Posted on 09/12/2008 6:00:19 AM PDT by kellynla
EL PASO, Texas — Two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up have been denied a request for a new hearing.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied the request by Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean on Wednesday. The same court upheld the men's convictions in July.
No reason was given for the Wednesday's denial.
Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005.
Aldrete was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison for his role in two seperate smuggling efforts later that same year.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Sorry—forgot to add you to that ping.
Guess what? I don't believe that and don't know of anyone who does. To whom are you referring?
But this is a perfect example of how someone posts something that is direct and uncomplicated to anyone else reading it, and your mind turns into something 180 degrees from what it is.
Then give it to me straight Bob. Who are you accusing?
It’s how your mind works and why what you say cannot be trusted a face value. You’re mind ain’t right.
LOL. That's funny.
“There you go again with your baseless allegations.”
Because every time it is pointed out that that all R&C knew at the time of the shooting is that the perp was a fleeing suspect who took them on a short high speed chase, R&C supporters come back with “They ONLY shot an Mexican illegal alien drug mule”.
Three things are absolutely paramount in their minds, that he was hispanic, that he was a Mexican illegal and that he was transporting marijuana, as if any of them, even IF known at the time of the shoot, justifies an LEO shooting to kill anyone.
Two out of three of those are positions based on racial bigotry, so I’m going with the odds. I will go further, if the perp was some white kid from the burbs trying to make a quick score and he was shot in the back while running away from the police, many of the same R&C supporters on these threads would be screaming about jackbooted government thugs
the way they scream the same about Sutton, the DHS and DOJ.
But that’s just my own personal conclusion.
The marijuana was discovered after Aldrete-Davila escaped, and agents had searched the van. Everyone and their mothers may have suspected drugs were involved as radio calls were coming-in, the van was being chased, Aldrete-Davila was running away, etc., but that's not how you can arrive at the conclusion that Aldrete-Davila was smuggling drugs.
But here we go again: it doesn't matter in any case--in fact, even if Compean and Ramos knew in advance (using ESP or otherwise) that drugs were involved, that simply makes the subsequent events that much more mind-numbingly stupid. By picking up brass (by a few), lying that he was not assaulted (Compean), failing to report gunfire (nearly everyone), etc., Ramos and Compean assured that Aldrete-Davila could not be prosecuted for the marijuana in the van even if he was later apprehended.
"We unlawfully acted because he is a drug-smuggler, thereby ensuring that he could not be prosecuted for drug-smuggling" is not a viable law enforcement technique.
There are at least a couple people on this thread who have argued that the Constitution does not apply to Mexicans. Bigoted? Maybe. Stupid? Certainly.
Completely untrue. Many have come back with a whole host of other reasons, including the van being in a border location well known for drug trafficking, seeing water marks at the location the van was first seen, the perpetrator leading the BP agents on a 10 minute high speed chase through the greater Fabens area, the suspect failing to respond to a multitude of orders to "stop" (Parate!), the suspect ignoring the threat of armed weapons being pointed at him in the process, the suspect advancing on a BP agent in a threatening manner, and the BP agents stating they thought they saw a gun.
Three things are absolutely paramount in their minds, that he was hispanic, that he was a Mexican illegal and that he was transporting marijuana, as if any of them, even IF known at the time of the shoot, justifies an LEO shooting to kill anyone.
The only thing that seems paramount is your obvious avoidance of recognizing the positions posted by freepers over and over, instead replacing your own biased, baseless allegations for the written record.
Two out of three of those are positions based on racial bigotry, so I’m going with the odds.
Yet none of the things I mentioned (and others have mentioned ad nauseum on these threads) have anything to do with bigotry. Keep on ignoring them. You're just looking silly.
I will go further
You really should stop. There's an old saying: When you're in a ditch, quit digging.
if the perp was some white kid from the burbs trying to make a quick score and he was shot in the back while running away from the police, many of the same R&C supporters on these threads would be screaming about jackbooted government thugs the way they scream the same about Sutton, the DHS and DOJ.
Wrong. If Aldrete-Davila had been white, I would think the same thing I do about the R&C event. But that’s just my own personal conclusion.
Forgot to delete the part from your post.
You are confusing "reasons" with "excuses." The only "reason" a law enforcement officer can use to justify deadly force is his belief that his life or other lives are in danger.
"I suspected he was running drugs" is never a reason for a law enforcement officer to shoot at someone. It's an important distinction to understand.
I also didn't know that Pinocchio surfed.
Do you realize that you just complained about a personal attack by making a personal attack?
Of course he didn't know. But he is the guy that called out the 10 code which indicated "narcotics".
Ramos entered the chase based upon that call. Ramos fired not because Davila was a drug smuggler but because he heard shots while in the ditch, etc. I'm not going to repeat the scenario which gave him reasonable justification to fire at Davila. Had Compean fired only due to the suspicion that Davila was a drug smuggler, Davila would have been found dead of a shotgun wound on the south side of a dirty ditch with his van full of drugs on the north side of the ditch.
No one is confused, no matter how much you try to put words in others' mouths and to ignore the reasons why Aldrete-Davila was perceived as a threat by the BP agents. It had nothing to do with being Mexican, as you repeatedly allege.
"I suspected he was running drugs" is never a reason for a law enforcement officer to shoot at someone. It's an important distinction to understand.
I didn't say anything resembling that statement.
Link?
You can’t be serious. You think I’m making that up?
Complaint? That was advice. I essentially told him that such action would make him look bad, but I added that he was shameless.
I’m totally serious. I don’t know if you’re making it up, but I certainly didn’t see it.
If it was posted, I would disagree with it therefore I asked for a link so I could see exactly what was really said.
So, can you support it with a link? Or not? You said “several”... it shouldn’t be too hard to find at least one of them.
You only call them thug like tactics because they were successful against your beloved, shooting in the Mexican illegal alien back, ex-border patrol agents. Anyone else would see this as an aggressive prosecution, something they get paid to do. I'm a taxpayer and I want to see my federal employees doing their jobs and doing them to the best of their abilities.
It isn't the job of prosecutors to judge the legality or suitability of trial evidence, that is for the trial judge. It isn't the job of prosecutors to judge innocence or guilt, that is for the jury. It IS their job to put on the most aggressive prosecution they can and let the chips fall where they may, just as it is for the defense attorneys.
They did that, they did their job, but you attack and defame them because you didn't like the outcome which is childish and immature.
The prosecution had nothing to do with deciding if certain evidence should or should not be allowed into testimony, that is up to the judge. The defense attempted to introduce a statement from another arrested drug courier that OAD had been involved inhis caper. At the time, all it was was a comment from this other drug mule, it wasn't corroborated or substantiated and OAD had not been judged of such in a court of law.
Now what is it that you all keep saying about believing the word of a drug dealer? That you can't trust a word they say? But you're willing to take the word of this other drug dealer and allow it be introduced in a court of law without and substantiation or corroboration as a matter of fact.
The judge ruled that allegation had not been proven, would be prejudicial and in the end had nothing to do with whether the shoot that day was good.
This is something else you all don't get and never will. it doesn't matter whether OAD was a drug mule or drug kingpin. It doesn't matter whether that was his first load or 100th. It doesn't matter whether he needed the money for his sick mother or to buy a brand new shiny car. It would still be illegal for ANY LEO to shoot to kill THAT unarmed fleeing suspect without proper justification.
That OAD had not been arrested, much less convicted of ANY of those things at the time of the shoot is meaningless to you as long as later it turns out to be so.
What kind of effed up logic is that?
Did prosecutors threaten other officers about their testimony” Yes, of course they did. They were threatened with prosecution of their own because they were all clamming up about what they knew, saw or heard that day. They were either trying to protect R&C or themselves. It's called “the blue wall of silence” and a tactic frequently used by prosecutors to get to the truth. That you turn that around and infer they used it to get the otheroffivers to lie and put 2 innocent BP agents into prison is absurd. But it is a line you all continue to advance every day.
It's absurd and pathetic.
Another red herring you throw out there is what OIG investigators told to congress. The salient response to that is that congress did not sit on the jury, the jury was not aware of what went on there and it was not relevant to the prosecution or conviction of Ramos and Compean for their actions that day in Fabens. The congressional hearing was a dog and pony show so insincere politicians could parade around in front of the cameras/microphones, express insincere outrage and a few crocodile tears to play to the border security voters and maybe drum up a few donations.
You know how I know that? What was the result of those hearings? Anything real or substantive? No, all we got were lofty proclamations from media addicted politician-whores who licked their lips at the free PR, fooled you into thinking they were going to do something then went home and forgot about it the next day. That you think it was important shows what a fool you are.
The US Constitution applies to Mexican citizens?
In any case, do you remember our friend Andrew riding to rescue of the poor soul who suffered the indignity of my question whether LEO's should determine one's constitutional rights in advance? He was howling about it for hours.
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