Posted on 08/17/2006 7:09:45 AM PDT by yoe
Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos could hear his heart racing. He could feel the dry, hot dust burning against his skin as he chased a drug trafficker trying to flee back into Mexico.
Ramos' fellow agent, Jose Alonso Compean, was lying on the ground behind him, banged up and bloody from a scuffle with the much-bigger smuggler moments earlier. Suddenly the smuggler turned toward the pursuing Ramos, gun in hand. Ramos, his own weapon already drawn, shot at him, though the man was able to flee into the brush and escape the agents.
Now, nearly 18 months after that violent encounter, Ramos and Compean are facing 20 years in federal prison for their actions.
Why?
According to the U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted the agents, the man they were chasing didn't actually have a gun, shooting him in the back violated his civil rights, the agents didn't know for a fact that he was a drug smuggler, and they broke Border Patrol rules about discharging their weapons and preserving a crime scene.
Even more broadly, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof said, Ramos and Compean had no business chasing someone in the first place.
"It is a violation of Border Patrol regulations to go after someone who is fleeing," she said. "The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone."
Her arguments, along with testimony from other agents on the scene and that of the smuggler himself, swayed a jury. It was a crushing blow to Compean and Ramos, both of whom had pursued suspects along the border as a regular part of their job.
It also appears to fly in the face of the Border Patrol's own edicts, which include "detouring illegal entries through improved enforcement" and "apprehending and detouring smugglers of humans, drugs and......
(Excerpt) Read more at dailybulletin.com ...
(Lou Dobbs) Dobbs: Well, they're gaping holes, all right. The first question is why in the world this U.S. attorney -- and the U.S. attorney there for the western district of Texas is Johnny Sutton -- why in the world he permitted assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof, who is very obviously very zealous about the rights of illegal drug smugglers, to proceed with such a case over administrative breaches. It's mind- boggling.
United States Attorney's Office
El Paso, Texas 79901
Phone: (915) 534-6884
Fax: (915) 534-6024
Contact Governor Rick Perry by Telephone:
Telephone Citizen's Assistance Hotline: (800) 843-5789
Citizen's Opinion Hotline: (800) 252-9600
Office of the Governor Fax: (512) 463-1849
I wonder if besieging the White House with calls for a pre-emptive pardon would be any good.
You indicated Presidential pardon would corect this injustice - I think the decision should be overturned, the men should be reinstated with full backpay. This is unconsciounable. What is wrong with our judicial system?
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