Shooting Drug Smugglers Doesn't Pay
With all of the talk this week over the involvement of illegal immigrants in a plot to attack Fort Dix, many of us have probably forgotten about the previous scandal that was politically manipulated in the immigration debate: the case of the two border guards who were arrested for shooting a drug smuggler in Texas.
As a quick refresher, on February 17, 2005 two US border guards, Ignacio 'Nacho' Ramos and Jose Compean, were involved in an incident with a drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila. Aldrete-Davila was trying to sneak into the US driving a van with almost 800 pounds of marijuana, when he was spotted by border guards and was involved in a high speed chase with them that ended with him driving into a ditch. At this time, Compean, who had Aldrete-Davila cornered in the ditch, apparently went to strike him with his gun when he slipped and Aldrete-Davila started to run away back to Mexico. Compean then fired 14 shots, missing Aldrete-Davila every time. At this point, depending on who you believe, Ramos either shot Aldrete-Davila in the back when he was running away, or Aldrete-Davila had something in his hands that Ramos believed could have been a gun and he shot him. Aldrete-Davila was not apprehended by the border guards, but instead wound up getting back to Mexico.
Now if you just read the above carefully, you might be thinking; 'Wait, 2005? Wasn't this a scandal only a few months ago? So why did none of us here about this until recently?' Well, because none of the border guards reported that they had shot someone despite strict guideline requiring that they do so. In fact, they even went back and picked up the spent shells on the ground, apparently to cover up the whole incident. The case only came to light a year later when a different border guard in Arizona was talking to friends in Mexico and heard that a man had been shot by border guards. He did his own investigating and then reported what he had heard to an internal investigating arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
When the story broke, there was an outburst of condemnation from mostly conservative pundits and Congressmen, who used this as another example of 'ridiculous' immigration policy. The border guards were being punished for just 'performing their jobs' while a drug smuggler was granted immunity to testify against them. As this article in the National Review (hardly a bastion of liberalism) points out, none of this debate actually focused on the facts of the case.
So what has happened since the quick burst of media attention? In January, the two officers had a trial that took all of two weeks in which they were found guilty and sentenced to over 10 years in jail (largely because of a mandatory sentencing law, ironically pushed through by mostly conservative Congressman wanting to be tough on crime). Since then, a number of jurors have expressed some remorse over finding Ramos and Compean guilty. The full transcripts of the trial are available on this blog, which has been set up to support Ramos and Compean. If you want to see that real life trials aren't quite as exciting as Law and Order would have you believe, I highly recommend trying to read a few pages of the trial. The first 40 pages where the lawyers talk, among other things, about when they should start the trial to coordinate with all of their vacations are particularly gripping.
Both men have begun serving their prison terms and apparently Ramos has already been subject to an attack by other prisoners. Efforts are still underway to free the men, but things are not looking good. President Bush said he would look at a pardon possibility in January, but hasn't acted on it yet. Judicial Watch has also filed a lawsuit requiring the Department of Homeland Security to release any information regarding the involvement of the Mexican government in the case.
Aldrete-Davila was planning a $5 million lawsuit again the Border Patrol, a case that is apparently still ongoing. But before you get too disgusted that this drug smuggler has gotten away with his crimes and will now profit off of them, we leave you with a description of his injuries taken from the trial (keep in mind that he had to attempt to get this treated in Mexico, which not surprisingly did not go too well).
The bullet went through his left lower buttock, transversed the urethra --that's the tube that takes your urine from your bladder and makes it go out so that you can urinate. It didn't actually transverse the urethra. The urethra was severed, but what it did was it hit the pelvic bone and shattered -- four bullet fragments are still inside of him. And then after it shattered the pelvic bone, either the bullet itself or a piece of the pelvic bone severed the urethra. And it also permanently damaged his urinary sphincter.