Posted on 02/08/2007 5:22:41 AM PST by GulfBreeze
by Sam Antonio
February 7, 2007
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.
Rep. Hunter’s February 6 letter to President Bush says:
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.
Go Duncan! And while you’re at it - bug our President to pardon these men!!!!!
Gee, back in February, you wanted NOTHING to do with Duncan Hunter. Now you run around saying how you support him instead of Fred.
Quite bizzare!
How about Fred Thompson? Are you going to vote for him if he gets the nomination?
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.