Six Years After His Death, Sean Monterrosa’s Sisters Keep His Memory Alive

Michelle and Ashley Monterrosa stood outside San Francisco Fire Station 32, trying to visualize themselves beneath a commemorative sign for their brother.

The station was across the street from their former elementary school, alongside another tribute to Sean — a community library. 

Then, a smirk on Ashley's face when a firetruck pulled in: “Groceries,” she said, after mentioning she receives a new pair of shoes from Michelle’s fiancé every year. She watched firefighters exit the truck with grocery bags in hand, just as predicted. 

She knew this since the family had lived in Bernal Heights for decades, and it felt like there were always groceries in their hands after a ride up Park Street. 

“Do you think they have backup cameras?” Ashley asked about the firetrucks.

“Just bars,” Michelle said, shrugging. She didn’t flinch at the rapid change of topic. Neither did her sister when, for a few minutes, they both turned towards the street sign that read Sean’s name.

Sean was 22 when he was killed in June 2020. 

The Monterrosa sisters spent the past six years spreading Sean's legacy around San Francisco; on street signs, scholarships, billboards, even a day named for him — hoping he’ll remain alive for longer than 22 years, and still between them, under the same temporal sky.

But before his name belonged to public memory, Sean Israel Monterrosa belonged to them.

An American Nightmare 

Sean, the second — and only brother — of three Monterrosa siblings, was shot and killed by Vallejo police officer Jarret Tonn on June 2, 2020. 

Officers said they mistook a hammer for a gun. The California Department of Justice later declined to file criminal charges against the officer, and Vallejo reached an $8.5 million civil-rights settlement with the family in 2026. 

Ashley said that when people talk about those killed by police, they too often begin and end with the moment of death. She’s tired of the question that still follows their brother’s name — What was he doing there that night? 

“It doesn’t matter,” Ashley said. What matters is who Sean was before he became a public argument.

Michelle agrees. She’s pursuing her master's degree in ethnic studies while her younger sister works in mental health. They both hope to use their policy work to highlight systemic issues and critique institutions that, according to Michelle, led to their brother’s death.

Through this, they’ve co-founded The Sean Monterrosa Project, a nonprofit advocacy group aiming to change community policing.

Ashley shared that while growing up, love in their household looked like Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings and Sundays at church, their mother tucking the three siblings in together and reading the Bible. It looked like their father coming home from three jobs, after which his three children leaned into whatever time they had with him. 

It was a familiarity that both sisters agree is felt within a lot of immigrant households in the Bay Area. They both credit love as service. Ashley said her parents modeled “servant leadership” by serving people with love. 

That service now echoes through the scholarship bearing Sean’s name.

“My parents came to the U.S. for the American dream and then boom, American nightmare —  (their) son is killed at the hands of the state,” she said.

“A lot of folks think we’re a monolith, like immigration is our (only) issue,” Ashley continued. “It’s public safety. It’s mental health. It’s so many things.”

“Our (immigrant) story is familiar (to other immigrant families) until it isn’t,” she added.

A San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution added the commemorative name “Sean Monterrosa Boulevard” to Park Street, recognizing his “contribution and legacy to San Francisco as a local figure,” a first for someone killed by law enforcement. 

City College also recognized him through a resolution calling on the chancellor to work with the college’s foundation to establish a scholarship fund in his honor, aimed at addressing financial barriers and increasing opportunities for underrepresented students.

The first recipients, Tabari Morris and Yenia Jimenez, were recognized during the Board of Trustees meeting on April 23. Like prophecy, Sean’s birthday was the following day. 

Forever Right

Ashley was only 19 when Sean was killed. She turned 20 the very next day. 

The years after that, she said, became a force of being in a “train going 1,000 miles,” instantly pulled into grief, organizing and the sole identity of being “Sean’s sister.” 

“There was no space to just be me,” Ashley said, “I felt like… I had to show up with sadness, and if I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t honoring my brother.” 

She had to unlearn that, doing “so much work to understand that grief is also love,” Ashley said. “I don’t have to love him through sadness.”

When asked about the type of relationship she had with Sean, Ashley said, “He was Batman, I was Robin,” to which Michelle chuckled in agreement.

And on the type of sister she was, “Baby sister, co-conspirator, enabler,” Ashley listed. Loyal, too — “Me and Sean always said: right or wrong, forever right. It don’t matter (because) I love you.” 

Sean teased the way older brothers do, too, Ashley said, for almost nothing — being double-jointed, her forehead, she remembers.

Depending on the day, she would side with Sean or Michelle, though. Someone was always outnumbered, she laughed, remembering it was always two against one.

“I’ve always been the second mom, as the oldest, I’m the enforcer,” Michelle admits.

When asked what still belongs only to the family, Ashley did not hesitate. “Food!” She said that now she loves being on the grill because of her brother.

“My mom cooked us her empanadas and (we sat) together at the table… a good churrasco — an Argentinian steak — with chimichurri sauce, her own Argentinian shepherd’s pie — called pastel de papa,” Michelle said, “Sean really valued being at the table together as a family, so every time we have those meals, I always remember (him).”

She said she will always see Sean in every part of the city, like Bernal Heights library, Billy Goat Hill, through Mission Street, and every time she sees a lowrider. Their family would hike in the Bernal hills, barbecue while listening to oldies and go to baseball games together before 2020. 

This year, on what should’ve been Sean’s 28th birthday, Michelle went to a Giants game. It was another way of saying, “hey brother, we love you,” she said, feeling him at the stadium. 

“Sean’s still here,” Michelle said when she stopped and nodded at a butterfly flying by their brother’s commemorative library. Ashley turned. 

Both sisters paused before agreeing that, although they hope Sean is proud of them for the work they have done to honor his name, they could still imagine his disbelief at the scale and length they would go for him. 

“He would’ve been like ‘Wow, y’all did all of that for me?’” Ashley said about honoring their brother’s life, and spending six years saying his name in public places, at board meetings, in murals, beneath street signs, before scholarship recipients.

The butterfly flew past letters spelling “Mr. Tucan,” around the yard where a young Sean once played. The youngest Monterrosa sibling watched it go and said, “I know Sean’s proud of us.”