Border Patrol Agents to get sentenced...

[69Charger_440]

Just wanted to see if anyone would like to sign the petition. 

"12/11/2006
>
>Christina,
>
>In just 37 days U.S. Border Agent's Ignacio Ramos and
>Jose Compean are going to prison for doing their jobs!
>
>The agents were each sentenced in a federal court in
>El Paso, agent Ramos receiving 11 years, and Compean
>getting a term of 12 years for offenses that included
>violating the drug smuggler's civil rights!
>
>The same drug smuggler, who was given immunity to testify
>against the agents has since been arrested for smuggling
>an even larger quantity of drugs into the U.S.
>
>I am outraged that our government could allow this
>travesty of justice to happen, and am calling on ALL
>members of the Grassfire team to use these next 37 days
>to mount an aggressive grassroots initiative to pardon
>both of these agents!
>
>+ + 200,000 Petitions to the President
>
>Christina, for years, our petitions have been supremely
>effective at getting our message noticed. But no message
>is more important right now than pardoning these to Border
>Agents who have been victimized by our nation.
>
>That is why we are finalizing plans to present
>petitions to President Bush through a key
>member of Congress!
>
>But such a presentation has to literally "Raise the Roof"
>in the White House. To be effective, I need your help
>to rally an additional 75,000 citizen signers as soon
>as possible!
>
>+ + Action Item--Alert your Friends
>
>Both of these men were distinguished professionals--family
>men who swore to protect our nation from drug traffickers
>and criminals. Now their lives are in peril--unless we
>take fast action!
>
>     Please forward this message to 30-40 of your friends
>     urging them to join with you by signing our petition
>     demanding the President pardon these agents.
>
>Click here to sign:
>
>http://www.grassfire.org/142/petition.asp?PID=11592749
>
>
>If you have already signed, please take a moment to call
>the White House: 202/202-456-1111, and demand the President
>pardon these two Border Agents!
>
>Remember, just 37 days is all we have to persuade the
>President to pardon these men. Christina, I need
>you to commit with me to rally as many friends and family
>as you can to make our upcoming presentation something
>that cannot be ignored!
>
>Thanks for taking fast action with me.
>
>Steve Elliott
>President
>Grassfire.org Alliance
>

Thanks,
Fernando

[chargerboy69]

I have heard about this. Glenn Beck has interviewed the one guy a few times on his TV and radio show. This is such BS.

[41husk]

It happens all the time real bad guys get off for testifying against some one the Government wants to get, and the real bad guy victimizes some other inocent person.

[Drache]

How did they violate the drug dealer's rights?

[41husk]

Maybe it was a cavity search, with no hands

[Charger_Fan]

This is such BS.

Completely asinine!

[69Charger_440]

How did they violate the drug dealer's rights?

I don't know the details, so don't quote me on this.  From what I have heard/read, they shot him in the buttocks as he was running away after assaulting one of them.  Keep in mind, he was trying to smuggle dope, and as I have heard, where there is dope, there are guns.  I will try and post more details if I get any.

[red72chrgr]

For what it's worth, I "signed" the petition. I heard about this crap from the Rollye James show and other talk show hosts. Unfortunately the old saying applies," money talks and bulls*** walks". Anyone who pays attention knows that no matter what the front line does, the upper echelon takes graft and looks the other way.

[Lostsheep_01]

In this day of linking drug dealers to terrorism, how do they go cutting a deal with him anyway? I thought that was an automatic "do not pass go"...

[Charger_Fan]

Well, I guess the petition fell on deaf ears.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52545

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were sentenced to prison terms of 11 years and 12 years for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he fled across the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Jose Alonso Compean to 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos to 11 years and one day despite a plea by their attorney for a new trial after three jurors said they were coerced into voting guilty in the case, the Washington Times reported.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a federal jury convicted Compean, 28, and Ramos, 37, in March after a two-week trial on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and a civil rights violation.


Ramos is an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Naval Reserve and a former nominee for Border Patrol Agent of the Year.

On Feb. 17, he responded to a request for back up from Compean, who noticed a suspicious van near the levee road along the Rio Grande River near the Texas town of Fabens, about 40 miles east of El Paso.

Ramos, who headed toward Fabens hoping to cut off the van, soon joined a third agent already in pursuit.

Behind the wheel of the van was an illegal alien, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila of Mexico. Unknown to the growing number of Border Patrol agents converging on Fabens, Aldrete-Davila's van was carrying 800 pounds of marijuana.

Unable to outrun Ramos and the third agent, Aldrete-Davila stopped the van on the levee, jumped out and started running toward the river. When he reached the other side of the levee, he was met by Compean who had anticipated the smuggler's attempt to get back to Mexico.

"We both yelled out for him to stop, but he wouldn't stop, and he just kept running," Ramos told California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Aldrete-Davila crossed a canal.

"At some point during the time where I'm crossing the canal, I hear shots being fired," Ramos said. "Later, I see Compean on the ground, but I keep running after the smuggler."

At that point, Ramos said, Aldrete-Davila turned toward him, pointing what looked like a gun.

"I shot," Ramos said. "But I didn't think he was hit, because he kept running into the brush and then disappeared into it. Later, we all watched as he jumped into a van waiting for him. He seemed fine. It didn't look like he had been hit at all."

The commotion and multiple calls for back up had brought seven other agents – including two supervisors – to the crossing by this time. Compean picked up his shell casings, but Ramos did not. He also did not follow agency procedure and report that he had fired his weapon.

"The supervisors knew that shots were fired," Ramos told the paper. "Since nobody was injured or hurt, we didn't file the report. That's the only thing I would've done different."

Had he done that one thing differently, it's unlikely it would have mattered to prosecutors.

More than two weeks after the incident, Christopher Sanchez, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, received a call from a Border Patrol agent in Wilcox, Ariz. The agent's mother-in-law had received a call from Aldrete-Davila's mother in Mexico telling her that her son had been wounded in the buttocks in the shooting.

Sanchez followed up with a call of his own to the smuggler in Mexico.

In a move that still confuses Ramos and Compean, the U.S. government filed charges against them after giving full immunity to Aldrete-Davila and paying for his medical treatment at an El Paso hospital.

At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof told the court that the agents had violated an unarmed Aldrete-Davila's civil rights.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it is a violation of someone's Fourth Amendment rights to shoot them in the back while fleeing if you don't know who they are and/or if you don't know they have a weapon," said Kanof.

Kanof dismissed Ramos' testimony that he had seen something shiny in the smuggler's hand, saying that the agent couldn't be sure it was a gun he had seen.

Further, Kanof argued, it was a violation of Border Patrol policy for agents to pursue fleeing suspects.

"Agents are not allowed to pursue. In order to exceed the speed limit, you have to get supervisor approval, and they did not," she told the Daily Bulletin.

Those shell casings Compean picked up were described to the jury as destroying the crime scene and their failure to file an incident report – punishable by a five-day suspension, according to Border Patrol regulations – an attempted cover up.

The Texas jury came back with a guilty verdict. Conviction for discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence has an automatic 10-year sentence. The other counts have varying punishments.

"How are we supposed to follow the Border Patrol strategy of apprehending terrorists or drug smugglers if we are not supposed to pursue fleeing people?" said Ramos, who noted that he only did on that day what he had done for the previous 10 years. "Everybody who's breaking the law flees from us. What are we supposed to do? Do they want us to catch them or not?"

He also noted that none of the other agents who had responded to the incident filed reports that shots were fired and, besides, both supervisors at the scene knew they had discharged their weapons.

"You need to tell a supervisor because you can't assume that a supervisor knows about it," Kanof countered. "You have to report any discharge of a firearm."

"This is the greatest miscarriage of justice I have ever seen," said Andy Ramirez of the nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol. "This drug smuggler has fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: If you confront a smuggler, this is what will happen to you."

The El Paso Sheriff's Department increased its patrols around the Ramos home when the family received threats from people they believed were associated with Aldrete-Davila.

So...they were convicted because they didn't file the proper paperwork from the incident.
Un-FRACKING believable! It's almost unconcievable that something like this can happen in this country.

[red72chrgr]

It's not inconceiveable anymore. It's just this type of thing that even though I'm not supposed to own guns, I DO ! It's ok for illegal drug runners to sue Americans, it's ok for me to have a gun to protect myself. 

[Lowprofile]

I Think that if I was a Border Patrol Agent right now, I would turn in my Badge and Gun. This is one of those moments where its truly embarrassing to be a citizen of this country. The unbelievable exploitation of our legal system, coupled with the extreme views of some of our judges/prosecutors.......... sometimes its just amazing that we can even function as a Sovereign Nation where the rule of Law is supposed to mean something. What a truly thankless job they have.

  God Bless them & their families.

[moparjohn]

The court has proved that we (the US) are not serious about border patrol or the "war on drugs" the whole thing smells downwind of the outhouse.

[Silver R/T]

bs. Jurors smoking dope themselves.

[d72hemi]

You got to be F'ing me! I could see being temp suspended, or fired, not over a decade behind bars. I would like to know if the bullet in the guys but matched the officers. For all I know he shot himself. either way I wish they would have got the guy in the head. I truelly hope that there is more to this than what was posted here, because if this is the entire story, it is truelly F'ed up!

Ian