Why send a Mexican drugrunner to prison when you can send the border patrol:
Two Texas Border Patrol agents who shot a Mexican drug runner in the backside on the U.S. side of the border are hoping a last-ditch pardon from President Bush will save them from serving more than a decade in prison.Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are scheduled to turn themselves in to authorities Wednesday to begin serving 11 and 12 years, respectively, for the February 2005 non-fatal shooting.
Several groups, including Friends of the Border Patrol, The Minutemen and Grassfire.org, have been trying through petitions to keep the agents out of prison — through either a motion to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone to allow them to remain free on bond during an appeal or through a presidential pardon from Bush. About a dozen rallies took place across the country in support of the agents last week.
You can bet the druglords in Mexico are having a good chuckle over this one.
Posted by floridacracker at January 16, 2007 01:23 PMSee, we need to shoot not just drugrunners crossing the border, but stupid judges who clearly are failing to fulfill their Constitutional duties.
Well, that or hang 'em. Like Saddam's sidekicks.
Posted by: Jeff H at January 16, 2007 02:03 PMmore than the drugrunners are laughing...
I can hear them chuckling all over...especially here.
Posted by: csason at January 16, 2007 02:46 PMWhen shooting a drugrunner is bad but breaking into an old woman's house and shooting her is just a mistake...I don't have the words to describe the idiocy. Forget the War on Drugs, how about a War on Stupid?
Posted by: marybeth at January 16, 2007 03:50 PMYour comments always crack me up, Mary Beth.
An army could prance across our border. It's beyond being a joke.
Posted by: Donnah at January 16, 2007 04:02 PMI haven't followed this story enough but I can see it has gone beyond stupid as it reached that threshold when the agents were charged in the first place.
As a resident of the State of Texas, I guess I'll have to start checking what my elected officials are doing about this but I can tell you that if I were tasked with defending that border with the knowledge that the government wasn't going to back me up when threatened, I'd be pretty unenthused about putting the uniform on each day.
Posted by: tfhr at January 16, 2007 05:41 PMDunno if I should tout someone else here but you (Marybeth) might want to take a look at Neal Boortz's new book "Somebody's Gotta Say It" coming out this Feb... or even tune him in on the radio.
It's truely stupifying watching what passes for 'justice' occuring in this country right now, downright scary.
This campaign would be MUCH more successful if the key points of the ridiculous case were more clearly spelled out. I've seen several websites, and they all garble the issues.
Look. The US went into Mexico and found this drugrunner who was shot in the butt escaping, offered him immunity to come back and testify in the US against our border guards. The drugrunner has been caught several times. The trial of the Border Agents was held in a border town, with a ridiculous jury. The drugrunner is now suing the US for $5 million. The agents have families, and have been sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
There was plenty of reason for the agents to fire, because these drugrunners often carry very powerful automatic weapons, and things get dicey and happen quick.
These two Border Agents are on our side! A pardon is absolutely needed here.
Posted by: gramp at January 17, 2007 01:39 AMAnd now the drug smuggler could sue the U.S. for violating his rights. Again I am speechless. Well, not really, it's just that nothing I want to say would be appropriate as a comment on someone else's blog.
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Gmac, thanks for the book recommendation. I ordered it.