That Ramos hit OAD in the butt area only means his aim was off, but there is no doubt he was shooting at OAD as he was running away, that he aimed to shoot him in the back and that he was shooting to kill.
Compean is another story. He shot 14-15 times and never hit. OAD testified he saw “puffs of dirt” around his feet (There's no reason for him to lie about this) which tells us several things.
First, one has to understand the reason for Dept. policy on never shooting unless one believes their safety/lives or that of others is in immediate danger. The purpose is to minimize or eliminate the potential for innocents in the vicinity of getting hit by a stray bullet. The only excuse to put the safety of others in danger is if your own or others is also in danger.
All LEO’s know this. They are taught that if and when they do fire to do so to take the target down immediately and try to minimize potential stray bullet collateral damage.
So how could Compean fire so many times and never come close to hitting OAD in “center mass” and why was he firing into the dirt? Because he never intended on hitting OAD because OAD wasn't a threat AND he was trying to minimize the possibility of one of his bullets crossing the border and hitting an innocent civilian on the other side.
This is why in many previous postings I have argued that Compean in fact DID NOT intend to hit OAD, that he got angry at being bested by the perp and taking a header into the ditch and his only intention was to make OAD “dance” and show him a little BP what fer on his way back to Mexico.
Ramos was unaware of this, must have believed there was good reason for Compean shooting and that is why he took OAD down with one shot a four times the distance Compean was shooting at. He DID believe there was a legitimate threat based on Compeans actions. He believed Compean would be acting in a legal and professional manner. He was wrong and now he sits in prison for it.
Poor Ramos. All he had to do was tell the truth, that he heard the firefight, believed Compean may have been hit and was only protecting his fellow agent. But instead he had to go along with the “black shiny object” story to help out Compean. I also believe he was lying about many things from the shooting to getting back to the levee, in particular not discussing anything with Compean and not being involved in picking up any brass. Once he did that he became complicit in the bad shoot and the cover up. Ramos talks about how Compean looked like he "was in shock" after he shot OAD. Why would he look like he was in shock when nothing happened to him? He was in shock because he knew OAD wasn't a threat, he wasn't trying to take him down and then he sees Ramos mistakenly drop him at the other side of the vega with one shot. He was in shock because he knew right then how bad his screw up was and he knew it was a bad shoot. He knew the shiite would hit the fan if anyone ever found out about it. That is why they waited until they saw OAD exit the Rio grande. They knew he was hit but would probably not do anything because he was a drug mule. The uneasy question I have is what would have happened if the didn't see OAD get up after he was dropped. Would they then have reported it to supers? Would they have gone back there later to collect the body and dispose of it?
It’s like the old saying. Once you tell one small lie you have to keep telling bigger ones to make the previous ones believable. The first small lie here was when the agents didn’t report. But once the shooting became known due to the mothers of OAD and Agent Sanchez talking, the lies got bigger and bigger until they had one huge incredible story that the jury rejected.