Anita Shaw says her son was murdered by a gang member who was an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and it was her experience and the much-talked about murder of Kathryn Steinle that convinced her that Donald Trump was right about immigration.
“It makes me sad, it makes me angry, it makes me frustrated. It’s amazing to me that the same incident is still going on today. It’s like, when will the public wake up and do something. And this guy who is running for President, Donald Trump, he’s trying to do something and they’re trying to shut him down,” she said.
The 17-year-old Jamiel Jr. was killed in 2008 by gang member Pedro Espinoza because Jamiel was wearing a red Spiderman backpack and Espinoza mistook him for a rival gang member.
Shaw said her son’s death was even more upsetting because she felt it could have been prevented. After all, her son’s killer had been deported five times and had been arrested four before on charges of marijuana possession.
“I still don’t understand why it happened, just like what happened in San Francisco, why wasn’t this guy deported after he was released from prison. ‘Sanctuary City’, that’s crazy,” Shaw said, noting that she had received the news of her son’s death while she was serving with the Army in Iraq.
“When I heard about the girl in San Francisco, I said, ‘oh no, not again’, she was so pretty and so young and to be with her father and her brother when it happened, just enjoying her day, and then all of a sudden no more.”
She continued, “And then when I found out he was an illegal alien, I felt everyone was trying to keep it quiet, I felt like because he was an illegal alien it was alright that he killed my son. It felt like an American citizen living in the United States is not worth anything, but my son was worth something.”