"At some point during the time where I'm crossing the canal, I hear shots being fired," Ramos said. "Later, I see Compean on the ground, but I keep running after the smuggler." Posted on 08/07/2006 8:46:01 AM PDT by radar101
When Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos pulled the trigger last February, all he knew was that his partner was lying on the ground behind him – bloodied from a struggle with a fleeing suspect – shots had been fired and now, it appeared, the drug smuggler he was pursuing had turned toward him with what looked to be a gun in his hand.
In the split-second he had to respond, Ramos determined the course of his and his partner's lives – federal prison for the next 20 years for assault with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharging of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, violating civil rights and obstruction of justice.
Ramos, 37, is an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Naval Reserve and a former nominee for Border Patrol Agent of the Year.
"At some point during the time where I'm crossing the canal, I hear shots being fired," Ramos said. "Later, I see Compean on the ground, but I keep running after the smuggler."
At that point, Ramos said, Aldrete-Davila turned toward him, pointing 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."
The commotion and multiple calls for back up had brought seven other agents – including two supervisors – to the crossing by this time. Compean picked up his shell casings, but Ramos did not. He also did not follow agency procedure and report that he had fired his weapon.
"The supervisors knew that shots were fired," Ramos told the Ontario, Calif., Daily Bulletin. "Since nobody was injured or hurt, we didn't file the report. That's the only thing I would've done different."
Had he done that one thing differently, it's unlikely it would have mattered to prosecutors.
Over two weeks after the incident, Christopher Sanchez, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, received a call from a Border Patrol agent in Wilcox, Ariz. The agent's mother-in-law had received a call from Aldrete-Davila's mother in Mexico telling her that her son had been wounded in the buttocks in the shooting.
Sanchez followed up with a call of his own to the smuggler in Mexico.
In a move that still confuses Ramos and Compean, the U.S. government filed charges against them 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 an unarmed Aldrete-Davila's civil rights.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it is a violation of someone's Fourth Amendment rights to shoot them in the back while fleeing if you don't know who they are and/or if you don't know they have a weapon," said Kanof.
Kanof dismissed Ramos' testimony that he had seen something shiny in the smuggler's hand, saying that the agent couldn't be sure it was a gun he had seen.
Further, Kanof argued, it was a violation of Border Patrol policy for agents to pursue fleeing suspects.
"Agents are not allowed to pursue. In order to exceed the speed limit, you have to get supervisor approval, and they did not," she said.
Those shell casings Compean picked up were described to the jury as destroying the crime scene and their failure to file an incident report – punishable by a five-day suspension, according to Border Patrol regulations – an attempted cover up.
The Texas jury came back with a guilty verdict. Conviction for discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence has an automatic 10-year sentence. The other counts have varying punishments. Ramos and Compean will be sentenced next month.
"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?" said Ramos, who noted that he only did on that day what he had done for the previous 10 years. "Everybody who's breaking the law flees from us. What are we supposed to do? Do they want us to catch them or not?"
He also noted that none of the other agents who had responded to the incident filed reports that shots were fired and, besides, both supervisors at the scene knew they had discharged their weapons.
"You need to tell a supervisor because you can't assume that a supervisor knows about it," Kanof countered. "You have to report any discharge of a firearm."
"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 has increased its patrols around the Ramos home. The family is receiving threats from people they believe are associated with Aldrete-Davila.
Who is making bigger campaign contributions - the Border Patrol agents' union or the drug cartels?
A substantial portion of "our" government is bought and paid for.
>So Mexico runs the Border Patrol and Immigration Services?<
Looks like Bush has the Fox guarding the henhouse all right. We have met the enemy and he is.....us?????
Only indirectly. Mexico just determines White House border policy.
"So Mexico runs the Border Patrol and Immigration Services?"
They have "advisors" stationed in some of our BP headquarters. No fooling.
Something tells me the story the jury heard was quite different from what we read in this article.
From just reading the article it sounds like a serious injustice has been done to these two border patrol officers by their own government.
But based just on the evidence provided here it does not seem likely this would have made it to court and even far less likely that a jury would convict them of anything more than failure to report firing their weapons.
It doesn't add up.
It's obviously a miscarriage of justice, or we aren't getting all the facts.
It sounds kind of strange that if he thought his partner had been shot, that he would keep chasing the smuggler that he had been chasing, that was just running away rather than looking for the shooter or aiding his wounded partner. However, there's not enough information for me to doubt that his actions were reasonable in the situation, it just sounds a bit strange.
The article mentions that the fleeing smuggler was not actually armed, but how can that be considered a known fact when he was able to flee the scene?
There's just too many missing pieces to the puzzle and what there is doesn't seem to fit together. It doesn't sound like we're getting the whole story here.
How dare we treat respectable guests like that /sarc
This is what happens when someone puts a 100% effort into trying to keep drugs out of this country. Border Patrol Agent Ramos has been involed in catching over a 100 drug smuglers and has seized thousands of pounds of drugs.This story makes me ill as my son died at 27 from illegal drugs .The proscuter in this case has to be the one of the sickest people in our country. Sounds to me this whole border patrol is a total joke. What can one do as a citizen ??? anything
Agreed. WND is hardly a credible enough source to draw a fair judgment about the case.
Problem with this is in the premise that the illegal alien HAS ANY 4th amendment rights. He doesn't. He is not a citizen or even a recognized guest of this country.
The idea that the border patrol agents rights to protect themselves and their partners are inferior to the non-rights of an illegal is OUTRAGEOUS!
Attorneys and judges that "defend" civil rights of criminals while trampling on the rights of decent law-abinding citizens (who are officers, in this case) make me ILL!
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