U.S. Attorney ruthlessly prosecuted Border Patrol agents, treated drug smuggler 'like a lost tourist' July 18, 2007 Judging from his Senate testimony, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton would have us believe two Border Patrol agents gunned down a lost tourist rather than defended the U.S. in a border war. Sutton was very deliberate in his choice of words when he insisted once again before Sen. Diane Feinstein's subcommittee that Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean shot drug runner Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila "in the back" as he fled apprehension in February 2005. Testifying that Davila was shot in the left buttocks as he abandoned a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana and fled back into Mexico doesn't quite have the sinister ring of cold-bloodedness that Sutton needed to convince a jury to send two border agents to prison for a dozen years each. It was typical of the outright falsehoods and half-truths that dotted his Senate testimony. "The reason all of this mess happened is because agents Ramos and Compean shot an unarmed guy and ran away and covered it up, " Sutton testified. Yet except for Davila's word, Sutton has no proof that Davila, who was not caught and frisked, was unarmed. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., obtained a copy of a memo by Homeland Security Special Agent Richard Sanchez detailing an interview Compean gave to investigators on March 18, 2005. The memo, dated April 4, 2005, states that Compean believed Davila was armed. "Compean said that Aldrete-Davila continued to look back over his shoulder toward Compean as Aldrete-Davila ran away from him," Sanchez wrote in the memo. "Compean said that he began to shoot at Aldrete-Davila because of the shiny object he thought he saw in Aldrete-Davila's left hand . . . Compean said he thought that the shiny object might be a gun and that Aldrete-Davila was going to shoot him because he kept looking back at him as he was running away . . ." Two of Davila's family members, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin that the smuggler had been dealing drugs since he was 14 and, according to one, "he wouldn't move drugs unless he had a gun on him." T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, testified: "There is no credible evidence that Davila, the Mexican national who was wounded by Ramos, was unarmed on Feb. 17, 2005, while smuggling more than a million dollars worth of drugs into the United States." At one point, a visibly angry Sutton raised his voice and said: "Ramos and Compean have no one to blame but themselves. Instead of reporting like they're duty bound to do, they covered it up." Except they didn't. A previously unpublished internal Department of Homeland Security memo discloses that seven Border Patrol agents, including Compean and Ramos and two supervisors, were at the scene. The presence of the two supervisors explains why the two didn't file a report. They didn't feel they had to, since their supervisors — Robert Arnold, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, and Jonathan Richards, a field operations supervisor — were at the scene. Andy Ramirez, who has watched the case unfold as chairman of the group Friends of the Border Patrol, told World Net Daily: "The Border Patrol manual specifies that only a verbal report needs to be made of shooting incidents like this. All the agents in the field were discussing the shooting incident, including the supervisors. What more of a verbal report needed to be made?" Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, challenged Sutton's insistence that Aldrete-Davila could not be prosecuted for the first drug-smuggling offense for lack of evidence. He cited a March 14, 2005, memo by agent Sanchez describing a conversation with Davila prior to giving him immunity to testify. Davila said he was afraid to come forward because he was trying to transport marijuana across the border at the time of the incident. To sweeten the immunity deal, Sutton acknowledged Davila was given a "humanitarian visa" to travel back and forth from Mexico, which he used during a second smuggling attempt. Sutton would not confirm or deny the second attempt, saying the matter was under investigation. It was this second offense that was kept from the jury that convicted Ramos and Compean. A Nov. 21, 2005, report by DHS special agent Sanchez indicates DEA investigators conducted a "knock and talk" in Clint, Texas, on Oct. 23, 2005, with one Cipriano Ernesto-Ortiz Hernandez. He positively identified Davila as the driver who dropped off 752.8 pounds of marijuana in a 1990 Chevy Astro van at Ortiz-Hernandez's home the day before. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., has said that "it is obvious that . . . Sutton knowingly presented a false picture of the drug smuggler in order to justify his ruthless prosecution of Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean." Then there's the matter of why Ramos and Compean were charged under section 924(c) of the criminal code. The section intended to punish felons who use firearms in the commission of a crime, not law enforcement officers attempting to apprehend lawbreakers. Sutton said he wasn't consulted on this. Again, the question is why. Feinstein asked if the jury knew the maximum sentence for the agents before their deliberations. Sutton coldly responded: "No." Another item kept from the jury. Feinstein now says she is going to ask President Bush to commute the sentences of Ramos and Compean. At every stage of the process, Sutton took the word of a career drug-runner over veteran Border Patrol agents. The question is why. Until that question is answered, as well as why Compean and Ramos are in prison while Davila is free, the phrase "border security" coming from the lips of this administration will ring very hollow indeed. |