Reps Bilbray & Rohrbacher (R-Ca) & Poe(R-Tx) Rip * Over Border Patrol Incident--* Backs Drug Dealers

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not two border patrol agents who shot at border dealers and are now in jail, with a drug dealer getting immunity to testify against the agents. Judge/jury gave 11-12 years to each agent.

55 Congressmen including R's sent letter to * on behalf of border agents. (Tony Snowjob says letter "nonsensical"). No response to Congressmen from Maladministration.

Basically, BushCo is defending drug dealers coming over border, while 2 border agents who shot at the dealers are put in jail without bail.

BushCo is now being very transparent about the fact they're shielding drug dealers and Repubs are ripped! :wow: I believe this will help us bring * down; he is either totally insane or VERY DEEP into drug dealing. Or both. :grr:

This is on Lou Dobbs---CNN.

Even Ed Rollins is saying Dimson will pay for this.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I saw something about this on Lou Dobbs.

(I only had it on CNN because I was setting up my new TV, I don't watch Lou Dobbs)

And they were blathering on about how Bush should pardon these two border guards. Apparently they shot some Mexicans, then covered it up, and then rightly went to jail.

So why shouldn't they be in jail?

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3. agents were pursuing dealers on the border---the Congressmen were focused on that

There hasn't been much about a coverup.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. They shot people, and didn't file any report.

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6. they shot drug dealers with $1 million in drugs, not just "people"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Are you familiar with the Constitution?

It says everybody has a right to a trial. Even drug dealers.

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12. I don't think our borders should be overrun by drug dealers allowed to just waltz in

with $1 million in drugs.

Personally, I am for legalizing most drugs but why are our border agents being prosecuted for doing their jobs?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Well, that's great.

I don't think law enforcement should just be allowed to shoot people and walk away with it.

"Personally, I am for legalizing most drugs but why are our border agents being prosecuted for doing their jobs?"

If they'd done their jobs, they wouldn't be in jail.

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15. apparently that area has had some violent incidents and on the Mexican side, officials who

prosecute drug dealers are murdered. Obviously, things are tense on the border, at least in this part of TX.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Oooh, my, well that changes everything!

:eyes:

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18. you might not see it but something smells here---read the links

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8. the Mexicans are drug dealers bringing in $1 million worth of drugs---& * prosecutes the border agen

ts!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. And?

[halobeam]

2. Makes me uneasy.

Is he really this sloppy and stupid or are we more helpless than we realize and he knows it.

Just a sickening thought.

[BuyingThyme]

4. Illegal drugs and illegal workers are a two-fer.

[Burnsey_Koenig]

9. So Much more to it than you and Dobbs suggest....

The officers didn't follow protocal, didn't file a report and broke many regulations and violated a Supreme Court Directive. AND they were convicted by a JURY in TEXAS. Read the whole story. I am not defending the decision, but the LAW applies to everyone, not just those we wish it applied to. Do you really want the police to be shooting people in the back as they flee from a crime scene? Yeah, shoot em down in the streets, or in the dessert. And if you don't like this law, then somone needs to take it up with the Supremes...


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.....

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."

[Burnsey_Koenig]

11. Here is link....

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

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14. thanks for this--the agents don't get a mistrial declared when 3 jurors were coerced into guilty

votes?

snip: 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.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

17. Didn't Bush pardon about 5 drug dealers around Christmas time?

I can't say I know for sure how big or small these drug dealers were. I think, however, that he even arranged to have the sentence commuted of a convicted methamphetamine dealer who happens to be an attorney working for a company that is a major contributor to the Republican Party.

And I think his father George H.W. Bush pardoned a Pakistani heroin dealer named Aslam Adam shortly before his presidential term ended.

[Burnsey_Koenig]

20. yea he pardoned them AFTER their sentance was served

so all it did was remove it from their records. He never released them from jail.

[northofdenali]

22. Thanks for the info -

and welcome to DU :hi:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

25. That's not quite correct - he commuted one sentence

In the case of the individual that Bush pardoned who was found guilty of selling methamphetimine, Bush commuted his sentence. That means, he reduced the total possible sentence of the individual. A commutation means that the individual did not serve his entire time. Phillip Anthony Emmert was sentenced in December, 1992 to 22 years in prison and was due for release in 2011 (sentence reduced by 3 years in 1996).

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21. yes, CNN reported that he did pardon 5 dealers---that should go over big with the fundies

who love their born again pRes.

[amandabeech]

19. Might the jurors have been frightened?

The WND article, admittedly a suspect source, said that Ramos had increased security around his home because there were concerns that associates of the injured individual might engage in some vigilante justice of their own.

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23. I guess anyone would be frightened trying to stop drug dealers bringing in $1 million worth of drugs

into the US.

These guys are not just petty dealers, dealing a few ozs.

[amandabeech]

24. I sure would be. n/t