The anniversary of their incarceration has come and past. Yet the two border agents remain in jail for shooting a man in the butt. Before you think that this can be quickly dismissed as rouge agents read the fine summary from the National Center blog. When policy thwarts justice we have certainly sunk low. When policy allows freedom and immunity to illegals and criminals but imprison those on the front line we have sunk low. Why does the adminstration not do something?
As the border agents attempted to apprehend Mr. Aldrete-Davila, he wrestled with Compean, ultimately escaping. As he fled, Mr. Aldrete-Davila produced and pointed an object that Ramos thought was a gun. Ramos fired at the fleeing Mr. Aldrete-Davila, but thought he had missed. In reality, Mr. Aldrete-Davila had been wounded in the buttocks, yet still managed to escape across the Rio Grande, where be met an accomplice who then drove him into Mexico.
Prosecutors claimed the agents had violated Border Patrol policy when they pursued Mr. Aldrete-Davila without supervisor approval, that Compean moved shell casings, and that both did not properly report the shots fired. Testifying against Ramos and Compean, under the veil of immunity from prosecution for his actions on the night in question, was none other than Mr. Aldrete-Davila himself.
T.J. Bonner of the National Border Patrol Council noted in Senate testimony that jurors were not told of Mr. Aldrete-Davila’s continued drug trafficking after he was granted immunity (something for which he has since been indicted), nor that an agent who testified against Ramos and Compean is a life-long friend of Mr. Aldrete-Davila (a clear violation of agency policy). Mr. Bonner also testified that the shooting was justified by both Department of Justice and Border Patrol policies — and that a medical examination of Mr. Aldrete-Davila had supported the agents’ description of events. Still, Ramos and Compean went to jail.
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