At a community meeting in Duarte hosted by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department last week, one name surfaced often.
"I'm here because of Kate Steinle's death and because I care about illegal aliens being cut loose and let out on the streets," Orange resident Mike McGetrick told a panel of sheriff's officials who are pondering a shift in policy at the county's jails. "When is the next American citizen going to be murdered?"
When a five-time deportee with a history of drug-related felonies was charged in the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle on a San Francisco pier this month, a debate that had been simmering for years again roared into the national spotlight: Just how much should local law enforcement cooperate with federal immigration authorities?