Snow: 'Border agents must obey law, too'

WND ^ | January 13, 2007

[Mr. Mojo]

Those who have been lobbying for a presidential pardon or other intervention from the government on behalf of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to prison for shooting an escaping drug dealer in the buttocks should review the evidence in their cases, White House spokesman Tony Snow told WND.

"They (agents Jose Alonso Compean, 28, and Ignacio Ramos, 37) eventually went before a … jury – and were convicted on 11 of 12 counts, by a U.S. attorney who has prosecuted any number of cases. But the facts of this case are such that I would invite everybody to take a full look at the documented record," Snow said.

"This is not the case of the United States saying, we are not going to support people who go after drug dealers. Of course we are. We think it's incumbent to go after drug dealers, and we also think that it's vitally important to make sure that we provide border security so our people are secure," he continued.

"We also believe that the people who are working to secure that border themselves obey the law. And in a court of law, these two agents were convicted on 11 of 12 counts by a jury of their peers after a lengthy trial at which they did have the opportunity to make their case," he said.

His response came to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House:

"A nationally syndicated columnist, Phyllis Schlafly, reports the following, and this is a quote: 'President Bush pardoned 16 criminals, including five drug dealers, at Christmastime, but so far has refused to pardon two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were trying to defend America against drug smugglers.' And my question: If Mrs. Schlafly was at all inaccurate in this statement, you would surely rebut, wouldn't you?"

Snow said he couldn't comment about the specifics of pardons. But he said Schlafly's reference should include the details, how "according to the facts presented in court, you had an incident in which there was an attempt to pull somebody over. He finally got pulled over; somebody holds out a gun. Sort of scuffling ensues. And what happens is you've got a fellow running away, and a couple of agents eventually in pursuit, firing 14 shots at him – I think 15, actually. Fourteen by one agent missed, one did strike him in the fleshy hindquarters."

At that point yet, Snow noted, the agents "did not know if he was an illegal. They did not know that there were 700 pounds of marijuana …"

"They also have rights of appeal. So I don't want to be acting here as – I'm not going to be judge and jury, but I do think that there's been a characterization that somehow the government is turning a blind eye toward the law in enforcing the law. And … I think that's the important thing. So take a look at the facts of the case."

He said questions about the fact that the government brought the man back from Mexico and gave him immunity on charges to testify against the agents would have to be answered by a lawyer.

As WND has reported, five congressmen recently issued a call to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to intervene.

The lawmakers have asked President Bush to pardon Compean and Ramos, who were sentenced to 12 years and 11 years, respectively, in October. But the sentences are scheduled to begin Jan. 17, and in lieu of a pardon, the congressmen are asking Gonzalez to request the Justice Department to direct federal prosecutors not to oppose a court motion to keep the agents free on bond during the appeals process.

Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.; Ted Poe, R-Texas; Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.; Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; and Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.; announced their request in a news conference at the nation's capitol.

The lawmakers cited "discrepancies" in the government's case that they said raised questions as to whether justice was being served. The members of Congress were joined by former Border Patrol agent Andy Ramirez of Friends of the Border Patrol and T.J. Bonner and Rich Pierce of the National Border Patrol Council.

Bush also has received a letter about the case from more than 50 Congress members, and Grassfire.org has an online petition calling on the president to pardon the agents.

"Two brave Border Patrol agents trying to enforce the president's nonsensical border policy ending up being sent to prison, while an illegal alien drug smuggler is given immunity and walks free," Rohrabacher said.

As WND has reported, a federal jury convicted the two after a two-week trial on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and a civil rights violation.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas issued a statement in September arguing "the defendants were prosecuted because they had fired their weapons at a man who had attempted to surrender by holding his open hands in the air, at which time Agent Compean attempted to hit the man with the butt of Compean's shotgun, causing the man to run in fear of what the agents would do to him next."

The statement said, "Although both agents saw that the man was not armed, the agents fired at least 15 rounds at him while he was running away from them, hitting him once."

Ramirez of Friends of the Border Patrol said the 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."

Snow followed up after the press briefing by faxing 12 pages of comment about the case of the border guards, including the statement from U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, as well as a guest column he wrote for the El Paso Times in October.

"Agents Compean and Ramos were not railroaded by some over-zealous prosecutor, they were unanimously found guilty by a jury in a United States federal district court after a trial that lasted more than 2 ½ weeks," he wrote in the newspaper. "The problem for Mr. Compean and Mr. Ramos is that the jury did not believe their stories because they were not true."

"In America," he wrote, "law-enforcement officers do not get to shoot unarmed suspects who are running away, lie about it to their supervisors and file official reports that are false. That is a crime and prosecutors cannot look the other way."

Snow also faxed a six-page analysis of the case, with a list of unsigned myth-fact comparison statements.

On another related question, Kinsolving asked Snow: "What is the White House reaction to The Washington Times reporting that our National Guard troops in the Mexican border near Sasabe, Arizona being required to be disarmed, and who had to evacuate due to incursions by armed Mexicans?"

"Talk to the Border Patrol about that," Snow said.

[common denominator]

If he could not have been charged for anything, why did he not agree to return to the US until he received immunity?

But then again he is an illegal so therefore he should have known the Bush administration is in favor of protecting illegals and would not have prosecuted.

[BlackbirdSST]

Travis was right.

Indeed! Blackbird

[F.J. Mitchell]

Or the crimes below as listed on this page.

Seeing as how our own government aided and abetted by the dim witted fools, so often the only ones to make the cut in jury selection,are determined to pacify the invaders of this country by lynching our dedicated border patrol agents, I have a suggestion: " Don't aim at the easy target provided by their big fat @$$e$; aim instead for their pointy heads".

[FastCoyote]

"I don't think they should go to jail what they did because it was in the heat of a really hard situation but I could see them getting fired for it. Just my two cents."

Then you understand why Bush is still on the wrong end of this. He has created a situation where agents are supposed to enforce the law, but really look the other way because their own damn president doesn't believe in the law. Pretty sad this has to be taken out on the agents.

[spectre]

RB..these two men should have been awarded medals, IMHO.. But you are going to win this debate, because, sadly, these two men will NOT be pardoned by Bush.

Now, we have a Border Patrolman in Bisbee, AZ, who shot and killed an Illegal who was throwing rocks at him. Based on this case, you can almost predict what kind of a sentence he's going to get..

Maybe we should just give our Border Patrolmen cookies and milk to hand out to Illegals?..

sw

[F.J. Mitchell]

It's not just Bush, but our entire political spectrum, that is in favor of protecting illegal immigrationists from prosecution and will use their infinite power to persecute any law abiding US citizen who gets in their way.

[PhilDragoo]

Alberto Gonzales told the capital city AM morning host here the same thing, in a smarmy way--

We have the AG and Tony Blowing Snow side with illegal alien drug smugglers against our border agents, and against our borders, and against the very idea of borders, sovereignty, etc., as racist.

They've clarified it--the lid is off the grease trap, the bass note is OB.

[tioga]

The border issues will doom Bush's presidency and I see no one on the presidential horizen that will deal with these issues.

[deport]

These guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

---

I think Ramos was 100%..... one round fired, one hit in the butt or so it's claimed.

[deport]

After the trial, two jurors gave sworn statements that they had been pressured to render a guilty verdict and did not understand that a hung jury was possible."

---

That's the purpose of the Appellate process. Put these two jurors before the Appellate Judge in court under oath and let them tell the judge what happened, who told them that, what was their understanding, and be cross examined, etc. It may well be the jury was tainted and a new trial or dismissal is in order. But until we follow the Judical process we don't know. It's nothing more than one group's words against another group's words.

[Ron H.]

Bush is now a liberal

He's always leaned liberal. He's just getting worse.

Only the politically uninitiated really believe that back then or now. If one ever took the time to look beneath the veneer of Bush one would have known that all along he has been a liberal at heart. His "compassionate conservatism" was a brilliant stroke of misdirection for pseudo-conservatives. He is only now showing his true colors. Winning at any cost really does have its consequences after all.

[Marine Inspector]

Law officers have the right to fire on fleeing suspects, especially on our borders.

Could you provide a link to that "right"? Is it in the US Code or some other body of law?

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

WOW!

Another immigration/hate Bush thread, Imagine that!

It should still be a State jurisdictional issue to begin with, the Feds don't have direct control. That is the responsibility of the State involved.

As far as all this knee-jerk reactionary foaming at the mouth is concerned, it's only a symptom of a much more serious disease.

[Marine Inspector]

law officers are allowed to use deadly force if a suspect refuses to halt and flees the scene.

Again, can you provide a link to this authority. Every law officer in the US would like to see it.

[1rudeboy]

If he could not have been charged for anything, why did he not agree to return to the US until he received immunity?

LOL--You cannot be serious.

[1rudeboy]

Based on this case, you can almost predict what kind of a sentence he's going to get . . . .

Not rationally, no.

[Dead Corpse]

Mexican Drug Dealer. Illegally in the US. But it's HIS Rights under our Constitution that the prosecutors were worried about?

How the hell does that work?

[ZULU]

My grandparents on one side - BOTH of them came from Sicily.
Both of them learned to speak English and write it and my grandfather learned to drive. In the early 1900's not too many women drove cars.

He wasn't alone in his community of immigrants, all of whom WANTED to be Americans, were PROUD to be here and WANTED to be assimilated and learn English and wanted their children to be Americans.

My grandfather was one of the few men in his unit in WW1 who could read and write English - even among American born soldiers in it. He was wounded in the Argonne forest and captured by the Germans.

I'm a second generation American on one side and scored 99 percentile in my SAT tests in English.


I have no problem with immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. But I have a problem with people who BREAK our laws to get here, LINE JUMP in front of other people who are following the laws to get here, and refuse to learn our language and insist we learn theirs. I learned Spanish in High School. That was a long time ago, but I can still pick up parts of a conversation if they don;t speak too quickly. I don;t think I'm more intelligent than they are. And here they are "immersed" in the language. And really, from a linguistic perspective, both English and Spanish are Indo-European languages with a vocabulary base derived from Latin. They are far closer in grammatical structure than say, Japanese and English. Yet the overwhelming number of immigrants from Asia, speaking totally different language families, LEARN English in the first generation.

Reason: We make exceptions for Spanish speakers and provide all sorts of documents in bi-lingual format.

We need only look to Canada to see where that can lead. The Southwest could very well become America's "Quebec".

[montag813]

Substitute "Halliburton" for "Mexico," to give yourself an idea of how you truly sound.

Giuliani's ties to the Mexican government may do him in. Ex-leaders have to make a buck. Bush can't depend on the adulation of idiots as Clinton has. Clinton need only spout quotes from others to be called a "genius" and have billions thrown at his feet. Bush has no such groupies. He has even alienated the Saudis, his family and friends' traditional base. Who is left? The Chamber of Commerce and the Government of Mexico. Those are the two entities to which he has remained loyal despite the political cost within the GOP. Moreover Bush has strong ties to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Regardless of how you think I "sound", wait 5-10 years and then judge it on its merits.

[1rudeboy]

How the hell does that work?

It works like this: determining whether one is eligible or not for Constitutional protection is not in a BP Agent's job description.