http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stor ... e04dc.html

Valley residents hold rally to support convicted border agent

05:15 PM Mountain Standard Time on Saturday, January 13, 2007

By The Associated Press

They are just days from having to turn themselves in to federal authorities.

Two border patrol agents have been convicted of shooting a drug smuggler in Texas, so why are the agents going to jail?

Former El Paso border patrol agent Ignacio Ramos is just days away from having to turn himself in to federal authorities to begin serving an 11-year prison sentence.

Ramos and former agent Jose Compean were convicted for shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks as he was trying to bring hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the border near Fabens, Texas.

The agents were also convicted of tampering with evidence for not reporting the shooting and for picking up shell casings from the scene.

Thousands of people across the country are showing their support for the agents...who were convicted largely by the testimony of the smuggler they shot who was granted immunity.

Here in Phoenix members of the American Freedom Riders rallied outside the Sandra Say O'Connor federal building asking for justice.

“We along with probably 98 percent of the world feel like they were doing their job and were convicted of a crime,” a rally member said. “The drug smuggler gets to testify against them, it's not American.”

Several members of congress are also showing their support and have asked President Bush to pardon the agents, but Ramos, a husband and father of three, says time is running out.

“We were hoping to hear something these last two days, we didn't,” Ramos said. “We won't hear anything Monday. Tuesday is the last day before I have to surrender.”

“We don't feel so alone with all the public support we've received, but I'm still faced with the fact that I may have to turn him over to the government next Wednesday,” said Monica Ramos, Ignacio’s wife.

“If indeed that day comes and I have to turn myself in I just have to think it's only for a little while because this fight is far from over,” Ramos said.

The former agents have to turn themselves in on January 17. In the meantime the man they shot is now also planning to sue the border patrol for $5 million.