By Former Agent
12/03/2023
Earlier (December 2020) Trump Pardons Border Patrol Agents Ramos And Compean — Something VDARE.com Called For 13 Years Ago
In light of Derek Chauvin’s recent stabbing in federal prison, it is a reminder that it’s not good being a former cop or law enforcement officer when incarcerated. Their popularity is right up there with pedophiles. So, even though Chauvin’s attacker is not black, I’m sure the stabber was expecting to get cred for murdering Chauvin with his fellow inmates.
It reminded me of the case of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean [Breaking the Silence: Convicted Border Agents Tell Their Story. By Sarah Carter, SarahCarter.com, December 22, 2020].
As I recall from talking to Agents who knew them (rumor mill, hearsay), Ramos was said to be a very squared away agent while Compean was regarded (to put it nicely) a less than enthusiastic worker.
A van carrying 800lbs of marijuana was followed through the Texas town of Fabens before it turned back south towards Mexico. It’s common for smugglers once spotted to simply try to make it back to the safety of Mexico. (Usually, if the Cartel believes you were fleeing the Border Patrol legitimately, they won’t give you any problems. However, if Cartel thinks you hid the load somewhere for your own purposes or that you could have made it through if you tried a bit harder, then going back to Mexico can amount to a death penalty).
The smuggler ditched his vehicle and tried making a run for it. He may have knocked Compean over. Ramos was running to get to their location, but had to go down an embankment and back up. From what I was told, while down below and running up, Ramos heard gun shots. So, when Ramos saw the smuggler a short bit later turning towards him, he assumed the smuggler was armed and shot at him. Ramos didn’t miss, but he mildly wounded the smuggler, who was still able to run back into Mexico.
Compean supposedly “brassed up” meaning he picked up his spent shell casings. After initially wanting to report shots fired, Ramos was convinced to do the same. Keep in mind, there were about seven other agents who had shown up at this point and at least one was a supervisor.
Later, it came out that the smuggler had been hit in the ass and that the smuggler was unarmed.
Now, the fact that they brassed up after a shooting in which no one was injured is definitely a violation of policy. However, policy is not law. In my experience, this happened not so infrequently as the amount of paperwork to do in a shooting incident is so onerous that supervisors and agents would look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen.
Nevertheless, Bush appointee Assistant United States Attorney Johnny Sutton took the side of the smuggler and prosecuted Compean and Ramos. The two got a raw deal. Not surprisingly, after America’s Most Wanted covered the story of the two BP Agents and it was watched in prison, Ramos was assaulted by his fellow inmates as they cursed at him in Spanish [Imprisoned border agent beaten by fellow inmates, WND, February 6, 2007], which VDARE covered at the time: Border Agent Attacked In Prison — Another Dreyfus Case?
If there’s anything positive to come out of the case of Compean and Ramos, it is that a public campaign was launched to protect them from the raw deal they got. George “Dumbya” Bush commuted their sentences, but Trump actually gave them pardons. The nerve to do that will likely mean the Border Patrol Union will endorse Trump again.
As for the narcotics loving AUSA Sutton, he prosecuted an Agent for squeezing the handcuffs too tight on an illegal alien drug smuggler — see Border Patrol Agent Persecuted — The Legend of Johnny Sutton Lives On... [by Bob Price, TEXASGOPVOTE.com, November 19, 2011].
If there’s a silver lining to this story of Compean and Ramos, it is that they did eventually get full pardons. At this point, that’s the only hope of Derek Chauvin and his fellow wrongfully convicted officers. However, Compean and Ramos still served prison time, and never got their jobs back.
It appears that sometimes the court of public opinion can reverse our terrible and broken justice system.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.