Harris Released Illegal Immigrant Charged With Unlicensed Driving As San Francisco DA. He Killed Someone Shortly After

An illegal immigrant that then-San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris released from custody after police caught him driving without a license went on to kill a young law student months later with his car, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Tuesday.

Harris’ office dropped charges against Roberto Galo in June 2010 after he was stopped by police for driving the wrong way down a one-way road and arrested for operating a vehicle without a license, according to the Free Beacon. Months later, in November 2010, he slammed his car into 25-year-old law student Drew Rosenberg after making a left-hand turn at a yellow light, driving his car over his body multiple times in an apparent attempt to escape.

“What I’ve now learned is what happened to me is the rule, not the exception to the rule,” Don Rosenberg, Drew’s father, told the Free Beacon. “My son is dead because the DA did not believe (and continues to believe) that driving without a license is a big deal.”

A person near the scene of Galo’s crash had to stand in front of his vehicle to prevent him from fleeing the scene of the crime, the Free Beacon reported. It took five men to lift Galo’s vehicle off Rosenberg’s body.

San Francisco law enforcement under Harris was reluctant at the time to prosecute cases against unlicensed drivers as activists claimed that such laws targeted illegal immigrants unfairly, according to the Free Beacon. A prosecutor in Harris’ DA office later told Rosenberg that her office prosecuted zero cases against unlicensed drivers during the year prior to his son’s death.

Galo was initially charged with vehicular homicide, but a judge later reduced the charge to misdemeanor homicide, the Free Beacon reported. Rosenberg said that Harris’ office failed to provide him with the date of the court hearing where the charges against Galo were reduced and initially declined to appeal the downgraded charges.