hearts go out (to) them.”

Defense attorney Matt Gonzalez said this “verdict should be respected.”

Gonzalez, the chief attorney in the San Francisco’s Public Defender’s Office, said it was important to remember that the president, vice president and attorney general were under investigation themselves and should appreciate that they would be afforded the protections of the justice system.

“Before you start tweeting or commenting on this outcome, just reflect on the fact that all of us get these protections,” he said. “We get a right to a jury. We get these burdens of proof. We have to respect that a jury that spent this much time on this case got it right.”

The verdict drew swift and impassioned reaction from across the country in a case that Trump has held up as an outrageous example of how San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” laws fly in the face of public safety.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a statement saying that the “Department of Justice will continue to ensure that all jurisdictions place the safety and security of their communities above the convenience of criminal aliens.”

“When jurisdictions choose to return criminal aliens to the streets rather than turning them over to federal immigration authorities, they put the public’s safety at risk.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a tweet: “I am disappointed and angry at the not guilty verdict for Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an illegal alien who had several felony convictions & was deported from the US five times. Justice must be served for Kate Steinle.”

A coalition of Bay Area immigrant advocacy organizations — among them the California Immigrant Policy Center, the Asian Law Caucus and La Raza Centro Legal — extended their condolences to the Steinle family. During these difficult moments, the coalition said in a statement, the American people and their elected representatives face a choice:

“Will we allow this tragedy to be used to further an extremist agenda? Or will we come together amidst the grief to advance our deepest values as a society?”

Added the statement: “The administration and xenophobic forces will likely seek to exploit this tragedy once again to demonize all immigrants and bolster support for deporting millions of people who are part of the fabric of our communities.”

The group also said sanctuary policies “are vital to defending all people against troubling abuses of federal power, limiting racial profiling and addressing a growing crisis of confidence in law enforcement.”

The Rev. Jon Pedigo, director for advocacy and community engagement at Catholic Charities of Silicon Valley, said it was clear from the start that the shooting was unintentional.

“There’s no getting around the tragedy that this woman was killed,” he said. “A person picked up a gun and did not know what to do with it. But it’s unfortunate that this woman’s death was used and abused for political point-making by Trump and the anti-immigrant movement. It was used as a way to attack solid policies.

“We need to be clear about what the significance of this is,” he added. “The Constitution won. Due process won.”

But Greg Woods, a lecturer in the Justice Studies Department at San Jose State, said: “It was a shocking verdict for many reasons. I think in many ways this verdict is going to be a siren song for many people, whether they advocate for sanctuary city policies or whether they advocate much of the same sentiments exercised by the voters that landed our current executive where he is.”

The case attracted national attention when details emerged about his immigration status. Even though Garcia Zarate had been deported several times, he was released from a San Francisco jail after being held on a drug charge instead of being sent back to Mexico.

Tom Homan. acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on Thursday blamed San Francisco’s policy of “refusing to honor ICE detainers” for Steinle’s death.

“This tragedy could have been prevented if San Francisco had simply turned the alien over to ICE, as we requested, instead of releasing him back onto the streets. It is unconscionable that politicians across this country continue to endanger the lives of Americans with sanctuary policies while ignoring the harm inflicted on their constituents.”

Both the prosecution and the defense kept politics and the immigration debate out of the courtroom during the four-week trial, focusing instead on evidence such as bullet trajectories, gunshot residue and security video analysis.

Much of the trial focused on the Sig Sauer pistol that fired the fatal shot. The weapon was stolen from a federal Bureau of Land Management agent’s car several days before the shooting. The defense called a weapons expert, who said that make of gun has a history of misfiring, while the prosecution maintained that it would be difficult to fire it unintentionally.

Law experts weighed in on the verdicts, how the case was pursued and the ramifications.

“They must have thought it was an accident,” said Bay Area criminal defense attorney Anthony Boskovich. “The verdict means they believed his version and his experts’ testimony.

“This is going to cause a furor, given our current political climate,” Boskovich added. “The feds are going to see this as a runaway San Francisco jury, and it will further fuel the crackdown on immigrants.”

San Jose defense attorney Dennis Alan Lempert said the prosecution should have pursued a charge of negligent discharge of a weapon rather than murder in the first- or second-degree and involuntary manslaughter.

“The notion that it was an intentional shot to kill somebody belies credulity,” said Lempert, a former reserve officer with the Los Gatos police, noting that the bullet ricocheted off the pavement, ultimately traveling 200 feet — the equivalent of more than 10 lanes of traffic. “But the pressure on the prosecution was enormous.”

Judge Feng thanked the jurors for their service, stating that they have “all been fantastic” during the three-week-long trial.

Garcia Zarate, who has spent more than two years in jail, faces 16 months to three years for being a felon in possession of a firearm. There is no sentencing date.