Edwin Ramos
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The Murder of the Bologna family occurred on June 22, 2008 when Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, were shot dead near their residence in the
Excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...
district of
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
by Edwin Ramos Umaña, who mistook the victims as rival gang members for whom he wanted retaliation.


Edwin Ramos

Edwin Ramos Umaña (born October 12, 1986) is a Salvadoran gang member and convicted triple murderer. An
illegal immigrant Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...
from
El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
and member of the
Mara Salvatrucha Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1970s and 1980s. Originally, the gang was set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Ange ...
(MS-13) gang, he was convicted in 2012 of the June 22, 2008 slayings of Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. 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 Sanctuary city (; ) refers to municipal jurisdictions, typically in North America, that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law. Leaders of sanctuary cities say they want to reduce fear of deport ...
policy that prevented city officials from enforcing federal immigration law. Shortly after the murders, San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...
revised the policy to allow the city to refer undocumented juvenile felons to federal authorities.


Perpetrator

Ramos was born in El Salvador, where he was raised by his grandmother. The ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' reported in 2008 that Ramos illegally entered the United States when he was 13 to live with his mother and two siblings, but later reports suggested that Ramos was a legal immigrant whose
visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...
expired. 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 Muni may refer to: Municipal * A common US abbreviation for municipal, municipal services, and the like *Municipal bond *Municipal Bridge, the former name of the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky *"Muni", slang for a mu ...
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 to provide a twenty-four-hour-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 for temporary residency but was declined; by then federal authorities had learned that Ramos was in the U.S. illegally. In 2006, former MS-13 leader turned informant Jaime Martinez told the FBI that Ramos killed 21-year-old Norteño gang member Rolando "Chino" Valldares in the Mission District of San Francisco. 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 The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...
(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 (age 48) and his sons, Michael and Matthew (ages 20 and 16, respectively), were shot dead near their residence in the
Excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...
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 Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by motorists. These behaviors include rude and verbal insults, yelling, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted at other drivers, pedestrians or cyclists in an effort to intimid ...
. Ramos (age 21) 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 The Mission District (Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission (Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is ...
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 Norteños (Spanish: meaning ''Northerners''; ''Norteñas'' for females) are the various, affiliated gangs that pay tribute to Nuestra Familia while in California state and federal correctional facilities. Norteños may refer to Northern Calif ...
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 pleaded not guilty on July 13. According to Sgt. Molina, Ramos stated that his friend Wilfredo "Flaco" Reyesruano, whom police identified as a leader of MS-13, shot the Bolognas. San Francisco District Attorney
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
sought a maximum sentence of
life in prison without parole Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
rather than the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
should Ramos be convicted. Mayor Newsom supported Harris's decision. Harry Dorfman and George Butterworth represented the prosecution; Marla Zamora represented 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 had 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 pleaded guilty to three counts of perjury regarding his claims that he had not known Reyesruano, that he had met Ramos only once before the preliminary hearings, and that 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. In May 2012, a jury in San Francisco convicted Ramos of killing the Bolognas and attempting to murder a surviving member of the family. Judge Charles Haines sentenced Ramos to 183 years to life without parole on June 11, 2012.


Effects on sanctuary city policy

Tony Bologna's widow Danielle and other relatives of the slain family members blamed San Francisco's
sanctuary city Sanctuary city (; ) refers to municipal jurisdictions, typically in North America, that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law. Leaders of sanctuary cities say they want to reduce fear of deport ...
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 Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...
amended the sanctuary city policy to allow the city to refer juvenile illegal alien felons to federal authorities for deportation. Members of the
Minuteman Project The Minuteman Project is an organization which was founded in the United States in August 2004 by a group of private individuals who sought to extrajudicially monitor the United States–Mexico border's flow of illegal immigrants. Founded by J ...
, a group of private citizens who patrol the
Mexico – United States border Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
against illegal aliens, held a protest at
San Francisco City Hall San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomi ...
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 Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' cited the Ramos case as among several negative consequences of San Francisco's sanctuary policy. Danielle Bologna advocated for District Attorney
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
to seek the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
for Ramos, but 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 Illston Susan Yvonne Illston (born June 24, 1948) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1995. She ...
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 couldn't 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.


Appeal

Ramos appealed his case. "On appeal, he contends the court erred by admitting the following evidence at trial: (1) defendant’s allegedly involuntary incriminating statements made during extended police interrogation, (2) the lay opinion of the investigating police officer that defendant, rather than an accomplice, was the shooter, and (3) excessive, cumulative and prejudicial testimony about defendant’s membership and participation in a criminal street gang." The California Court of Appeal for the First District upheld Ramos's convictions but ordered a sentencing correction on August 20, 2014.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bologna MS-13 Crimes in San Francisco 2008 in San Francisco Family murders 2008 murders in the United States People murdered in California Deaths by firearm in California