Thread: Assistant D.A. apalled BP agent would fire on his own people

How many of you saw the segment on Lou Dobbs tonight regarding BP agents Ramos and Compean? Did you hear the part where the Assistant District Attorney that prosecuted them said she was apalled that they would fire on one of their own people (or something very similar)? What in the world is that supposed to mean? An illegal alien drug smuggler is not "their people." When are these pro-illegal immigrant activists (yes, that includes the prosecuting D.A.) going to quit making this a racial issue? Those Border Patrol Agents are American citizens that are sworn to uphold the law - even if that means firing upon a fleeing felon whom they thought had a gun. How dare that lady compare two American citizen BP agents to a drug smuggling illegal alien, it's ridiculous!The Assistant District Attorney in this case should be hung out to dry for making that comment, but it won't happen because she too is Latino.

Could you even, for a minute, imagine a caucasion D.A. verbally asking a caucasion police officer how he could fire on one of his own people. Law enforcement personnel should never consider the race of an individual when performing their sworn duty to serve and protect!

Her comment almost floored me, how dare she!

Can someone swing by Lou Dobbs website and get us a transcript please?

W

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

DOBBS: We've been reporting on what is being called a monumental miscarriage of justice this week against two Texas Border Patrol agents. The Border Patrol agents face as much as 20 years in prison for pursuing a Mexican drug smuggler who was freed and then granted full immunity from prosecution by the Justice Department in exchange for his testimony against the two Border Patrol agents.

Tonight, we talk exclusively with Border Patrol agent Jose Compean who is speaking out for the first time about this case, and fighting to clear his name.

Casey Wian has the report from El Paso, Texas.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jose Compean has been a Border Patrol agent for five years. Before that, four years in the United States Navy. Now, he could spend the next 20 in federal prison for trying to do his job: apprehending an illegal alien drug smuggler.

JOSE COMPEAN, BORDER PATROL AGENT: This has been very disappointing. You know, you risk your life out there. Did it for five years and something like this happens, and it's over.

WIAN: Over, because even if his conviction is overturned on appeal, Compean believes his law enforcement career is finished. What's worse, he faces decades of separation from his two children, and his wife Claudia. She's expecting their third child shortly after Compean's sentencing date later this month.

CLAUDIA COMPEAN, WIFE OF BORDER AGENT: I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm appalled. I mean, just all the emotions, all at once. I can't believe this is happening. He's never been in trouble with the Navy, with Border Patrol. I mean, it's just ridiculous.

WIAN: Compean was one of several Border Patrol agents following an admitted drug smuggler along this stretch of border near Fabens, Texas. Compean says smugglers often avoid capture because of the Border Patrol's policy limiting pursuits.

J. COMPEAN: When there are drugs come in, there's a load coming through, they are not going to stop. Most of the time, they'll turn around and head back to the river, and they'll go as fast as they can just to get away. And right from there, all we do is just back off, because we know where they are going.

WIAN: After the smuggler ditched his van in this canal, he ran over a hill.

J. COMPEAN: I guess, unlucky for me, I was there waiting for him that day.

WIAN: The smuggler scuffled with the agent, then toward Mexico. Compean thought he had a gun, and fired, missing. Agent Ignacio Ramos was still in the canal and heard the shorts. He too thought the smuggler had a gun and also fired. The smuggler disappeared into the Rio Grande and reemerged on the Mexican side. Both agents thought he was uninjured.

Because of that, neither agent filed a report that shots were fired, one reasons both face long prison terms today. Several other Border Patrol agents on the scene also heard the gunshots and didn't report them. They received immunity from prosecution. So did the drug smuggler, who was it turns out, was shot in the buttocks.

Compean's attorney still struggles to understand the verdict.

MARIA RAMIREZ, ATTORNEY: I really believe that the evidence showed that Mr. Compean and Mr. Ramos were two Border Patrol agents doing their job who had the right to carry a firearm and had the right to protect the border and who had the right to detain this drug smuggler.

I can't believe that a jury would convict my client of that offense, of assault, assault with a weapon, a civil rights violation. And I can't imagine what went wrong at the trial.

WIAN: The Compeans have had to sell their house, move in with relatives and are about to have their car repossessed. Jose made about $70,000 a year as a Border Patrol agent, and now they are living on Claudia's $7 an hour job as a clerk, dreading the day Jose goes to prison.

C. COMPEAN: You know, the kids have school, so I'm thinking should I send them to school, should I not? I am going to come home, open that door without their dad, what am I going to say? The baby -- excuse me, the baby's due next month. I have to do that by myself. It's just overwhelming.

WIAN: What angers Compean most is a statement he says was made by prosecuting U.S. attorney Debra Kanof, implying his actions were a betrayal of his Mexican heritage.

J. COMPEAN: She mentioned that it's gotten so bad that it made us turn against one of our own.

C. COMPEAN: He turned against one of his own, but I'm sorry, that smuggler is not one of his own.

WIAN: The U.S. Attorney's Office continues to decline our interview requests because the case is pending.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIAN: Compean says he's received lots of support from individual Border Patrol agents, many of whom attending his trial, and his union has set up a legal defense fund for both agents -- Lou.

DOBBS: And that legal defense fund will be put together by Monday, and we just want to say to everyone who is interested in supporting the agents and their defense fund, their legal defense fund, that we will be putting that number up here, where those contributions to the defense fund can be sent.

Casey, if you would, stand by, because we have -- although U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton has not agreed yet, and he is proscribed from doing so by the conventions of the legal process not to join us here on this broadcast to discuss the case, he did release a statement. And here's what U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton did say tonight about the conviction of border agents Ramos and Compean, in part.

He said, "The defendants were prosecuted because they had fired their weapons at a man who had attempted to surrender by holding his open hands in the air, at which time Agent Compean attempted to hit the man with the butt of Compean's shotgun, causing the man to run in fear of what the agents would do to him next. Although both agents say that the man was not armed, the agents fired at least 15 rounds at him while he was running away from them, hitting him once."

Sutton goes on to say, quote, "Based on all of the evidence admitted at the two-week trial, including the lengthy testimony of both the defendants, the jury of 12 citizens heard all of the testimony, judged the demeanor and the credibility of the witnesses and unanimously found both defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of 11 of the 12 counts alleged in the indictment, including assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with serious bodily injury, discharge of a firearm during the commission of a crime, of violence and willfully violating Aldrete-Davila's constitutional Fourth Amendment right to be free from illegal seizure, as well as obstructing justice by intentionally defacing the crime scene, lying about the incident, and failing to report the truth."

Casey, in the record that the suspect, the smuggler raised his hands, that was incontrovertibly demonstrated?

WIAN: It wasn't demonstrated as a fact, Lou. That's what the prosecution alleges. Of course, the agents, both of them, say something completely different. That's one of the big issues, that came to the front at the trial.

Obviously, the jury believed the testimony of the drug smuggler and those Border Patrol agents, who escaped as far as we know, any punishment for their actions that day. The question it doesn't answer, though, is why the prosecution went after these two agents ...

DOBBS: Right.

WIAN: ...with such fervor.

DOBBS: And let me -- let's look at one other thing that U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton said in his statement. "At the time of the shooting, neither Agent Compean nor Agent Ramos knew that the van driven by the Aldrete-Davila contained 743 pounds of marijuana. The evidence was incontroverted that, at the time the victim was shot, neither agent knew whether the driver was legally in the United States or whether a crime has been committed. The only information they had was that the driver had failed to pull over to be identified."

The last statement seems rather important, doesn't it?

WIAN: It seems rather important, and it completely contradicts what the agent and their attorneys and what the record reflects. The fact is that this pursuit began, according to the agents, after one of the Border Patrol sensors was tripped by this van, and it was in an area that is common for drug smugglers to use. And the drug smuggler was attempting to evade the agents who had their lights on. So they had all kinds of indications ...

DOBBS: Right.

WIAN: ...that this guy was a drug smuggler, and as it turned out, he was.

DOBBS: When you say the lights on, we're talking about the flashers that any motorist in the country knows, suggests that you pull over rather quickly.

Casey, thank you. This is a story that we're going to be following through the days and the weeks ahead. And you will be in El Paso for some time, as we try to get to the bottom of what is going on here and the U.S. Justice Department has an opportunity to make us all understand why two Border Patrolmen and not the drug smuggler are the victim in this case. Casey, thank you. Casey Wian reporting from El Paso, Texas.

As we mentioned, the National Border Patrol Council has set up a donation fund for Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. You can send a check to the Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean Relief Fund, that's Post Office Box, 47208, Tampa, Florida, area code, 33646. Those checks should be made payable to the Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean Relief Fund.

This address is also now posted on our Web site LouDobbs.com. And we have also posted the U.S. attorney's statement, Johnny Sutton, that is also posted on our Web site, and we just want to make sure that you have that opportunity if you'd like to read that in detail as well.

By the way, we have continuously asked and invited assistant U.S. attorney Debra Kanof, the federal prosecutor in this case, to join us on this broadcast and we still await her response and we still, of course, keep that invitation open.

Tonight, a few words for an otherwise irrelevant publication called "The Nation," which accuses me in a mistake-riddled left-wing screed (ph) of being hysterical, jingoistic and an immigration restrictionist, even though I'm on record in favor of immigration, legal immigration, but that's not a distinction important to "The Nation" of course. Even by "The Nation's" sorry standards the article is pitiful. But "The Nation's" introductory editorial, entitled "The New Nativism" is worthy of note.

Not one time in that editorial does "The Nation" mention the words illegal immigration. Instead, illegal aliens are referred to as the Hispanic immigrants who have bypassed traditional urban destinations and illegal immigration is now something, in the estimation of "The Nation," which it calls the new immigration. But my favorite reference in all of this leftist clap-trap is a call for a discussion on important questions like, why is the middle-class shrinking? Whatever happened to upward mobility? Is there any end in site to stagnating wages, disappearing benefits, and corporate outsourcing?

The poor writers at "The Nation" are oblivious, absolutely oblivious that these are important issues to which we devote on this broadcast countless hours of reporting, and we've done so almost exclusively among our peers in broadcast news. "The Nation" also has the temerity at the end of the online article to ask a reader for the donation to "The Nation" although frankly I don't understand why anyone would.

You can pick up the same left-wing nonsense and rhetoric for free at your leisure from the World Socialist Web, the International Socialist Review, Workers World and the Socialist Alternative. All of which have used the same approach and the same rhetoric in their attacks on me. Only months earlier than "The Nation." "The Nation's" editorial and article are just a pathetic echo. We asked the editor "The Nation," Katrina Vandenjugle (ph) to join us here to discuss her views. She had to decline, unfortunately, because she's vacationing in the Hamptons.

WIAN: What angers Compean most is a statement he says was made by prosecuting U.S. attorney Debra Kanof, implying his actions were a betrayal of his Mexican heritage.

J. COMPEAN: She mentioned that it's gotten so bad that it made us turn against one of our own.

C. COMPEAN: He turned against one of his own, but I'm sorry, that smuggler is not one of his own.

There it is in a nutshell.

She probably meant "one of HER own." There is a LOT of dirt there somewhere! That statement spoke volumes if you think about it. I personally think these agents were railroaded by one of their own, who is probably "dirty"! The drug smuggler's mother called a agent's mother-in-law. That's how the whole thing started. The agent, in turn, called a person in DHS who just happened to have the same last name. It sounds like revenge or maybe since the agents were Mexican-American they shouldn't have pursued "one of their own."

Also, you noticed that there hasn't been a correction on that statement, which means that our illustrious Attorney General felt it was perfectly fine to make this kind of comment. The masks and gloves are off. They are making it clear that they have control. This also is a message to the BP: No more stopping illegals!

Would that mean that she would not trust an American of Middle Eastern heritage to be trusted to work in Homeland Security ?

Would that mean that she would not trust an American of Middle Eastern heritage to be trusted to work in Homeland Security ?

I don't know about that, but what it means to me is that Latino law enforcement officers should not do what is necessary to arrest Latino law breakers and they certainly shouldn't fire their weapon in defense if the suspect is Latino. To take this one step further, I guess she is saying black officers shouldn't fire on black criminals, caucasion officers shouldn't fire on caucasion officers, etc. I'm sorry, but that is just ludicrous! Perhaps we should issue our law enforcement officers water guns - we wouldn't want them to harm anyone in the line of duty or in self-defense, especially if that someone was of the same race.

With all that said, the truth of the matter is, she is a racist and has proven that by her comment. "Everything for the race" certainly has meaning to Assistant District Attorney Debra Kanof. One thing is for sure, she should not be serving in her current position, not in this country anway!