Ex-border agents appeal convictions (Ramos and Compean)

So far as I can tell from reports, the only two people who ever claimed Davila was driving the van were Jose and Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez.

I thought the DEA report was online, but maybe it’s not because of what you just said?

I can believe the DEA report would contain the claims of those two men, because it was an investigative report, which includes all of the statements of people of interest in the case. That doesn’t of course prove the statements are true, just that they were made. We knew that because WND reported those same statements.

Jose as I said elsewhere had a story about his brother just being a mechanic, and Davila only driving to his house to get his van fixed. That story didn’t have legs, subsequent stories pegged Cipriano as a drug stash house owner, and claimed Davila was delivering the drugs to his house. That would make Jose’s statement false, and therefore mean only ONE possibly valid statement exists linking Davila to the drugs.

Without any information from the DEA report, or seeing the report, we have no way to evaluate what the news media or politicians are saying. Maybe the investigators who were quoted in the report thought two statements were enough to indict without any other evidence. Maybe there was another unnamed witness, not Jose, that nobody has ever publicly identified.

But given the number of misstatements and misrepresentations in this case, it’s not wise to take the word of people who claim to have seen the report and surprisingly tell us it validates exactly what they believed before they saw it.

Thank you. Of course, we don’t know if that’s about the 2nd “smuggling”, or about the 1st smuggling...

Actually, I do. The whole article was about the 2nd smuggling (october load).

which he could still be charged with, if they could link him to it without his testimony.

Except for that little immunity thingie... which applied to anything he did on that day, IIRC.

I can’t remember why we got into an argument over whether there were still ongoing investigations, and rather than go back and figure it out I’ll just say I’m sorry for any statement I made that there were NO MORE INVESTIGATIONS of any kind, (if that’s what I said).

It was in your discussion with Pelham. It seemed to me to be an attempted denial that there even was an October incident.

I’m not with Bob on his personal comments, I’m trying really hard to ignore things people say about me personally, and deal with what I think are the facts here.

Bob correctly points out that I would love to have Davilas in prison for his crime, and that if the officers had apprehended him he’d be in prison.

According to the testimony, after he was hit, he fell down, and then got up and limped away. That was repeated by pro-C/R posters in this thread, and nobody has refuted that.

So why didn’t the BP agents pursue him at that point? Don’t say because he was armed, because if they still perceived a threat, they would have told other agents arriving, plus Ramos said he turned back away from the guy after he got up limping, hardly the act of someone who thinks he just shot an armed man.

How hard would it be to catch a guy who had just run a few yards and was now limping with a bullet hole in his behind?

BTW, it is true it wasn’t the back, but that’s a misleading correction, as “back” means in this case facing away, not toward, the shooter.

One real question is why neither Compean nor Ramos were able to positively ID Davila. Compean claimed Davila approached him through the canal and up the side, so he had a clear view of him. Ramos testified he turned toward him and pointed what looked like a gun at him.

But neither could provide a description of the man later. If they had, it might have provided the evidence needed to ask for an arrest warrant. Without a positive ID, there was no way to show Davilas was even there — except for Davila’s own testimony, which he would never give without immunity.

That is crude, not to mention juvenile.

Surely you are not saying that an LEO can’t commit a crime, or that if they do commit a crime, they aren’t considered criminals for the purpose of applying the law against the use of their firearm while committing the crime?

If the shooting was a valid LEO action, they never would have been charged with using their weapons in the action, as there would be no underlying criminal act.

I hate to argue this point, because in MY opinion the law WAS inappropriately applied, as MANY laws are, in order to sweeten a plea arrangement that both men could have taken but didn’t. I would be happy if the appeals court kicked that part out, but I don’t think they will since congress could have EASILY put a “law enforcement officer” exception into the law if they wanted — they have done so for many other laws.

I also wouldn’t mind if Bush commuted their sentence to eliminate the part associated with that charge.

But what I want is a far cry from what the law supports, and I see no reason why a court is going to find the law was misapplied in this case, once the court decides the two men stepped out of their proper law enforcement roles and instead criminally assaulted a suspect.

To make this clear — if an officer had a suspect in custody, and the suspect said something about his wife which made him mad, and the officer started beating the guy, and then pulled out his gun and shot him, I would say that this law adding years for using a gun in the commission of a felony would apply. Once he started beating the cuffed suspect, he was no longer acting as a law enforcement officer, but was committing criminal assault.

BTW, I rarely argue the other side of this case because I find it more useful just to correct the errors made by C/R supporters.

But I do admit that the conspiracy that must exist in order for the supporters contentions to all be true is so far-fetched to me that I can’t believe anybody really believes it, and even the thought that Duncan Hunter buys into the idea that Alberto Gonzalez is involved with Sutton, other prosecuters, the white house, and border patrol agents to act on the whim of the Mexican government in order to demoralize our BP agents so illegals can get over the border easier is enough to make me want to actively oppose him for sheer gullibility.

But I don’t really believe he believes the whole conspiracy, I think he just believes someone messed up, and it plays to the small constituency he hopes to build into a winning coalition.

I left out the part from many C/R supporters that Gonzalez has a family of drug smugglers who he trying to protect, because I just didn’t think it would be fair to link anybody’s name to THAT piece of garbage.

I heard Sutton say it to Edd Hendee as well. I had never heard of Hendee, but he was sitting in for one of the national show hosts one morning.

It was obvious Sutton and Hendee know each other very well, and as I recall Sutton wasn’t a guest. Sutton simply called in to the show because Hendee was doing a fine job of dismantling the half-truths that routinely come from Sutton and his office.

Sutton has had the evidence of Aldrete-Davila’s second load for two years. He wouldn’t discuss whether Davila had been caught smuggling again because his office “is still investigating the evidence”.

Yes, and once he gets finished with that Sutton is going to help OJ find The Real Killer, which could be either Ramos or Compean.

To narrow the focus, I’ll only speak to one thing you said.

You asked about all the witnesses who heard gunshots, and how they would all cover it up.

But in fact, I believe only one other guy was on the scene when the shots were fired, the guy who checked out the van. And since he didn’t shoot the gun, he’d have no reason to mention it. He’d assume the two who did the shooting would report it.

Beyond that, it seems all the BP agents were protecting one another. They simply didn’t report what they weren’t involved with. It would come clear quickly that R/C didn’t tell about the shooting, so there doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, simply the “thin blue line” which causes LEOs who work together to not rat each other out.

We know that one guy picked up shells, so he must have known there was a shooting, and that guy threw the shells away, so he must have figured C/R were trying to cover up the shooting. But that’s just speculation about what he would know.

Well, you said they thought he was pointing a gun at them and since he was running away at the time, what else could one conclude? :)

New South Parks coming soon. I could use the laugh. :-)

Next week! :)

So far as I could tell, the argument was that since speeding was an act that was “violent”, it made the suspect a danger to others, and justified lethal force.

Bob’s valid argument is that, even if you accept the premise that lethal force or any force can be used to stop a speeding subject, that justification ended the moment the van stopped and the suspect jumped out.

Lethal force is used by officers to prevent imminent threats, not as punishment for previous endangerments.

At the time Davilas was running toward the border, he was NO THREAT to run into anybody with his van.

The argument seems to be that since his fleeing in the van showed him to be threatening, he should be considered a threat afterwards. But beyond the fact that this just isn’t how lethal force is justified in the modern LEO environment, a person who is driving at high speeds often does NOT think they are putting people at risk, and therefore doing so does not prove that the person would do other things that would put people at risk.

Meaning that you can’t use the fact that a person chooses a high-speed chase to argue that if they had a gun, they would shoot the officers.

As to what he was being pursued for, I believe it was because he was suspected of being an illegal alien, and possibly was suspected of driving a van with drugs. Neither of those are crimes of violence that call for lethal force.

When he was shot he was running back toward mexico. That also is not a crime of violence that calls for the use of lethal force. Hence the testimony by both men that they thought they saw a gun in his hand.

OVD says he had no gun. There is no evidence that he owned a gun. There are no other witnesses to a gun. Neither man could state positively that he had a gun. No gun was found. No gun was seen by Compean before OVD was running away. There were no shots fired by OVD.

Neither Ramos nor Compean reported shooting the man. Ramos says he hit him, but did not run after him when he got up limping. Neither man told any other BP agents that there was a man with a gun. Neither mentioned a gun to anybody until they were being questioned as suspects.

Shells from the shooting were discarded. A third BP agent picked up shells, disturbing the scene, and that agent thought he should discard those shells. (I’m leaving out any speculation or discussion as to why he did this).

The story of the shooting only came to light after a report came through OTHER channels of the injuries to the man. Subsequent investigation proved the bullet removed from the man came from Ramos’ gun. (I don’t actually think anybody in this thread is arguing that Ramos didn’t hit him, but I know in the past a significant number of pro-R/C folks refused to acknowledge that fact).

I explained why it was known false. It was known false because the later story told by Cipriano was that Davila was delivering drugs to his stash house. The story Jose told was that Davila delivered the drugs to el paso, but that he had van trouble so Jose helpfully refered him to his “mechanic brother”.

In THAT story, the drugs were at his brother’s house by accident, because OVD left the van there, and the Ortiz brothers were not involved in any drug deals.

Yes, I have to make some inferences. This whole case requires us to use our brains, to think through possibilities, to weigh options, to determine who might be telling the truth or not, and more importantly to determine the truth from stories all of which may have some false or incorrect aspects.

I have no proof that some things are as the pro-R/C folks claim. OVD could have brought drugs to Ortiz’s house. I can’t prove he didn’t, nor do I want to prove he didn’t, because I’d love for someone to prove he DID so he could be thrown in jail.

But I don’t believe Sutton is supressing the evidence that would throw him in jail, just so he could help out his prosecution of R/C.

So, yes, knowing that Cipriano pled guilty, that he had OTHER drugs on his property both at the time and at other times, that there was a long-going investigation into his drug dealings, and that I see no evidence that Jose was charged with a crime, my belief is that Jose’s story about his brother being uninvolved in the drugs was false, and told to protect his brother.

And the fact that his own brother seems to tell a different story, one that matches the known evidence, makes me believe Cipriano rather than Jose.

And I put no value in their ability to identify Davila, because by the time of this incident, Davila was a publicly known figure who had his picture in the papers, and people knew about his medical condition.

He was a perfect patsy to use. However, he also could be guilty. That’s the problem — the story comes out the same either way.

Actually, Sutton has stated that the immunity ONLY covers what Davilas said to investigators, and under oath in the trial, and only to the degree it appears to be truthful.

The immunity would NOT COVER a 2nd smuggling of drugs.

Overall you’re grasp of the situation is good, but you still have some erroneous information and false conclusions that I will help to clear up.

1. Someone robbing at gunpoint or pointing a gun at officers is an immediate threat to the safety of civilians and officers and those officers would be within regulations and protocol to draw their weapons and shoot to kill. It is immaterial at that time if they are only suspects of a yet to be proven crime, they are an immediate danger to people and/or property and LEO’s have the obligation to try to stop them.

2. I don’t understand you point or the position you are taking vis a vis “officers responding to the actions of a suspect”. Officers are allowed to use as much force as is required and that is reasonable taking into account the circumstances of the situation.

Each situation is different. If they are responding to a drunk and disorderly person outside a bar, reasonable force might be subduing the suspect or even tasering them. If the suspect is waving a gun, using their own weapons to stop him would be reasonable force to neutralize the imminent danger. Yes, officers have to react to the circumstances at the time be they are charged with using just enough and reasonable force in relation to the imminent danger of the situation. If it is simply a drunk being belligerent, do you agree that shooting and killing him might not be reasonable force?

Officers responses also have an impact on civilians. A high speed chase might end up in accidental deaths with an innocent woman driving her kids to soccer practice. Wayward shots from an officers gun might hit innocent bystanders. So the force they use must always be weighed against the potential danger their own actions might also have on innocent civilians.

3. Suspects taking officers on high speed chases have been consistently upheld as a safety threat to the officers and civilians. I vehicle is considered a deadly weapon. However, once the vehicle stops and perp exits the imminent danger posed by the deadly weapon is gone. If officers are confronting a man with a gun and they effectively remove his weapon, pat him down and put him in cuffs, are you saying this perp still represents a deadly threat and the officers can then shoot him because at one time he did hold a gun in his hands?

4. I have to address this issue of how OAD was running and his entry wound because it seems very important to you. You claim you read the transcripts and all evidence points to you having a grasp of them. But either you forgot or are ignoring the testimony from the doctor who testified about the wounds. When asked by the defense if the entry wound would be consistent with a man who had turned slightly in the direction of the shooter, he said yes. How could he testify any other way? Of course it was possible that OAD had turned. But the prosecution than asked if it direction of the bullet and subsequent entry and exit wounds would be consistent with a man who was running with one leg after the other being extended in front of him. The doctor said yes.

So you can take your pick but I will add that OAD turning to look at who was shooting at him is not evidence that he had a gun nor that he pointed it anyone...only that he might have turned at one point to take look at the BPA.

Supporters constantly point to this as some kind conclusion that OAD had a weapon but I say “so what?”. OAD turning at some point while running away doesn’t prove anything except that he turned and as I showed in the last paragraph, only one of a couple reasonable explanations for the trajectory of the bullet into OAD’s ass.

5. As for the van, as I said blue and light grey or whether or not it was a mini or full size, are close enough to explain confusion about the vehicle, but it is also enough of a difference that it should have raised at least a little doubt in the pursuing officers minds about having the same van that Compean called in and whether they were chasing an actual drug mule or someone evading arrest because they had an outstanding traffic warrant or some guy cheating on his wife a lunch time.

6. Compean did not get credit for a drug bust because there was no drug bust, there was an apprehension of a load of drugs in a van. Officers who call in the vehicle do not get credit for a bust, the arresting officer gets credit while the others involved get lesser credit. That’s why Ramos bumped off the rookie officer who was the first to tail OAD...he wanted the credit all himself, damn the rookie. That may be one reason why it seemed like the other officers were not in much a hurry to help R&C nor support their testimony about how it went down. R&C were glory hogs who didn’t want to share credit for the busts nor give rookie agents the opportunity to make one of their own.

7. Whether you agree with it or not or whether you find BP policy on engaging in high speed chases, it is their rule and regulation and no matter how you boil it down the officers violated it. It almost sounds as if you’re saying it’s okay for officers to violate agency policies if it gets in the way of a juicy bust or their good time.

If you or I don’t agree with certain laws can we do the same get away with it? Excusing R&C for violating agency policy because it wasn’t expedient sounds like anarchy.

I will agree things seemed pretty screwed up at that station and is also why I’ve stated R&C would have been better off admitting to the bad shoot and at least blaming it partly on the lax enforcement at their station and by their supervisors and throwing themselves on the mercy of the court. If I was on the jury and knowing what I do from the transcripts, I would have agreed with them and taken it into serious consideration when voting on their guilt.

But they didn’t, they chose their path and they have to live with those decisions.

8. “The liberal position that the cops are always at least in part to blame for what happens when criminals flee.”

You were doing so well and no you have to go and jump the shark. It’s unfortunately a time worn tradition here on FR that when you are losing an argument that you then accuse your adversary of being a liberal, or at least thinking like one.

Let me tell you it only makes one look weak. Now, certainly, that charge may appeal to those who concur with your positions, and they may even run around and high five each other for a few minutes, but to the truly intelligent and sober thinkers here that may be reading the tread, it is like waving the debating white flag.

Now to be fair, I have made some statements about jackboots and brown shirts, but I can assure those were not flippant nor made gratuitously. I am not calling these people that sort but I do honestly see parallels in the kind of thinking that allowed historical groups to arise and persecute others with impunity and under the “color of law”.

9. As far as OAD being armed, isn’t that the central issue of this case? I, like the jury, other prominent BP agents and most people who have objectively read the transcripts, do not believe OAD had a gun and it has nothing to do with OAD’s testimony. That conclusion is based solely on the attempted cover up, destruction of evidence and contradictory testimony of Ramos and Compean.

So you apostates that continue to attack those us on the side of the law about being suck ups to Bush, Sutton, Mexico, liberals, whatever, would you please just STFU because I’m getting sick of your immature rants and accusations.

GOod work Bob. Sorry, I’m out of here. It’s too easy to get simple facts wrong trying to remember everything, and too hard to go back and re-read all the stuff from months ago to not make any mistakes.

It’s easy enough to point out the major errors in some posts, but when you do, it always drags us back into these arguments about the entire case.

If the pro-B/C folks would just police their own threads to correct the obvious misstatements (like the two that I called out, that OAD drove the van into the U.S. and that he was arrested for a 2nd drug incident), I wouldn’t even bother to come here.

After all, they have so much fun patting themselves on the back and reinforcing their own opinions which will not be changed, and if it’s just opinions nobody’s hurting anybody.

I just hate when the facts are twisted or made up to support things.

“But in fact, I believe only one other guy was on the scene when the shots were fired, the guy who checked out the van. And since he didn’t shoot the gun, he’d have no reason to mention it. He’d assume the two who did the shooting would report it.”

There were four, R&C, an officer at the edge of the ditch who said he didn’t see the shooting (only heard) because he had slipped part way down the ditch and was climbing out, and an officer who just arrived and heard shots from his car ashe got out.

I would have to go back to the transcripts to confirm whom, but I’m sure CCG can tell us the names.

I’m not with Bob on his personal comments, I’m trying really hard to ignore things people say about me personally, and deal with what I think are the facts here.

I haven't seen anyone insult you personally. On the other hand I, and others, have been on the receiving of insults AND lies. Disagreement is fine but I find no place for the other.

According to the testimony, after he was hit, he fell down, and then got up and limped away. That was repeated by pro-C/R posters in this thread, and nobody has refuted that.

This is not a US against THEM discussion. Many of us disagree on many points. In the case you cite, I suggest you pose the comment to the person who said that. From my reading of the testimony (which I just reviewed again), neither Compean nor Ramos said that he fell and got back up and limped away. In fact, Aldrete didn't say that either. Aldrete said he fell at the edge of the river, crawled through some bushes and fell three times while in the river--crossing on hands and knees. Ramos and Compean testified that he disappeared into the brush upon being shot and didn't see him again until someone spotted him on the other side of the Rio Grande, in Mexico.

So why didn’t the BP agents pursue him at that point?

It was mentioned multiple times that the Vega is dangerous, that you cannot see the threat due to the brush along the river, and that shots have even come from Mexico onto the U.S. side. Anyone going closer to the Vega, to pursue someone they believed to be armed and dangerous would have been a fool, IMO.

Don’t say because he was armed, because if they still perceived a threat, they would have told other agents arriving, plus Ramos said he turned back away from the guy after he got up limping, hardly the act of someone who thinks he just shot an armed man.

They turned back away when he was seen IN MEXICO! Not while he was on the north side of the river.

How hard would it be to catch a guy who had just run a few yards and was now limping with a bullet hole in his behind?

Again, no one saw him limping while on U.S. Territory, according to Ramos and Compean testimony. No one knew he was shot, according to Ramos and Compean testimony.

BTW, it is true it wasn’t the back, but that’s a misleading correction, as “back” means in this case facing away, not toward, the shooter.

IMO, "Back" is simply an inflammatory description that is working against Johnny Sutton's efforts at being credible. To "shoot someone in the back" paints a much different picture than "getting shot in the butt."

One real question is why neither Compean nor Ramos were able to positively ID Davila.

They were. The one who keeps saying that they couldn't is Johnny Sutton (another reason why he has no credibility, IMO.) Aldrete-Davila is the one who said he couldn't identify Ramos and Compean, even after being shown pictures of every Fabens border patrol agent!

Compean claimed Davila approached him through the canal and up the side, so he had a clear view of him. Ramos testified he turned toward him and pointed what looked like a gun at him. But neither could provide a description of the man later.

As far as I can tell, they were never ASKED to provide a description. I have seen nothing to support your contention that the couldn't.

If they had, it might have provided the evidence needed to ask for an arrest warrant. Without a positive ID, there was no way to show Davilas was even there — except for Davila’s own testimony, which he would never give without immunity.

Please show me any evidence that Compean or Ramos ever said that they could not recognize or identify Davila.

I agree and I don’t know why I keep doing this.

Maybe a dedication to the truth, just like you.

So far as I could tell, the argument was that since speeding was an act that was “violent”, it made the suspect a danger to others, and justified lethal force.

Well, nobody other than Bob was making that argument, then agreeing with it. And now you are arguing in favor of it.

Frankly, I find it all irrelevant.

That they both independently identified Aldrete-Davila was the thing I found relevant.

Combine that with the fact our Congressman have reviewed these documents and found the story credible and reporters have talked to DEA officials, I’ll take their word over Johnny Sutton any day. Frankly, when I hear Sutton lie over and over again, and use outlandish rhetoric, he loses all credibility.