S.F. police didn’t investigate gun theft before pier killing

Police chief Greg Suhr comments about the guilty verdicts handed down in federal court against Sergeant Ian Furminger and officer Edmond Robles in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, December 5, 2014. Police chief Greg Suhr comments about the guilty verdicts handed down in federal court against Sergeant Ian Furminger and officer Edmond Robles in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, December 5, 2014. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 59 Caption Close S.F. police didn’t investigate gun theft before pier killing 1 / 59 Back to Gallery

San Francisco police did not assign an investigator to look into the theft of a gun from a federal agent’s car — a pistol that is believed to have been used, four days later, to kill a woman walking with her father on Pier 14, authorities said Thursday.

Police Chief Greg Suhr said that the June 27 break-in of a car belonging to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger, which was reported to police, had not been assigned to an inspector by the time 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was killed along the Embarcadero on July 1. Steinle’s funeral was held Thursday outside her hometown of Pleasanton.

Suhr said he could not elaborate on why such a serious case had not been followed up on by an investigator. But Tuesday, the chief issued a department-wide bulletin reminding officers of the process in place for identifying “cases that require an immediate investigation.”

Station and investigations bureau lieutenants, he said, should review each police report and decide whether to refer the case to an inspector, taking into account such factors as whether the crime is serious, whether it is solvable and whether there are witnesses.

“It is the policy of the San Francisco Police Department to diligently investigate crimes in order to arrest and prosecute those responsible,” the Tuesday bulletin said.

Theft is one of the prime ways in which firearms are diverted to criminals on the streets, with 1.4 million guns reported stolen in the U.S. from 2005 to 2010, according to the Department of Justice.

The lack of follow-up in the burglary case, which raises questions about how the police force prioritizes investigations in a city that sees thousands of break-ins a year, is the latest turn in a homicide case that has drawn national attention, largely because of questions about the suspect’s release from San Francisco County Jail.

Report immediately filed

The Police Department has mostly stayed out of the fray as questions swirl over Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. The county Sheriff’s Department released him in April, even though federal immigration agents had asked that he be turned over for his sixth deportation.

Sgt. Michael Andraychak, a police spokesman, said Thursday that while the burglary case was not assigned to an inspector, officers who responded to the initial report did “conduct a thorough investigation.”

“They determined that there was nothing of evidentiary value at the scene and that calling out CSI was not warranted,” he said. “They searched the area for possible surveillance cameras and/or witnesses and located none. They had a citywide crime alert broadcast on police radio channels and a teletype was issued. All investigative leads were exhausted.”

Andraychak said a senior on-duty inspector had “determined that the officers had done a thorough investigation and that there were no further investigative leads and no potential for a follow-up investigation.”

Andraychak said Suhr’s bulletin was not a response to the gun theft.

The car break-in took place downtown and resulted in the theft of a .40-caliber handgun — the federal ranger’s service weapon, which was in a bag, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Dana Wilson, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman, said the ranger was in San Francisco on official government travel and immediately called police.

Four days after the theft, police and prosecutors said, Lopez-Sanchez discharged a gun, striking Steinle — a stranger — in the heart on Pier 14. He was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to murder, with his attorney suggesting the shooting may have been accidental. In a jailhouse interview with television station KGO, Lopez-Sanchez said he found a gun wrapped in a T-shirt under a bench.

Gun recovered in bay

Authorities believe Lopez-Sanchez tossed the gun he used into the bay after the shooting. Soon after, divers retrieved the federal agent’s gun from the waters. The agent’s gun, though, has not yet been definitively linked to Steinle’s death, police said.

According to law enforcement experts, car break-ins are notoriously difficult to solve as they often take place quickly and without any witnesses. Any fingerprints taken from the scene may only prove that a person touched the car at some point.

While not commenting on particulars of the recent break-in, Suhr said that because it involved the theft of a gun, the case should have been pushed higher on the assignment list. He noted that case assignment officers do not work weekends, and the break-in was reported on a Saturday.

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, whose office is representing Lopez-Sanchez, said he wanted to know how the theft of a federal agent’s service weapon was not considered a higher priority. His office has long said that the Pier 14 case is more about the proliferation of guns in society than about immigration.

“It confirms what every San Franciscan suspects: that police don’t bother to investigate auto burglaries,” he said. “If a federal agent losing his gun doesn’t warrant an investigator, the rest of us have no hope.”

Chronicle staff writer Jaxon Van Derbeken contributed to this report.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo