Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him

Anthropologist Ralph (The Torture Letters) offers a riveting and personal account of the 2019 San Francisco murder of a distant relative, his stepson’s half brother. Luis Alberto Quiñonez, who went by Sito, was killed at 19 in retaliation for the 2014 slaying of Rashawn Williams, a murder committed by Sito’s acquaintance Miguel during a street fight for which Sito was also present. Sito was initially arrested for the murder, serving several months in juvenile detention before video evidence exonerated him. Ralph, who had spent much of his career studying gang violence, was spurred to investigate the circumstances surrounding Sito’s death, which had a profound impact on his family though he himself had barely known Sito. He analyzes the environment that shaped Sito’s youth, which he argues was characterized by a form of toxic masculinity, as well as San Francisco’s justice system and the structural racism Ralph argues was evident in its handling of Sito’s arrest and the trial of Sito’s murderer—Rashawn’s brother, Julius Williams. He identifies the justice system and street culture as two halves of a closed loop of violence that ensnares Black and brown men and boys. The work gains complexity as he juxtaposes his sympathy for the murderer with his personal connection to the story and his family’s desire for justice. It’s a gut-punch personal narrative with broader societal implications. (Feb.)