..Duncan Hunter Calls for...Prisons Director to Be Fired Over Prison Beating of Border Patrol Agent

In a letter to President Bush dated February 6, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) chastised the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for placing Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos in the general prison population at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Facility in Mississippi.

Rep. Hunter pointed out that he had written to BOP Director Harley Lappin in January urging that the agents be segregated from the general prison population for their safety. He received a letter from Director Lappin’s assistant at BOP assuring him that they would be segregated from the general population and that all measures would be taken to assure their safety. This was not done, and Agent Ramos was attacked and severely beaten on February 3 by Mexican inmates at the facility.

I was assured by the Bureau of Prisons staff that, subsequent to my letter, agents Compean and Ramos had been segregated from the general prison population and close attention was being paid to their personal safety. Yesterday, I was informed that agent Ramos was assaulted by inmates within the general population.

Placing these two Border Patrol agents in general population, especially when assuring Congress it would not happen, constitutes an enormous dereliction of duty by the Administrator of the Prisons Bureau. It is my recommendation that the assault against agent Ramos be investigated and should it be ascertained that the Bureau did place agent Ramos in the general population, thereby exposing him to danger, Prisons Bureau Director Harley Lappin should be discharged from his position….

Joe Kasper, press secretary for Rep. Hunter told The New American on February 7 that Rep. Hunter is also looking into many other discrepancies surrounding the reported excessive delays in providing agent Ramos with medical attention after the attack and the transfer of Ramos from his safer minimum security prison in New Mexico to the more dangerous facility in Mississippi. “There are so many things wrong with this case, from the very beginning,” said Kasper. “Congressman Hunter has repeatedly pointed out that the excessive sentence here — 11 and 12 years for the two agents — when most the average sentence for murderers is only eight-and-a half years,” is totally unreasonable. If they received any penalty at all, he noted, it should have been the usual reprimand and several days of administrative leave for failing to file the required incident report.

The national attention and uproar that the case has been receiving has helped Rep. Hunter’s bill (H.R. 563) for a Congressional pardon for agents Compean and Ramos. “We’re now up to 81 sponsors, including Congressman Hunter,” said Kasper, and pressure continues to build for President Bush to pardon them.

This is nothing new from Hunter. We need more Republicans like him.

Just some background info on Hunter and his outspoken nature to go where not many(I don't think any) Republicans go with their spineless nature.

Hunter on Abu Ghraib(courtesyhttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3128goss_hunter_block.html : )
Probably the single loudest obstructionist voice in the House of Representatives in support of the Cheneyac "Beastman" policy in Iraq has been Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). Hunter has been able to use his position to block any meaningful inquiry into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and at every public opportunity, has railed against those who are demanding such an investigation. He even went after his GOP counterpart in the Senate, John Warner (Va.), for holding three hearings in two weeks on the scandal, practically accusing Warner of treason.

Under great public pressure, Hunter has since held one hearing, for part of one day, and has no intention of having any more. During debate on the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Authorization bill, on May 19, Hunter declared, "We have had enormous publicity the last number of days about the mess at Abu Ghraib. I estimated we have probably devoted as much media attention to that mess involving now, as identified, some seven personnel, as we did to the Normandy invasion. And that is an imbalance. It is time to refocus." What did he want to refocus on? "The 135,000 great personnel doing their job in Iraq."

On June 14, when the committee took up a resolution of inquiry sponsored by some 40 Democrats, demanding the Pentagon be more forthcoming with documents relating to the prison scandal, Hunter placed the 6,000 pages of the report on the abuse and torture of prisoners filed by U.S. Army General Anthony Taguba (the Taguba Report) on a table at the head of the hearing room and railed at the Democrats, "Isn't that enough for you?"

Hunter on Guantanamo(courtesy http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050613-033125-4935r.htm:)

California Republican Duncan Hunter held a press conference to discuss the treatment of detainees at the island jail, and spent his opening statement going over a daily menu for prisoners that included oven-fried chicken and fresh fruit.

"This is what Osama bin Laden's bodyguards will eat several times a week. Lemon chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, bread and two types of fruit," Hunter said, inviting a reporter to come eat with him.

Hunter was digging himself out of small hole he got into over the weekend when he said on a news program that the White House is divided over whether to close the jail.

"I think they've come to the conclusion, some members of the White House have come to the conclusion that the legend now, that the legend is different than the fact, and when that's the case you go with the legend that somehow Guantanamo has been a place of abuse and you close it down and you shorten the stories, you shorten the heated debate and you get it off the table and you move on," he said.

That's what I would like to know .. why weren't then segregated from the general prison population ??

They had him locked up in isolationfor 23 hours a day.

He chose to leave that living hell, so he could phone his wife at times.

Bush couldn't make it clearer to the Illegals just whose side he is on, and it boils my blood.

Bush makes every excuse he can, to validate the Illegals very existance in our Country. You know, they are just here (breaking the law) trying to make a living for their families..blah, blah, blah.

Your people are literally begging you..Take a stand President Bush...THEM OR US!

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