OK, well. Speaking of tragedy, there’s a tragedy happening in slow motion in connection with court proceedings in El Paso that might have something to do with 9-11, but may still have funny bits in spite of that. I am speaking of the conviction and pending sentencing of two border patrol agents for shooting a drug smuggler in the butt and not reporting it, and the uproar over said conviction, etc. If nothing else I can say “butt” frequently.
Border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean shot marijuana runner Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila in the butt as he fled from them, in February 2005. Since then Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila has filed a suit alleging violation of his civil rights and is asking $5 million. At the same time, even though Aldrete-Davila was found to have been hauling 800 pounds of marijuana when he was shot in the butt, he was granted full immunity to testify against the border agents, who were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of assault with intent to commit murder, assault with serious bodily injury, and assault with a deadly weapon.
Ramos and Compean both said they thought Aldrete-Davila was armed that day. But the jury didn’t buy it. The jurors were probably more swayed by the fact that the two agents refused to write up the incident and destroyed evidence of the shooting, than by any testimony by the border-flaunting, marijuana-toting, $5 million-wanting, Rosa Parks-wanna-be, woundee.
I mean, if I were a juror in the case, when I learned that Ramos and Compean not only failed to report the shooting, but went so far as to retrieve and hide their shell-casings in order to cover the incident up, I would immediately have wanted them to spend life in prison, because I don’t think armed officers of the law should have a free pass to shoot people on holiday whenever they feel like it. You gotta do the paperwork, and THEN we look the other way.
In any case, a jury has spoken and Ramos and Compean were convicted months ago. The next step is sentencing, which is due to take place in El Paso in October. The slow-motion tragedy of which I spoke earlier is, however, happening right now in Washington, D.C.
Not only are the usual Republicans, such as James Sensenbrenner and John Hostettler, trying to meddle in the federal court’s business in this case, but also so is good old Democrat Dianne Feinstein. They are all asking Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to order the case be reopened and re-prosecuted because they already don’t like the way it turned out, even before allowing the sentences to be read.
You can go to justicefortheborderpatrol.com and sign their petition if you think it’s a good idea. I won’t. It looks to me like they want Bush to assign a new prosecutor in the case now, and then again in the future, and then again, until a prosecutor can be found that doesn’t bring charges, because Sensenbrenner, Feinstein, and the others have decided that if guys with badges can’t shoot Mexicans in the butt without anyone knowing, then the terrorists have won.
What really has the conservatives’ panties in a bunch is that the woundee and undoubted felon Aldrete-Davila got full immunity to testify against two white-hatted good guys, and they RIGHTFULLY see this as a travesty of justice.
It IS a travesty of justice when the bad guys get immunity to testify against good guys. But if you’re going to end that practice just for federal agents, we’re going to be stuck with two separate justice systems, one for liars with badges, and one for all the rest of us. That would be the tragedy.
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