This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Wednesday, October 25, 2006. If this doesn't raise your blood pressure, nothing will.
The Valley Press is outraged that two U.S. Border Patrol agents were sentenced to prison terms of 11 years and 12 years for allegedly shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he fled across the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Jose Alonso Compean to 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos to 11 years and one day - this, despite a plea by their attorney for a new trial after three jurors said they were coerced into voting guilty in the case.
Ramos, 37, is an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Naval Reserve and a former nominee for Border Patrol Agent of the Year. On Feb. 17, he responded to a request for back-up from Compean, 28, who noticed a suspicious van near the levee road along the Rio Grande River near the Texas town of Fabens, about 40 miles east of El Paso.
Ramos, who headed toward Fabens hoping to cut off the van, soon joined a third agent already in pursuit. Behind the wheel of the van was an illegal alien, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, of Mexico. The agents converging on Fabens did not yet know that Aldrete-Davila's van was carrying 800 pounds of marijuana.
Unable to outrun Ramos and the third agent, Aldrete-Davila stopped the van on the levee, jumped out and started running toward the river. When he reached the other side of the levee, he was met by Compean, who had anticipated the smuggler's attempt to get back to Mexico.
"We both yelled out for him to stop, but he wouldn't stop, and he just kept running," Ramos said. Aldrete-Davila crossed a canal.
Ramos testified that while he pursued Aldrete-Davila across the canal, he heard shots being fired and saw his fellow agent, Compean, on the ground. Ramos continued to chase the alleged smuggler, who, Ramos said, turned toward him and pointed what looked like a gun.
"I shot," Ramos said. "But I didn't think he was hit, because he kept running into the brush and then disappeared into it. Later, we all watched as he jumped into a van waiting for him. He seemed fine. It didn't look like he had been hit at all."
More than two weeks after the incident, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security learned that Aldrete-Davila's mother in Mexico had reported that her son was wounded in the buttocks in the shooting.
The U.S. government subsequently filed charges against Ramos and Compean - after giving full immunity to Aldrete-Davila and paying for his medical treatment at an El Paso hospital.
At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof told the court that the agents had violated Aldrete-Davila's civil rights.
Kanof dismissed Ramos' testimony that he had seen something shiny in the smuggler's hand, saying the agent could not have been sure the fleeing man was holding a gun. Further, Kanof argued, the agents violated Border Patrol policy by pursuing the fleeing suspects.
Do the phrases "border security," "War on Terror" or "drug smuggling" ring a bell for anyone - especially the Department of Homeland Security or U.S. federal prosecutors?
Or are the "civil rights" of an illegal-alien drug smuggler who ignored the instructions of law-enforcement officers, high-tailed it for the border and threatened them with what looked like a deadly weapon more important?
"How are we supposed to follow the Border Patrol strategy of apprehending terrorists or drug smugglers if we are not supposed to pursue fleeing people?" a flabbergasted Ramos asked.
"Everybody who's breaking the law flees from us. What are we supposed to do? Do they want us to catch them or not?"
"This is the greatest miscarriage of justice I have ever seen," said Andy Ramirez of the nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol. "This drug smuggler has fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: If you confront a smuggler, this is what will happen to you."
The El Paso Sheriff's Department was forced to increase its patrols around the Ramoses' home after the agent's family received threats from people they believe are associated with Aldrete-Davila.
The case, rightly, has become a cause in the media and for concerned Americans everywhere.
The Valley Press urges a thorough review of the case by sane, higher authorities, and, if the facts are as simple - and simply outrageous - as they seem, a complete reversal of what appears to be a monstrous miscarriage of justice and a slap in the face to the increasingly disenfranchised citizens of our nation.
only in america
Posted by: joe davis | Friday, January 19, 2007 at 07:30 PM