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For border shooting, agents sent to prison

Jurors decided the two agents shot an unarmed man and tried to hide it.

By Los Angeles Times
Published October 20, 2006

EL PASO, Texas - Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were watching the Mexican boundary last year when they stopped a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. The driver fled back across the Rio Grande - with a gunshot wound in his buttocks.

Federal prosecutors convinced a jury in March that the agents had shot a defenseless man, then schemed to cover it up. Much of the evidence against them came from the drug runner, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who reported the shooting to a friend at the Border Patrol in Arizona. Aldrete-Davila was given immunity from prosecution.

Thursday, the agents - Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean - were sentenced to 11 years and 12 years, respectively, for offenses that included violating the smuggler's civil rights. Supporters and family members packed the courtroom, and many wept as the sentences were announced.

Outside the courthouse, members of the Minuteman Project, a group that opposes illegal immigration, carried "Free Nacho" placards. "I'm just happy to be going home to my family tonight," Ramos said as he left the courtroom. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone agreed to let the men remain free until January, when they must report to prison.

The case has become a cause celebre among advocates of stronger border security, who say it shows the misplaced priorities of prosecutors as well as the predicament of Border Patrol agents, who must fight armed criminals using little or no force. Among the rules broken by the agents, supporters note, was a policy forbidding agents from giving chase.

After Ramos and Compean were convicted, members of Congress demanded a review of the case and thousands of people signed a petition supporting the agents and the Border Patrol, which is outgunned in its battle against narcotics cartels and human smuggling rings.

[Last modified October 20, 2006, 05:42:21]