Now that the last of the “Jena 6” has been released from custody, perhaps the professionally outraged will turn their attention to the “El Paso 2,” who have been even more grievously abused by the legal system.
The pair, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were U.S. Border Patrol agents until last year, when they were sentenced to 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively, for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks as he fled from them.
If this story were being hawked as a movie script — the typically tendentious plot of corrupt cops picking on beleaguered criminals — it would be rejected as unbelievable. Consider the facts on record.
On Feb. 17, 2005, Compean became suspicious of a van driving near the Rio Grande. He called Ramos for backup, and they pursued the driver, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila — an illegal immigrant transporting almost 800 pounds of marijuana.
Realizing he was cornered, the drug smuggler bailed out of thevan and began running, ignoring the agents’ orders to stop. Ramos fired, but assumed he missed because Aldrete-Davila kept running until he reached a van waiting for him on the other side of a canal.
By this time, Compean and Ramos had been joined by seven other agents — including two supervisors — who heard the call for backup. Since Aldrete-Davila had escaped, and the shots fired at him apparently had missed their mark, neither Ramos nor Compean filed a report of having fired their weapon.
For that, they are in prison.
Outraged that her son would be treated so harshly for doing nothing more than entering another country illegally, transporting contraband and fleeing from police officers, Aldrete-Davila’s mother complained to a friend who was the mother-in-law of another border patrol guard.
That agent called the Department of Homeland Security and tattled. Next thing you know, the drug smuggler has been granted immunity to testify against the border guards.
By Aldrete-Davila’s telling, he was just a poor guy trying to score enough money to buy medicine for his sick mother. How did jurors listen to that with straight faces? Ramos and Compean were convicted of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, violating Aldrete-Davila’s civil rights and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
The latter is the kicker because it carries an automatic prison sentence of 10 years — but how can it apply? The border patrol agents weren’t knocking over a liquor store; they were trying to stop someone from committing a crime.
As Ramos said after sentencing, “Everybody who’s breaking the law flees from us. What are we supposed to do?”
It’s a fair question, and it’s one the Bush administration needs to answer if the president continues refusing to pardon Ramos and Compean. Theirs seems to be another alarming case of individuals being sent to prison merely for paying insufficient homage to bureaucracy.
Defending the zealous prosecution, Assistant U. S. Attorney Debra Kanof explained, “You have to report any discharge of a firearm.” Boy, she sure showed them.
It is telling that even über-liberal Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., — hardly a fixture on the law-and-order ticket — has denounced the agents’ sentence. “This really is a case of prosecutorial overreaction,” Feinstein said. “This was a drug dealer who was shot fleeing. He wasn’t an innocent person.”
Yet Bush has refused to budge, saying the U.S. attorney responsible for the case, Johnny Sutton, is “a dear friend of mine.” So what? No one’s dear friends are infallible.
The Bush administration has intimated that there is more to the case than the public knows. If that is the case, then it should make the rest of the facts known. Failing any contradictory evidence, we are left with the conclusion that two well-intended law-enforcement officers are in prison for doing their jobs.
OK, they didn’t report having fired their guns. Is that such a crime that they should sit in prison while Aldrete-Davila walks free?
Bush didn’t hesitate to spare Scooter Libby the fate Ramos and Compean are enduring. If border agents don’t deserve the same consideration, then the administration should explain why not.
Otherwise, a larger question remains: Whose side are you really on?
Examiner Columnist Melanie Scarborough lives in Alexandria.
