

The fatal shooting of an Oakland muralist marks the second time in roughly two months that a gun stolen from a federal official allegedly was used in a San Francisco-area murder.

A local CBS TV station reported Tuesday that the gun allegedly used to kill muralist Antonio Ramos on Sept. 29 was stolen 16 days earlier from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

ICE has acknowledged the theft but has neither confirmed nor denied whether that gun was used to kill Ramos, 27, while he was working on a peace mural beneath an overpass.

“A duty weapon belonging to an officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations was stolen Sept. 13 in San Francisco from a vehicle being used by the officer,” the agency said in a statement. “The theft was properly reported to local authorities and through official federal channels.”

The agency told on Wednesday that it has no new information and that the incident remains under investigation.

Ramos was killed about 11 weeks after Kate Steinle, 32, was fatally shot along San Francisco’s Pier 14, allegedly by an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

That gun reportedly was stolen from a Bureau of Land Management ranger’s vehicle while he was on official government travel; the theft was immediately reported to authorities, the bureau said at the time.

Francisco Sanchez, who said he found the weapon wrapped in a T-shirt under a bench, was later charged with murder. The killing sparked nationwide attention because Sanchez had been recently released from jail, where he was being held on a drug charge, despite federal authorities asking that he be detained for deportation proceedings. Sanchez already had been deported several times and had multiple felony convictions, and his release by the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office reignited the debate about San Francisco and other so-called “sanctuary cities.”

In the Ramos killing, the TV station reports that a law enforcement source made the connection between the stolen gun and Ramos’s death.

Police last week arrested Marquise Holloway, 20, in connection with the killing and with second-degree robbery.

Oakland homicide detective Lt. Roland Holmgren said the incident started when Ramos, 27, was taking a break from painting and snapping pictures of his mural.

Holloway then allegedly walked by and began eyeing Ramos’s camera equipment, which led to an altercation and the fatal shooting.

Holloway is known to hang around the same neighborhood of west Oakland where Ramos was killed and is also believed to be responsible for a string of robberies in the area, Holmgren also said.'s Joseph Weber and The Associated Press contributed to this report.