Exclusive Guest Post For Polipundit: Free Compean And Ramos By Duncan Hunter

PoliPundit ^ | 3/5/07 | Duncan Hunter

[pissant]

I would like to thank Polipundit and Michael Illions, who has been helping out my campaign, for giving me the opportunity to write a guest post about the injustice that has been done to two of our border guards, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, both of whom have been sentenced to jail for more than a decade each.

Now certainly our border patrol agents are not above the law and it is not acceptable for them to abuse or mistreat illegal aliens. That being said, the Border Patrol is America’s first line of defense against the terrorists, drug smugglers, and gangs who try to illegally enter the United States. Acting as the first line of defense for our country, the men and women of the Border Patrol are in a very dangerous position. Every day they risk their lives guarding our borders.

I have read the relevant portions of the trial transcript. Agents Ramos and Compean have a version of the facts that is different than the drug smuggler’s. However, it is not necessary to determine whose testimony is more believable (although I find the Border Agents’ testimony more credible than the drug smuggler’s) for this reason: even if you believe the drug smuggler’s testimony that he was slightly wounded while escaping to Mexico, his wounding cannot, by the greatest stretch of criminal justice, justify the 11 and 12 year prison sentences given to Ramos and Compean. The average convicted murderer in America spends less than 8 1/2 years behind bars. That means that Ramos and Compean have been given murder sentences for the slight wounding of a drug smuggler. Thus, the prison sentences of these two agents represent a severe injustice.

For those who point out that the agents picked up the expended brass from their pistols after the incident and did not report it to their superiors, the answer is simply that picking up brass and failure to report is not murder and does not justify a murder sentence in the federal penitentiary. As a member of the Armed Services Committee for 26 years, I have never seen a Marine or soldier treated as severely as Ramos and Compean.

We cannot turn our back on Agents Compean and Ramos or the rest of the public servants in the U.S. Border Patrol and that’s why I urge George Bush to pardon both agents. I intend to keep attention focused on this case to insure their safety while they are in prison and to secure their release as soon as possible so they can return home to their families. That is also why I introduced H.R. 563, which would pardon Compean and Ramos. The bill already has more than 85 sponsors in the House. If that bill fails and President Bush does not do the right thing, I pledge that if I’m elected President, one of my first acts will be to grant pardons to both agents.

[AndrewC]

If I stand, they hang straight down, if I sit they hang straight down, If I'm on one knee, they hang straight down. They don't move to your knee and they can't get up and walk away. The only way for them to change their vertical orientation is to lay flat on the floor.

I didn't say they did. I said the leg blocks access to things on your waist as the picture shows.

I'll leave it to the observers of the picture to see for themselves that the shooter will have a hard time getting to things on his left side belt.

[Bob J]

What difference does it make? If Juarez can only see the edge of the levee because of it's height above the top of the ditch, it doesn't change his testimony about seeing Compean from the waist up. Compean could have been on to of the levee, not down the other side. Juarez's doesn't know exactly because he was on the north side of the ditch and he can only estimate where Compean might have been standing.

What we do know is he sees Compean from the waist up, shooting at some location on or down the side of the levee, not at the bottom or in the vega as Compean claims.

[AndrewC]

Ramirez objected, Gonzalez stated that point 4 was the Rio Grande. You have to realize that OAD is not speaking English, he is being translated and receives translated English. One error was so egregious that Ramirez had to have the question read back to her as translated. When asked about running over the levee, Davila answered he had not jumped over the levee.

4 Q. Okay. And that when you ran around the agent, the Border
5 Patrol agent that had the rifle in -- that was in front of you,
6 you ran over the levee and towards the Rio Grande, correct?
7 A. No, I didn't jump over. That's wide enough to hold a car.
8 I ran across it, and then I ran down the other side, and -- I
9 ran down the other side.
10 MS. RAMIREZ: Judge, can I approach the bench?
11 THE COURT: Sure.
12 (Bench conference:)
13 MS. RAMIREZ: Judge, can I look at the question?
14 Because I could have sworn I said "ran over the levee," to see
15 if I said ran over the levee?

[calcowgirl]

Bob--it didn't prove your point, it countered it. Read again.

14 A. The edge of the river, where I fell.
15 Q. And, when you're running towards this location, what are
16    you thinking at that point in time?
17 A. Well, I'm just covering my head. And I'm thinking that,
18    even though they're shooting bullets at me, I don't think
19    they're going to shoot to kill.
20 Q. Mr. Aldrete-Davila, show the jury how were you were
21    running. Where were your hands?
22 A. Here in my head. I was a little -- I was a little bit
23    leaning down, with my hands this way (indicating), and I was
24    looking towards the sand.
25 Q. And, at what point, did you put your hands over your head
1     as you're running back to Mexico?
2  A. When I began to see the bullets in the sand. When I
3     started seeing the bullets hit the sand, that's when I covered
4     up my head.
5  Q. So, from point 4 to point 3, you have your hands on your
6     head. Is that what you are you saying?
.
10 A. Yes.

Put this together with the much more direct statement in the OIG Report, based almost entirely on the reports written by Special Agent Sanchez who interviewed Aldrete-Davila on a multitude of occasions. The shooting started in the vega, approximately midpoint from the levee road.

During the course of the investigation, DHS OIG agents interviewed Aldrete-Davila several times to obtain clarification and to receive other pertinent information. ... Aldrete-Davila said that he was about halfway through the vega when he heard multiple gunshots and could see the impact of the rounds in the dirt as he ran toward the border. Aldrete-Davila stated that there were multiple gunshots, then a very short silence, and then one last gunshot right before he reached the brush, near the north bank of the Rio Grande River.

Under both Compeans testimony and my own opinions, Compean started firing either when OVD was entering the vega ...

What part of Compean's testimony leads you to that conclusion?

[Bob J]

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you suggesting the casing Vasques found on the ditch slope was one of the ones Compean threw in, which would indicate Compean was telling the truth about that, making Vasquez the liar?

Bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say?

[calcowgirl]

Pardon me, but haven't you referred to me as "BJ" in some of your posts? And when I inquired did you not say you did this in the interest of brevity only? AC = AndrewC CCG = Calcowgirl
What's your problem?

Please read my post again.

I took no exception to the use of the acronym; I took offense to the content of the posts.

[AndrewC]

What difference does it make? If Juarez can only see the edge of the levee because of it's height above the top of the ditch, it doesn't change his testimony about seeing Compean from the waist up. Compean could have been on to of the levee, not down the other side. Juarez's doesn't know exactly because he was on the north side of the ditch and he can only estimate where Compean might have been standing.

What we do know is he sees Compean from the waist up, shooting at some location on or down the side of the levee, not at the bottom or in the vega as Compean claims.

The difference is a clearer picture of the testimony. Plus, we don't KNOW that he sees Compean. We do know that is what he testifies.

Height of Levee	17.48968
Height of Juarez eyes	5.5
Distance from levee to north of ditch	88
Height of Compean	5.333	Distance from Juarez to North of ditch	Tan x	Angle deg	Percent of Compean that is visible
		0	0.136246	7.758567	56.57%
		1	0.134715	7.672436	57.06%
		2	0.133219	7.588185	57.53%
		3	0.131755	7.505755	58.00%
		4	0.130323	7.425086	58.46%
		5	0.128921	7.346123	58.90%
		6	0.12755	7.268813	59.34%
		7	0.126207	7.193105	59.77%
		8	0.124892	7.118949	60.19%
		9	0.123605	7.046299	60.60%
		10	0.122344	6.97511	61.00%
		11	0.121108	6.905338	61.39%
		12	0.119897	6.836942	61.78%
		13	0.11871	6.769881	62.16%
		14	0.117546	6.704116	62.53%
		15	0.116405	6.639612	62.89%
		16	0.115285	6.576331	63.25%
		17	0.114187	6.514241	63.60%
		18	0.11311	6.453306	63.94%
		19	0.112053	6.393497	64.28%
		20	0.111016	6.334781	64.61%

This tells me that Compean had to be down somewhat on the south side of the levee. If Juarez is to be believed. I don't think he is to be believed. He did not see Compean shooting.

[calcowgirl]

Did you take Juarez height into consideration?

Yes. I did the calculations assuming he was 5'9" (after the fact, I tested it at 6 feet and it didn't make a measurable difference in final numbers).

[Bob J]

Oh, okay.

[calcowgirl]

You shorten my name to initials and you object to me using CCG? Some might call that hypocrisy.

Once again, I take no exception to the "ccg". See post 392. I take exception to not being pinged and to the baseless allegations included in the content of those posts.

[Bob J]

I'll try this one more time. Just because OVD saw puffs in the middle of the vega is not evidence that is where they started. It's not evidence of where they ended. It's only evidence that at some point when he was in the middle of there was some shooting going on. Any other extrapolation on your part is conjecture.

[calcowgirl]

You're right about Gonzales... I'll look for more references, but I really do interpret the orignal testimony as being Point C at the river. The way they were introduced was A, B, and C.... with C being the "I fell" comment. It was several questions later that they backed up to "puffs" and Point D.

Regardless, I think the testimony is consistent with the OIG Report--the shooting started in the middle of the vega (or midpoint from the levee road) at which point OAD felt the need to put his hands about his head.

[Bob J]

"This tells me that Compean had to be down somewhat on the south side of the levee."

So you are agreeing with Juarez when he estimated Compean was on the south side of the levee slope when he shot?

[Bob J]

Oh, okay.

[calcowgirl]

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Simply correcting the record.

Are you suggesting the casing Vasques found on the ditch slope was one of the ones Compean threw in...

I'm not suggesting anything other than what I posted.

[Dante3]

Well stated by Hunter.

[Bob J]

Did the report state the shooting started in the middle of the levee or that OVD saw some puffs and heard some shots there?

You two latch onto something you think is a "gotcha" when it's all based on extrapolation and invalid conclusions.

Below is in invalid logical statement.

IF Compean shot at OVD between 10 and 14 times,
AND OVD saw some puffs of dirt in the middle of the vega,
THEN Compean started shooting when OVD was in the middle of the vega.

I understand logic is not your strong point, but try to see that your conclusion is not supported by the premise's.

[calcowgirl]

Where are you getting the height of the levee? My 5'9" calculation also gave me a 5.5 ft 'eyeball level'. I went at it differently than you did, actually computing the slope of the line-of-sight from the ditch (and alt B & C) to the northernmost point of the levee road. I then computed a separate slope for the decline of the southern levee. Add this, subtract that... I gave excel a good workout, lol.

The thing that struck me was that if Juarez is to believed it meant Compean would have been shooting from 2-4 feet off the levee road. If you just wanted to go shoot somebody in sight of all the oncoming Supervisors and everyone else announcing they were coming to the scene, why not just stand on a nice flat surface and do it from the road?

[Bob J]

But that is the problem with a lot of posts on this thread. You post a bunch of generally unrelated stuff and imply we should "connect the dots" as some great epiphany will befall us if we do.

If you want to say something, say it. Don't leave a bunch bread crumbs and expect us to guess what you mean. We're not your pet gerbil.

[AndrewC]

So you are agreeing with Juarez when he estimated Compean was on the south side of the levee slope when he shot?

No, I'm saying that the testimony is consistent with seeing someone on that side of the levee. Obviously, if Compean went to the south side of the levee, he could be seen by someone at the position Juarez was at as he crossed. That has nothing to do with shooting while being at that position. Juarez was lying when he said he saw Compean shooting from that position. Vasquez would have also seen Compean shooting had Juarez seen Compean shooting.