The plight of (former) US Border Patrol agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos has been covered here previously. Now the whole world knows, that they have been sent to start sentences in a federal prison, for shooting an illegal alien dope runner in the butt.

I’ve told you how the drug cartels control those border smuggling routes, are very well armed and put lives at risk on a regular basis. I’m not surprised that a border patrol (BP) agent would see something pointed towards them and feel it was a gun. That’s really what this case is all about. The agents felt a gun was displayed and fired in self defense. Instead of their word being accepted as that of American citizens who work on our border and where never accused of an unwarranted shooting before. They are treated like criminals, on the word of an illegal alien dope runner who claims he never showed a weapon. Our guys should not have to do time for their in the field judgment call.

Yea the dope runner was running, but some of our guys already thought that dope runner was a threat. They could not just turn their backs once they felt their lives were threatened. Some say they should not have run after the illegal dope runner. Obviously they were right to give chase, because this was a dope runner. If the person they shot had no gun, no dope and was running away, this might be a different case. But we are talking about a dope runner in the mist of a dope run. It was right for our guys to chase him and try to catch him.

The 2 BP agents did not file a report. OK, so they should do time in a federal prison for that? Compean went and picked up his shell casings. Given how he’s being treated can you blame him? Obviously they knew filing the report and the related investigations would be totally used against them. I’m not saying they should have broken the rules by not filing a report and picking up shell casings, but I am saying that this should not win them each over 10 years in a federal prison.

As an added insult, prosecuting US Attorney Johnny Sutton has put together this write-up where he trashes Compean and Ramos. In response to the fact Ramos was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the Year, Sutton says there have been false claims that Ramos was BPA of the year and never mentions it was a nomination that had to be withdrawn because of Sutton’s own efforts to prosecute him. Sutton goes on to trash the character of Ramos, by bringing up domestic abuse arrests. Sutton could not find a history of Ramos shooting anyone for no reason while working as a BP agent. So Sutton had to resort to character assassination regarding some domestic matters involving Ramos. Sutton also mentions that Ramos has been disciplined for “conduct unbecoming a federal officer”, while failing to provide any details. Was it because of the arrests or some other matter? Obviously it was nothing Sutton felt mentioning would help in smearing Ramos. I think the attorney’s actions are conduct unbecoming a US attorney. For crying out loud they’ve been convicted and he’s tossing salt in the wounds!

There has been wide spread disappointment with our government’s handling of this. 55 Congressmen sent a letter to the President on behalf of the border agents, with no response from Bush! According to Tom Tancredo, during the Christmas break Bush granted 18 pardons, 5 of them to drug dealers. While he does nothing about 2 BP agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler in the butt.

Almost 250,000 people have signed a petition on behalf of Compean and Ramos.

Last night congressmen Brian Bilbray, Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher were on CNN speaking to Lou Dobbs about the case. Watch the video below.

Congressman Bilbray made the case for pardoning the agents.

…
BILBRAY: Well, I was born and raised along the border and I guess the frustration is the administration, from the bottom up, just does not understand how out of control and violent the border is, the kind of environment that we’re asking border patrolmen to work on.

Anybody that looks at the murder rate in Tijuana understands that law enforcement is being killed all along this frontier. And to sit there and second-guess people in a violent area and remember that this was an area where there was a major firefight with assault weapons not too long ago.

DOBBS: Right.

BILBRAY: And all I say is that Mr. President, if you’re going consider Mr. Kennedy’s amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens, couldn’t you just add two more border patrol agents onto that list?
…

Bilbray mentioned that maybe the White House does not understand what’s happening on our border and congressman Rohrabacher had to quickly correct him. He said Bush knows exactly what’s going on at our border. George W. Bush was the 2 term governor of a border state (Texas), so he can’t claim ignorance. Rohrabacher also said Bush has a policy we don’t know about.

…
BILBRAY: Lou, it’s hard to get the message across to anybody in Washington about the conditions along the border. But the administration just needs friends that are willing to be persistent at opening their eyes to the reality of the situation.

ROHRABACHER: I’m going to disagree with you, Brian. I think this president knows darn well what’s going on down at the border. He just has a policy that we don’t know about. Maybe it’s an unstated policy that’s an open border policy.

He knows what’s going on down there, Brian, but now that puts the Border Patrol in a totally untenable situation where they have to — what, if the president says you can have an open border, that puts them on the line and now they try to enforce the law and they end up putting the Border Patrol agents in jail.
…

Then Rohrabacher said this line, that was like a political knockout punch!

…
ROHRABACHER: I used to call the White House during the Clinton years and I would get a call back from high level administration officials or the president himself would call me a number of times. This president doesn’t return calls and underlings, way down the line, return the calls of elected Congressmen. That’s arrogance.
…

Even if a President could run for a 3rd term, I don’t even think Bush would be able to win his own party’s nomination. Congressmen and Senators from his own party are lining up to take shots at him.

update 1/19/2007 10:56AM: While talking this matter over with some readers over at Hot Air, someone using the handle Theworldisnotenough reminded me of something I should have mentioned here. Something little Johnny Sutton is not mentioning while he tosses his spin to the media. 3 jurors did not want to vote guilty and were misled into doing so.

Obviously the judge denied the motion to toss out the guilty verdicts. The illegal alien drug smuggler gets away and the BP agents go to prison. Their word and the word of those jurors falls on deaf ears, while Johnny Sutton claims the agents were convicted on a unanimous verdict.

And by the way folks, the illegal alien drug smuggler is suing for $5 million. That’s $5 million of our tax dollars that he wants because he claims his civil rights were violated. Both the judge and Johnny Sutton were appointed by President George W. Bush. Remember, congressman Rohrabacher said Bush is running an agenda we don’t know about. We see who gets the better end of that agenda!