Bush pardons 14 individuals
Outgoing president also commutes the prison sentence of 2 others
President George W. Bush has granted pardons to 14 individuals and commuted the prison sentences of two others, including a rapper, convicted of misdeeds ranging from drug offenses to tax evasion, from wildlife violations to bank embezzlement, The Associated Press learned Monday.
Ramos and Compean are not included, at least not yet:
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., noted that the list also did not include former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up. Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005.
“President Bush still has time to do the right thing and commute wrongly imprisoned Border Agents Ramos and Compean,” Rohrabacher said. “The fact that the president has neglected to free these men from their imprisonment while freeing drug dealers, embezzlers and other criminals is insulting to the American people who have been begging and pleading for the president to release the agents.”
Let’s continue asking Pres. Bush for their pardon. The phone number for the White House is (202) 456-1414.
UPDATE
The Pirate’s Cove/Stop the ACLU also link to Grassfire, which faxes a petition (for your donation) for the release of Ramos and Compean.
Macsmind also wants Ramos and Compean released.
I initially was sympathetic to the story that Ramos and Compean told until it was shown in court that they had covered up the shooting and then lied about not reporting the shooting while trying to implicate their superiors in a coverup. They imply that there was a 3rd agent on the scene but he actually was still a couple of miles away and only arrived after the shootings and the two agents told him there had been none and then never filed a report that even mentioned chasing Aldarte-Davila. The only reason an investigation took place was that the smuggler, whose marijuana load was only discovered hours after the incident, was badly injured and his mother called a friend in the US to try and get some help. The friend’s son was a Border Patrol Agent and immediately contacted his superiors and they the US District Attorney for West Texas.
But three points came out in the jury trial that damaged the agents testimony; First in that they had caught Aldrate-Davila once and hit him in the face with the butt of a shotgun as he had tried to surrender,second that they fired more than twenty rounds at the smuggler but did not arrest him and allowed him to get back across the Rio Grande, and third that Compean not only picked up all his shell casings, strictly against protocol and law, but tried to bury them in a ravine. Those three facts alone throws a lot of cold water on the claims of a witch hunt aimed at the Border Guards. They will not get a pardon or commutation while Pres. Bush is still in office.