Appeals Court Upholds Sentence for Maimed Smuggler
July 3rd, 2009 by Russ
One of the most politicized cases in the Border Patrol’s history, crept on Monday as a federal appeals court upheld a sentence levied on a Mexican drug smuggler who was shot by two agents on the U.S./Mexican border. Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who had tried to smuggle over 700 lbs of weed across the border, on several occasions, was given a nine and a half year prison sentence for smuggling that occurred after U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean shot him in the buttocks and groin.
The details of the shooting and subsequent trials and media circus are quite convoluted. Salon managed to wrap it up pretty well a few years ago. In a nutshell, Ramos and Compean botched an attempt to apprehend the smuggler (Aldrete-Davila), shot at him as he fled, attempted to cover up the shooting by having another agent return to clean up the shell casings, and couldn’t agree on a coherent story when pressed by prosecutors.
As the two agents were being sentenced for egregious violations of their enforcement codes (and attempted murder), some conservative media figures (including CNN zombie-anchor, Lou Dobbs) decided to brand the agents as patriotic, U.S. turf-defending heroes. In the interim, the peripheral press began reporting a completely revised version of the pursuit and shooting story, and a petition emerged to set the agents free. Luckily for the agents, former Premiere Bush does watch TV (he famously never read newspapers), and responded to the conservative pleas by commuting the sentences of Ramos and Compean.
So, two corrupt Border Patrol agents run free and one smuggler with a shot up urethra gets a full term. The moral of the story here is that what actually happens on the ground is never as important as how it all ends up in the spin room. When it comes to politics, the motives of interest groups far, far, outweigh reason and truth.
