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| 7/13 |
| 2007/9/8-10 [Politics/Domestic/Immigration] UID:47952 Activity:moderate |
9/8 I summon: emarkp !
remember the heroic border patrol agents who shot the drug
dealer in the butt as her was running away? You can read
facts about the case here:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2007-09-01/feature2-1.php
http://xrl.us/5qum
\_ My predicted response from emarkp:
"I don't respond to anonymous cowards."
\_ I think that is tom's mo, not emarkp
\_ I may be anonymous, but I would be interested in hearing
a self described conservative's opinion on the whole case.
Notice I'm not asking him his opinion on Mormon bathed
in blood axe murders or if he got a good deal on golden
plates at the last Wal-Mart sale. Not trolling, just
asking!
\_ Based on historical records, there is a 92% chance
that he'll respond with "Hi anonymous troll! -emarkp"
\_ Why should he respond to someone calling him out?
He has no responsibility. If you really want to chat
seriously with him, send him email.
\_ Typically I don't like responding to anonymous people
calling me out by name. However, I've been fairly
strongly opinionated on this topic so my response is
below. -emarkp
\_ my opinion: they missed and should have been aiming about 18"
higher. -not emarkp anonymous coward
\_ I'll take a look at it, but I've already read a substantial portion
of the trial transcripts. -emarkp
\_ Okay, I've read the first paragraph and it's full of crap. Ramos
said in his own testimony that he reported the shooting over the
radio. Yet the article says, "Neither agent announced the
shooting over the radio or informed his supervisor of what had
happened; the official report about the pursuit made no mention
of their firing their weapons."
Oops. Bad reporting. -emarkp
\_ More bad reporting:
"The bullet was removed by Army doctors at Fort Bliss, and
ballistics tests showed that it had been fired from Ramos.s
handgun, which investigators had taken under the guise of
performing a firearms audit. That night, federal agents arrested
Ramos and Compean at their homes on assault charges."
The bullet was fragmented. They couldn't match the agent's gun.
-emarkp
\_ http://www.csua.org/u/jh4
"In truth, defense attorneys ---- and Ramos himself ----
signed a document agreeing that the bullet came from
Ramos' gun."
Is that true?
\_ He should have used a shotgun.
\_ I'm not aware of that one. However this *does* contradict
the claim by the other article that the bullet was matched.
-emarkp |
| 7/13 |
|
| www.texasmonthly.com/2007-09-01/feature2-1.php Click here Badges of Dishonor On a desolate stretch of the Rio Grande, two Border Patrol agents chased a fleeing suspect and opened fire, wounding him from behind. But they didn't arrest him, and they didn't report the shooting to their supervisors. Before the case of Border Patrol agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean became a cause clbre--that is, before there were calls for congressional hearings, high-level resignations at the Department of Justice, and presidential pardons--it almost didn't make the newspaper at all. The facts of the story might never have come to light if not for a phone call between two middle-aged women who had grown up together in a village in Mexico. In late February 2005 Macaria Aldrete-Davila called her old friend Gregoria Toquinto from her home in Chihuahua and said that her son had crossed into the United States illegally near the West Texas town of Fabens. Border Patrol agents had pursued him, and he had fled on foot. An agent had shot him in the backside as he ran from them, toward the Rio Grande. Her son had managed to limp back to Mexico, but he still had a bullet lodged in his groin and was in need of medical attention. Gregoria, who was living in El Paso, listened to her friend's story. Then she called her son-in-law, who happened to be a Border Patrol agent. So began a Department of Homeland Security internal investigation that uncovered what appeared to be a straightforward case of two federal agents shooting at a man as he ran away and then concealing their actions. Investigators found that Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila had put his hands in the air and tried to surrender, but Compean--instead of apprehending him--had swung at him with the butt of his shotgun. Aldrete-Davila had bolted, and as he ran, Compean and Ramos had fired at him fifteen times, with Compean stopping to reload his Beretta as he tried to hit his mark. Neither agent announced the shooting over the radio or informed his supervisor of what had happened; the official report about the pursuit made no mention of their firing their weapons. And rather than secure the area so that evidence could be preserved, Compean had retrieved most of his spent shell casings and tossed them into a ditch. Only when questioned by investigators a month later did he offer the explanation that he and Ramos had acted in self-defense; Aldrete-Davila had been "pointing something shiny" that "looked like a gun." A federal jury, which heard both agents' testimony, rejected their version of events and convicted them on five out of six criminal charges, including assault, obstruction of justice, and civil rights violations. That might have been the last word on the case, except that when talk radio shows, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, and conservative blogs picked up the story, they glossed over nearly all of the most damning facts presented at trial. Set against the backdrop of the national debate over immigration, a new narrative emerged, one in which Ramos and Compean were recast as "American heroes," unjustly persecuted by a government that cared more about amnesty for illegal immigrants than about border security. The story line advanced by pundits and bloggers focused on Aldrete-Davila's own illegal activity, since he had been ferrying a large load of marijuana when he had crossed paths with Ramos and Compean. But the stark contrast between Aldrete-Davila's fate and that of Ramos and Compean's inspired outrage. Two Border Patrol agents were being sent to prison, while a dope smuggler--who had been granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for his testimony--walked free. This seemingly perverse logic provoked a backlash from conservatives who had grown frustrated with the Bush administration's handling of border issues, prompting Ann Coulter to pen an acid assessment of the case titled "No Drug Smuggler Left Behind!" US attorney Johnny Sutton, a Bush appointee, was excoriated for prosecuting the agents--and even branded "Johnny Satan" by Houston talk radio show host Edd Hendee--while bloggers hailed Ramos and Compean as "political prisoners" in a modern-day Dreyfus affair. Lou Dobbs opined about the case on more than one hundred broadcasts, calling it an "outrageous miscarriage of justice" and "an appeasement of the Mexican government." Anti-illegal immigration activists like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps staged rallies and raised money for the agents' defense funds, and more than 370,000 Americans signed an online petition demanding presidential pardons. Republican congressmen known for their law-and-order credentials argued on the House floor that the agents were guilty of nothing more than "procedural violations" for failing to report the shooting, and US representative Ted Poe, of Humble, commended them for their actions. "We ought to give both of these Border Patrol agents medals and send them out there to bag another one," he said. Entangled in the heated politics of illegal immigration, the facts of what had actually happened down by the river were cast aside, and the victim's identity as a drug smuggler overshadowed the misconduct of the officers who had shot at him. Of the nearly 14,000 federal agents who patrol US borders, it was Ramos and Compean who were held up as heroes. In an interview this summer, and in handwritten letters from prison that followed, Ramos was thoughtful and articulate about his time with the Border Patrol, longing for the days when he kept watch over the Rio Grande instead of a seven-by-thirteen-foot cell. Yet he was unrepentant about his actions on February 17, 2005. It was his bullet that had permanently maimed, and nearly killed, Aldrete-Davila, but Ramos felt that any prison time for him and his fellow agent was unwarranted. "If anything, Compean and I should have gotten an administrative punishment--if that," he told me. Thirty-two miles southeast of El Paso, Fabens hardly looks like the kind of place that could inspire a national media storm. The Wrangler jeans factory, once its biggest employer, moved to Costa Rica nearly two years ago, and now Fabens is just another fading West Texas town. The train rattles by every now and then, on its way elsewhere. At lunchtime, farmers rest their white straw hats beside them at Margarita's Caf, trading news over warm bowls of caldo. South of the blinking red stoplight, Fabens reverts to farmland, and cotton fields and pecan orchards stretch out for miles toward the Rio Grande. The jagged blue contours of mountains rise in the distance, across the river in Chihuahua--a constant reminder, from any vantage point in town, that Mexico is always near. Ignacio Ramos arrived in Fabens as a recruit in 1995, when the local Border Patrol station was staffed by just twelve agents. Operation Hold the Line had succeeded in stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into El Paso, but it had not ended the problem. Human traffic had only shifted away from the city, moving southeastward to border towns like Socorro, San Elizario, and Fabens. As the tide of people and narcotics moved in, Ramos--and later Jose Alonso Compean, who was assigned to the Fabens station as a recruit in 2000--"worked the line," patrolling the river for illegals and dope. Ramos would sometimes conduct surveillance for hours, concealed behind brush or in fields that had grown high with cotton. "I would have guys drop me off and leave me out there, and I would hide in the bushes or trees or canals," he wrote to me from prison. "Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it wouldn't, but it's what kept the job interesting and a thinking game, as well. You were always trying to be a step ahead, or at least even with the dopers." |
| xrl.us/5qum -> texasmonthly.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Badges+of+Dishonor:+Texas+Monthly+September+2007&expire=&urlID=23675692&fb=Y&url=http://www.texasmonthly.com/2007-09-01/feature2-1.php?click_code=71ef77429998e6fd871bb4fd0f5c114c&partnerID=98 Badges of Dishonor On a desolate stretch of the Rio Grande, two Border Patrol agents chased a fleeing suspect and opened fire, wounding him from behind. But they didn't arrest him, and they didn't report the shooting to their supervisors. Seed Newsvine Before the case of Border Patrol agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean became a cause clbre--that is, before there were calls for congressional hearings, high-level resignations at the Department of Justice, and presidential pardons--it almost didn't make the newspaper at all. The facts of the story might never have come to light if not for a phone call between two middle-aged women who had grown up together in a village in Mexico. In late February 2005 Macaria Aldrete-Davila called her old friend Gregoria Toquinto from her home in Chihuahua and said that her son had crossed into the United States illegally near the West Texas town of Fabens. Border Patrol agents had pursued him, and he had fled on foot. An agent had shot him in the backside as he ran from them, toward the Rio Grande. Her son had managed to limp back to Mexico, but he still had a bullet lodged in his groin and was in need of medical attention. Gregoria, who was living in El Paso, listened to her friend's story. Then she called her son-in-law, who happened to be a Border Patrol agent. So began a Department of Homeland Security internal investigation that uncovered what appeared to be a straightforward case of two federal agents shooting at a man as he ran away and then concealing their actions. Investigators found that Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila had put his hands in the air and tried to surrender, but Compean--instead of apprehending him--had swung at him with the butt of his shotgun. Aldrete-Davila had bolted, and as he ran, Compean and Ramos had fired at him fifteen times, with Compean stopping to reload his Beretta as he tried to hit his mark. Neither agent announced the shooting over the radio or informed his supervisor of what had happened; the official report about the pursuit made no mention of their firing their weapons. And rather than secure the area so that evidence could be preserved, Compean had retrieved most of his spent shell casings and tossed them into a ditch. Only when questioned by investigators a month later did he offer the explanation that he and Ramos had acted in self-defense; Aldrete-Davila had been "pointing something shiny" that "looked like a gun." A federal jury, which heard both agents' testimony, rejected their version of events and convicted them on five out of six criminal charges, including assault, obstruction of justice, and civil rights violations. That might have been the last word on the case, except that when talk radio shows, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, and conservative blogs picked up the story, they glossed over nearly all of the most damning facts presented at trial. Set against the backdrop of the national debate over immigration, a new narrative emerged, one in which Ramos and Compean were recast as "American heroes," unjustly persecuted by a government that cared more about amnesty for illegal immigrants than about border security. The story line advanced by pundits and bloggers focused on Aldrete-Davila's own illegal activity, since he had been ferrying a large load of marijuana when he had crossed paths with Ramos and Compean. But the stark contrast between Aldrete-Davila's fate and that of Ramos and Compean's inspired outrage. Two Border Patrol agents were being sent to prison, while a dope smuggler--who had been granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for his testimony--walked free. This seemingly perverse logic provoked a backlash from conservatives who had grown frustrated with the Bush administration's handling of border issues, prompting Ann Coulter to pen an acid assessment of the case titled "No Drug Smuggler Left Behind!" US attorney Johnny Sutton, a Bush appointee, was excoriated for prosecuting the agents--and even branded "Johnny Satan" by Houston talk radio show host Edd Hendee--while bloggers hailed Ramos and Compean as "political prisoners" in a modern-day Dreyfus affair. Lou Dobbs opined about the case on more than one hundred broadcasts, calling it an "outrageous miscarriage of justice" and "an appeasement of the Mexican government." Anti-illegal immigration activists like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps staged rallies and raised money for the agents' defense funds, and more than 370,000 Americans signed an online petition demanding presidential pardons. Republican congressmen known for their law-and-order credentials argued on the House floor that the agents were guilty of nothing more than "procedural violations" for failing to report the shooting, and US representative Ted Poe, of Humble, commended them for their actions. "We ought to give both of these Border Patrol agents medals and send them out there to bag another one," he said. Entangled in the heated politics of illegal immigration, the facts of what had actually happened down by the river were cast aside, and the victim's identity as a drug smuggler overshadowed the misconduct of the officers who had shot at him. Of the nearly 14,000 federal agents who patrol US borders, it was Ramos and Compean who were held up as heroes. In an interview this summer, and in handwritten letters from prison that followed, Ramos was thoughtful and articulate about his time with the Border Patrol, longing for the days when he kept watch over the Rio Grande instead of a seven-by-thirteen-foot cell. Yet he was unrepentant about his actions on February 17, 2005. It was his bullet that had permanently maimed, and nearly killed, Aldrete-Davila, but Ramos felt that any prison time for him and his fellow agent was unwarranted. "If anything, Compean and I should have gotten an administrative punishment--if that," he told me. Thirty-two miles southeast of El Paso, Fabens hardly looks like the kind of place that could inspire a national media storm. The Wrangler jeans factory, once its biggest employer, moved to Costa Rica nearly two years ago, and now Fabens is just another fading West Texas town. The train rattles by every now and then, on its way elsewhere. At lunchtime, farmers rest their white straw hats beside them at Margarita's Caf, trading news over warm bowls of caldo. South of the blinking red stoplight, Fabens reverts to farmland, and cotton fields and pecan orchards stretch out for miles toward the Rio Grande. The jagged blue contours of mountains rise in the distance, across the river in Chihuahua--a constant reminder, from any vantage point in town, that Mexico is always near. Ignacio Ramos arrived in Fabens as a recruit in 1995, when the local Border Patrol station was staffed by just twelve agents. Operation Hold the Line had succeeded in stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into El Paso, but it had not ended the problem. Human traffic had only shifted away from the city, moving southeastward to border towns like Socorro, San Elizario, and Fabens. As the tide of people and narcotics moved in, Ramos--and later Jose Alonso Compean, who was assigned to the Fabens station as a recruit in 2000--"worked the line," patrolling the river for illegals and dope. Ramos would sometimes conduct surveillance for hours, concealed behind brush or in fields that had grown high with cotton. "I would have guys drop me off and leave me out there, and I would hide in the bushes or trees or canals," he wrote to me from prison. "Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it wouldn't, but it's what kept the job interesting and a thinking game, as well. You were always trying to be a step ahead, or at least even with the dopers." Pamela Colloff (Page 2 of 5) Ramos, who is 38, and Compean, who is 7 years his junior, had followed nearly identical paths into the Border Patrol. Growing up in working-class neighborhoods on the east side of El Paso, they had each been the first in their families to graduate from high school. Both had dabbled in college and then joined the military. Both had eloped with their longtime girlfriends and had three children. But for all that they had in common, they could not have been less ali... |
| www.csua.org/u/jh4 -> www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/02/18/news/californian/22_32_112_17_07.txt Behind the debate: What really happened in border shooting and agents' convictions? By: PAULINE ARRILLAGA - Associated Press FABENS, Texas ---- The prairie where it all happened is quiet now, but for the occasional US Border Patrol vehicle passing by. A sign rests near a muddy ditch, "Stop Illegal Immigration," left behind by protesters who have visited in homage to two ex-agents, imprisoned for shooting a drug smuggler in the backside as he sprinted toward Mexico. It seems almost unimaginable that one moment in this lonely place ignited the furor that rages still ---- from the blogosphere to Congress ---- two years later. A jury convicted the agents of assault, obstruction of justice and civil rights violations. A federal judge meted out punishment: 12 years for Jose Alonso Compean; As the two men surrendered last month, demonstrators took to the streets, clutching US flags and shrieking: "What kind of America do we have?" There have been claims of betrayal, hateful phone calls to prosecutors, warnings to President Bush from some fellow Republicans in Congress about taking sides with "the American people or ... Online petitions have demanded an independent probe and a pardon. "Commended illegal immigration heroes," one Web site christened the convicted officers, whose supporters are disgusted that the so-called victim ---- "a doper" ---- went free, while the agents sit behind bars for "doing their job." But what happened that February day in 2005 ---- and what's happened since ---- isn't as black and white as the us vs. them spin on the airwaves and the Internet, where facts are fleeting in the ever emotional debate over the nation's borders. Consider one fact missing from the cyberspace chatter: In the El Paso Border Patrol sector, where Compean and Ramos were assigned, agents have fired their weapons 14 times in the line of duty since 2001 ---- including four fatal shootings. In one incident, a 19-year-old Mexican immigrant was shot to death by agents after he brandished a metal pipe. Each of those shootings, except one, was ruled a justifiable use of force, according to the US Attorney's Office in San Antonio ---- a "good shoot," in Border Patrol parlance. What set it apart, a federal prosecutor told jurors at their trial: "They knew it was a bad shoot." This case is different not simply because of the debate it inflamed but, as an Associated Press review of court documents, transcripts and exhibits shows, because of what transpired in a few life-changing moments out on that lonely prairie. Agent Compean, a Border Patrol officer for five years, was on the radio calling in some tripped sensors at a spot known as area 76. He alerted his fellow officers that he suspected some sort of drug transaction was under way, and the agents of the Fabens Border Patrol station quickly responded. Oscar Juarez, a newer officer who'd spent six weeks as Compean's field trainee, was in his vehicle not far from the Rio Grande ---- "pushing back" a group of 10 or more illegal immigrants, he would testify at trial. Pushing back means exhibiting a high-profile presence to ensure would-be crossers stay in Mexico rather than attempting to cross the river. Nacho Ramos, a senior agent with 10 years under his belt, was having lunch at the station when he heard the radio call. They, and five other agents, responded to Compean's alert. Holding the line against illegal immigrants might be their primary job description, agents would testify, but taking down a drug load is an event every officer wants credit for. Juarez picked up the van first, following it north into Fabens. He hit his overhead lights, but instead of pulling over, the van sped up and headed back south toward the border. We got this baby," Juarez radioed at 1:19 pm It was his first car chase. The road turned to dirt and came to a dead-end at a steep sewage ditch the agents call the Sierra Delta. It runs east to west, and was measured by investigators as 11-feet deep and 43-feet wide, too big to jump. It's filled, at least ankle-high, with putrid, murky water. Beyond the ditch, facing south, is a slight incline, then a levee road that parallels the ditch and an open vega, or prairie, about half a football field in length. Nearly to Mexico The van came to a stop at the edge of the ditch. Compean, having tracked the pursuit on the radio, stuck to the south side of the ditch and parked his truck on the levee road. The van driver, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, got out and ran for the canal, Mexico in his sights. they were empty, Compean, Juarez and Aldrete would all agree in statements to investigators and in court testimony. At least two men ---- Aldrete and Compean ---- reported hearing one of the other agents say, "Hit him." Compean swung the butt of his weapon at Aldrete, Juarez testified, but Compean lost his balance and fell into the ditch, dropping his shotgun. Compean insisted he wasn't trying to hit the driver, only push him back. Aldrete took off out of the ditch, over the levee and across the vega, headed for Mexico. Juarez testified that he was walking to the van to inspect its contents when he heard shooting, turned and saw Compean firing his Beretta handgun. He said he saw Compean reload, fire a few more shots and then dash into the vega. Contradicting Juarez's account, Compean insisted he recovered from his fall, chased after Aldrete and tackled him. Aldrete, he said, threw dirt in his face and took off running again. Compean said he started shooting because he thought he saw something in the suspect's hand. Ramos testified that he heard gunfire, ran into the vega and saw Compean on the ground. "I thought he had been shot, that he had been injured," he told jurors. Ramos testified that he never stopped or asked Compean if he'd been hit, however, and instead ran past his fellow agent and fired one final shot at Aldrete because, "I believed I saw a gun." Shots fired Testimony revealed that Compean fired about 14 times, and Ramos once. Compean and Ramos holstered their weapons and walked back toward the drainage ditch. Some 743 pounds of marijuana were discovered inside the van. Aldrete testified that he never had any gun or anything "shiny" in his hands, and that he ran from Compean because the agent had tried to hit him and "I got scared." More striking were the agents' own conflicting stories and actions ---- and the statements of other Border Patrol officers who testified against them, including the five agents and two supervisors who showed up on the scene. Among the discrepancies: - In a handwritten statement to investigators, Compean said Ramos was "standing next to me" when Ramos took the final shot. At trial, Ramos testified that Compean was on the ground when he ran past him and fired. Compean testified that he was on one knee and getting to his feet when Ramos ran by him and fired, but he said he didn't see Ramos shoot. In that statement Compean acknowledged, "I think Nacho might have hit him." At trial, when asked if he'd "ever" thought Aldrete had been hit, Compean said no. Neither Ramos nor Compean reported the shooting, even after one of the supervisors on scene asked Compean if he'd been assaulted. Border Patrol policy requires that all weapon discharges ---- accidental or otherwise ---- be reported verbally to a supervisor within an hour. Once an agent-involved shooting is reported, a sector evidence team is dispatched to take measurements and pictures, and investigate what happened to allow supervisors to determine whether the shooting was justified. Instead, Compean admitted that he picked up his spent bullet casings, which would usually be preserved for the evidence team, and tossed them into the drainage ditch. The two agents had attended quarterly firearms training the day before the incident. Ramos was also a member of the sector evidence response team and a former firearms instructor. In his drug seizure report, Compean also failed to mention the gunfire or that Aldrete had a weapon. The report said only: "The driver was able to abscond back to Mexico." Compean did tell at least two other agents that he fired at the driver. One was Art Vasquez, who testified that Compean ... |