Posted on 02/06/2007 4:53:08 AM PST by radar101
Two convicted former El Paso Border Patrol agents accused by the U.S. Attorney of not filing a report when they shot a Mexican drug smuggler were prohibited by their own agency's firearms policy from doing so, according to documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin.
Meanwhile, the government made public Monday its response to Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos' October motion to reduce his sentence.
The response contends that Ramos and fellow agent Jose Alonso Compean knowingly shot an unarmed suspect, filed a false report, and that supervisors were not notified.
Attached to the motion were domestic violence arrest reports regarding three disputes Ramos had with his wife, Monica. Those documents were not admissible during the agents' trial. Ramos was not charged with a crime stemming from the incidents.
Ramos and Compean were convicted last spring for shooting Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican drug smuggler, in the buttocks on Feb. 17, 2005. The agents are now serving 11 and 12 years, respectively, in federal prison.
The agents were convicted partly due to the government's successful argument at trial that the two men failed to file a report about the shooting.
But U.S. Border Patrol firearms policy specifically states that agents are prohibited from filing a report if a shooting incident takes place and that only an oral report to supervisors is required.
"Ensure that supervisory personnel or INS investigating officers are aware that employees involved in a shooting incident shall not be required or allowed to submit a written statement of the circumstances surrounding the incident," according to the firearms policy.
"All written statements regarding the incident shall be prepared by the local INS investigating officers and shall be based upon an interview of the INS employee."
INS refers to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which oversaw the Border Patrol prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The shooting policy has remained unchanged.
Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General documents obtained by the paper show that all nine agents on the scene at the time of the shooting - including two supervisors - knew shots had been fired.
Oscar Garcia, El Paso Border Patrol Union representative with Local 1929 and a firearms instructor, said that the Report of Apprehension or Seizure filed by Compean and Ramos on the day of the incident was accurate. Garcia stated that the agent's omission of the shooting in the drug seizure report followed firearms policy.
"Our own policy prohibits them from filing any report on the shooting incident," Garcia said. "The U.S. Attorney's assertion that they covered up the incident by not filing a report is ridiculous."
Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for western Texas whose office prosecuted the case against the agents, contends the agents didn't report the shooting to supervisors who arrived on scene and knowingly lied about the incident.
"Ramos did not mention the shooting, and said nothing about the suspect having a weapon," Sutton said in an Aug. 11 press release.
Sutton was not immediately available for comment on Monday.
Both agents, however, told the Daily Bulletin the other agents and supervisors on the scene that day knew about the shooting, an assertion echoed in a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General memorandum written March 12, 2005, by Christopher Sanchez, an investigator with the Office of Inspector General.
"Investigation disclosed that the following Border Patrol agents were at the location of the shooting incident, assisted in destroying evidence of the shooting, and or knew/heard about the shooting: Oscar Juarez, Arturo Vasquez, Jose Mendoza, David Jaquez, Lance Medrano, Lorenzo Yrigoyen, Rene Mendez, Robert Arnold, and Jonathan Richards," Sanchez wrote.
Arnold and Richards were the two supervisors on the scene that day.
Richards was given a promotion shortly after the incident and testified against the agents. Agents Vasquez, Juarez and Jaquez were given immunity from prosecution to testify against Ramos and Compean.
The prosecution's objection to Ramos' motion to reduce his sentence, which was released Monday, goes against what was reported by the Office of Inspector General and contends the two former agents covered up the shooting on their own.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof, who prosecuted the agents and wrote the motion, some of the least credible evidence was when Ramos and Compean walked away from the scene.
"Instead of fulfilling (Ramos') duties as an agent and as a member of the response team, he walked side by side with Compean, who according to Compean's own testimony, bent down at least nine times to pick up his own spent casings."
Kanof also states in her response that Ramos never mentioned until the trial that he thought his life or Compean's was in danger, or that they thought the smuggler had a gun.
Ramos chose not to speak to investigators until his attorney was present, he told the Daily Bulletin. Compean, however, did wave his right to counsel and discussed the incident with investigators from the Office of Inspector General.
Contrary to Kanof's statement, several memorandums written by Sanchez, the investigating officer, attest that Compean believed his life was in danger.
"Compean said that he began to shoot at Aldrete-Davila because of the shiny object he thought he saw in Aldrete-Davila's left hand ... Compean explained that he thought that the shiny object might be a gun and that Aldrete-Davila was going to shoot him because he kept looking back at him as he ran away."
Staff writer Sara A. Carter can be reached by e-mail at sara.carter@dailybulletin.com, or by phone at (909) 483-8552.
L
RAILROADED!
Amen.
Now that one of the agents has been beaten up in prison, the message to the border patrol gets louder and louder - do not do anything to impede the flow of illegals. See nothing, hear nothing, do nothing.
I think you are right. We are slowly losing our rights, not the made-up rights of the left, but the ones guaranteed in our Constitution. Our property rights, and our ability to speak out against the government. One lawmaker in Arizona is trying to create a law against the minutemen on the border.
Ping!
So if at trial the prosecution actually argued that their NOT filing a report indicated a cover-up, he would easily have refuted that by showing this policy.
Further, has NOBODY who supports the BP agents even READ the official policy before this week? I would have thought anybody wanting to defend them would have had that policy and gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. After all, being a policy paper, it can't be classified secret or be hidden -- you can't dictate policy without publishing it for people to read.
So, why have none of the pro-BP folks read that policy, given we've been referencing it in our discussions for weeks now? I know why I didn't read it -- nobody provided a link, and nobody raised it as an issue.
I certainly would have thought the NBPC would have a copy of this policy, and would have long ago noticed this if it were true AND relevant.
So, either the entire pro-BP team is incompetent, this reporter has simply misunderstood the policy, or at trial this was NOT the argument of the prosecuters.
On the other point, the reporter is being deliberately misleading, and making false charges -- by her own words:
Kanof also states in her response that Ramos never mentioned until the trial that he thought his life or Compean's was in danger, or that they thought the smuggler had a gun.
OK, Kanof claims Ramos didn't say he thought his life was in danger. Then the reporter says:
Ramos chose not to speak to investigators until his attorney was present, he told the Daily Bulletin.
Hard to say what the point is, because I presume he DID talk to investigators once his attorney was present -- but it appears the reporter puts it here to suggest that the reason Ramos didn't say before trial that he felt in danger is because Ramos simply didn't talk to anybody before the trial -- which would be false. There's no other reason for her to put this in the story at this point.
Then she goes on:
Compean, however, did wave his right to counsel and discussed the incident with investigators from the Office of Inspector General.
Contrary to Kanof's statement, several memorandums written by Sanchez, the investigating officer, attest that Compean believed his life was in danger
That is NOT contrary to Kanof's statement. According to the reporter Kanof claimed RAMOS didn't mention his life was in danger, NOT Compean. I presume Kanof did not say "Compean didn't say his life was in danger", because if Kanof had said that, the reporter would have used it.
Claiming ONE person didn't say they were in danger is not a lie simply because the OTHER person did say they felt they were in danger. It's simple logic, the reporter knows this, and is trying to mislead her readers.
Which makes me at least want to get the original copy of the policy about shootings in order to verify she isn't lying about that as well.
My guess is, if the report is accurate at all, that the prosecuter did NOT specifically site the lack of a report, but rather a false report. Maybe policy is that if you have a shooting, you DON'T file your own report, instead you tell a supervisor, who will then interview you and write the report for you.
If so, then NOT telling the supervisor, and instead filing a report, would be a violation of the policy. The policy parts mentioned by the reporter in this article do NOT say that the agents should FILE a report that excludes mention of the shooting, it says they should NOT file a report.
Of course, we've had a discussion before which I can't remember the results of about whether the agents FILED a report or not.
Felling lonely?
ping
are you being deliberately naive or just what are you doing?? Can you spell "railroad"?
I've been posting rebuttals to the arguments from WND for 3 weeks now, and nobody every refutes the rebuttals, they simply ask me if I'm "lonely", or "deliberately naive".
If I were a pro-BP agent person, I would be looking at how to answer these pretty easy debunkings of the WND charges, because at some point you need more than just a few pandering politicians to get this case looked at.
And it doesn't help when your major supporters at WND have to lie and misrepresent the facts in order to make it sound like there's a case for pardons.
Well, well, well...this just gets smellier and smellier doesn't it...if you are charged with properly following department policy, how can one win? Answer: Exhibit A - Agents Ramos and Compeon are in prison.
I believe your assessment of the motives behind these prosecutions [persecutions?] of BP agents and LEOs is correct.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.