Thread: Man shot by jailed ex-border agents tells his story

Man shot by jailed ex-border agents tells his story
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 05/08/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT


JUAREZ -- The man at the center of a case that has outraged U.S. conservatives and become a cause célebre on cable news shows lives in a white one-room house with a neat yard in the Valley of Juárez.
In his village, most people know Osvaldo Aldrete Davila. They know that in 2005 he was shot in the buttocks by two El Paso Border Patrol agents while trying to smuggle a load of marijuana just across the border, near Fabens. The agents, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were sentenced to 12 and 11 years in prison and started serving their sentences earlier this year.

In the village, neighbors walk by Aldrete Davila's little house and wave.

But in the United States, supporters of the agents, who include anti-immigrant groups, conservative congressmen, cable news personalities and countless bloggers, have called him a "heinous criminal," a "doper," a "dirt bag" and much worse.

Aldrete, who asked not to be photographed and that his exact location not be revealed for safety reasons, is well aware of his reviled status in the United


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States.
He has seen the bikers' rallies in support of Compean and Ramos on the local news. His former colleagues from his days as a truck driver call him to say, "Hey, I saw this and that on the Internet about you," he said.

His critics, he said, don't know the whole story.

"They (the agents) talk (to the media). I don't talk. So people don't know," he said. "I know it was wrong what I did, but I'm paying for it with my health. People don't know how it is for me to go to the bathroom, how painful it is."

Aldrete Davila's urethra was shattered by the bullet two years ago, and he still lives with a rubber tube sticking out of his belly button that connects his bladder to a plastic bag.

The agents are now appealing their conviction from behind bars, while their supporters still push for a presidential pardon and a long-promised congressional hearing into what they see as an overzealous prosecution of law enforcement officers who were just doing their jobs.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said such a hearing was in the investigative phase and was expected to take place the first two weeks of June.

No work

In Juárez, Aldrete Davila, a slim 26-year-old married man with two children, struggles with the daily indignities of living with a catheter and a urine collection bag.

The bag fills up so quickly he has to get up 10 times a night, he said. Defecating is excruciating, he said.

But the worst has been work -- Aldrete Davila hasn't had any in two years, he said.

Recently, he and his wife applied for a job at a harness manufacturing plant. She was hired. He wasn't.

"I used to be the bread winner. She never had to work. I took care of her. My truck was parked outside. People could see that I was working. And now there is no more truck. I understand when both the husband and the wife work, but the wife working and the husband staying home? Do you know what that does to a man's self-esteem?" he said, leaning against the white-washed wall of his house, his petite wife by his side.

"My wife has been very supportive. She said not to worry," he said.

These days, Aldrete Davila makes a few pesos fixing car engines for neighbors. He installed one water heater and crafted wooden shutters for someone else. And he takes his children, ages 7 and 5, to school every day. The family wouldn't make it, he said, without financial help from family members.

Aldrete Davila was born in this village, in the Valley of Juárez, where small farmers struggle to grow cotton with wastewater irrigation while many of their neighbors dedicate themselves to drug smuggling and migrant smuggling.

Aldrete Davila graduated from high school and became a truck driver, taking maquiladora shipments to El Paso and back, he said.

He takes great offense at being referred to as a "drug smuggler," he said, because he only did it once.

"It was a moment of weakness, out of desperation," he said.

The story he told Department of Homeland Security investigators who came to look for him in Mexico in 2005 was that he needed to make quick money to renew his commercial driver's license, his livelihood.

Defense attorneys for the agents have said they greatly doubted that Aldrete Davila would have been entrusted with about 700 pounds of marijuana -- which is worth $140,000 in El Paso, and much more elsewhere -- on his first try.

That day

Aldrete Davila said he was promised $1,000 -- he won't say by whom -- to walk across the Rio Grande on Feb. 17, 2005, and get into a gray Ford Econoline van waiting for him with the keys in the ignition.

"I didn't know exactly what was in the van. I didn't look. But, you know, I knew it was bad," he said.

Aldrete Davila was supposed to link up with a guide vehicle that would take him to a stash house in or near Fabens. Instead, he was spotted and chased back to the river by the Border Patrol. He crashed the van on a levee and started running south, toward Mexico.

Agent Compean shot at him several times and Agent Ramos, once, hitting him. Then Compean picked up his shell casings and both agents failed to report the shooting to their superiors, only reporting the drug seizure. They were convicted of violating Aldrete Davila's civil rights and of tampering with evidence. Three other agents lost their jobs over the incident. They were either at the scene or heard of the shooting later but did not report it. Like Aldrete Davila, they were given immunity to testify for the prosecution.

Weeks after the shooting, when the investigation had started, Compean said he thought he saw a gun in the smuggler's hand.

Aldrete Davila said on the witness stand and again recently that he did not have a gun because he knew that if he was caught, he would face severe penalties for having a gun.

Aldrete Davila said the agents were wrong to shoot him.

But he said he found the sentences given to them excessive. The agents received 10-year mandatory sentences because they used a weapon in the commission of their crime. Aldrete Davila said he didn't know what would have been a more appropriate punishment.

"I feel bad for everybody. For my wife and children and for the agents' families and their children. I wouldn't want my children not to have parents for 10 years," he said.

Joe Loya, Ramos' father-in-law and a spokesman for the family, was not mollified by Aldrete Davila's sympathetic words.

"He should feel bad about that because two innocent agents are sitting in jail," he said. "He had a choice. The agents didn't have a choice. They were put into a situation because of his drug smuggling. He has devastated the lives of two families and continues to lie (about not having a gun)."

But he also said, "I feel sorry for his children because I feel sorry for my grandchildren (Ramos' children). Who suffers here? The wives, the children, the families."

Open questions

The case continues to be a hot topic on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and last month, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, brought it up while questioning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during high-profile hearings on the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Rekindling interest was the recent revelation that Aldrete Davila, the self-proclaimed one-time smuggler, may have been involved in a second smuggling incident.

In March, Congressman Rohrabacher showed reporters a copy of a report by the Drug Enforcement Administration that said a Clint man who allowed drug dealers to use his house to stash drugs had identified Aldrete Davila as one of the people who brought him drugs in October 2005, eight months after the shooting.

The U.S Attorney's office had only given Aldrete Davila immunity for the Feb. 17, 2005, smuggling. Officials have left the door open for a possible prosecution of Aldrete Davila for the second, alleged incident.

Asked whether he worried that he'd be arrested, Aldrete Davila said, "I am clean. I have nothing to worry about."

He said he now focuses on how to get medical help.

Getting the bullet removed from his thigh in 2005 was his only motivation for testifying against the agents, he said. U.S. investigators took Aldrete Davila to Beaumont Army Medical Center to retrieve the bullet, a key piece of evidence in the case.

Now, getting some money to rebuild his urethra is the only reason he filed a multi million lawsuit against the U.S. federal government, he said. Aldrete Davila said several Mexican hospitals have asked him for at least $30,000 for the operation -- a sum that's well beyond his means.

If he finds the money, he said, he would prefer the operation to take place in Mexico, rather than in the United States.

"Everybody hates me there (in America)," he said.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_5842391

They (the agents) talk (to the media). I don't talk. So people don't know," he said. "I know it was wrong what I did, but I'm paying for it with my health. People don't know how it is for me to go to the bathroom, how painful it is

What a load of crap! (forgive the pun) I can't believe this tripe!
How painful do you think it is for both the agents in prison?

This is just appauling that they would have his little sob story. So your ass hurts? GOOD!

What? Are WE suppose to feel sorry for you??

I feel sorry for the two border patrol agents NOT drug smugglers!

Maybe you would rather be in prison, where you should be...instead of two border patrol agents that were doing their job. You didn't know what was in the van but you knew it was bad and you were taking it to a stash house???? hummmm...yea right, whatever!

These days, Aldrete Davila makes a few pesos fixing car engines for neighbors. He installed one water heater and crafted wooden shutters for someone else. And he takes his children, ages 7 and 5, to school every day. The family wouldn't make it, he said, without financial help from family members.

wasn't he caught again after he was shot with more smuggled drugs? since he has kept that part time job i'm sure financally he is doing fine (sarcasticly stated)...... i soooo hate these bleeding heart stories.

Originally Posted by Lone_Patriot

These days, Aldrete Davila makes a few pesos fixing car engines for neighbors. He installed one water heater and crafted wooden shutters for someone else. And he takes his children, ages 7 and 5, to school every day. The family wouldn't make it, he said, without financial help from family members.

wasn't he caught again after he was shot with more smuggled drugs? since he has kept that part time job i'm sure financally he is doing fine (sarcasticly stated)...... i soooo hate these bleeding heart stories.

Yes he was, so much for the "I only did it once" statement. I can imagine that rest is bs as well, he was in Mexico for two weeks before being brought over here to have the "bullet" removed, if he was injured this bad without medical care he may not have made it. I don't buy this story.

:P :P The bag fills up so quickly he has to get up 10 times a night, he said. Defecating is excruciating, he said.

Did not bother him when he ran drugs again after he was shot
What about the health of American kids who injest the drugs him brought in?

This story is a trail baloon sent up by his scum lawyer for his pending lawsuit.

I wish him a long and painfilled future see if the cartel will support him

This is BS. It sounds like he has a suprapubic catheter and the urine would drain into the bag as it is made, therefore no pressure on the bladder, no pain. Urine is made on the average at 50cc/hr. More if he is drinking a lot of fluid or is on diuretics. Bags are commonly 500 cc to 2000 cc. If he's mobile, it's probably the 500 cc bag. The average intake / output of an adult is 2500 cc / day. So.... getting up 10 times a night to empty a 500 cc bag... that's 5000 cc urine production overnight. He'd have to be in severe heart failure with loads of diuretics to produce that. Lying POS. And what has the ureter got to do with the RECTUM -- NOTHING!