The president commuted the sentences of border guards Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compea.
Finally.
I’m having a hard time understanding why they were convicted … for shooting a drug smuggler in the butt.
We need more drug smugglers shot in the butt. Maybe this will open the door for more drug smugglers being shot in the butt.
It’s not as good as a full pardon, but at least he finally did something.
Let this be a lesson to all border agents — shoot to kill, and make sure the body lands on the other side of the border by any means necessary.
maybe they mistook their butts for their heads.
The only thing these border agents should have been reprimanded for was shooting a few feet too low. Bush was way, way too late on this one, and should have pardoned them instead of making them spend another two months in prison.
First shove the smugglers head up his ass…then blast him in the ass and throw back across the border and let the Mexican Government take care of the clean up! Good News!
I must say that I am a bit disappointed in the decision to commute their sentences and not fully pardon them. Still, it’s defiinitely a move in the right direction.
I don’t mean to be the buzzkill, but the reason they were convicted was because after shooting him in the butt, they didn’t report it and tried to cover up the fact that it happened (most likely due to embarassment over not shooting him in the face). What they did right there was pretty bad, and they did deserve some kind of punishment, however 11 and 12 years is such a ridiculous overkill that you pretty much don’t care what it is they did.
Either that or we could just legalize drugs. This would acomplish the following:
-1- reduce size of beauracracy and the scope of the federal intrusion into financial matters using the excuse of “money laundering”
-2- lower the cost of drugs to the point the purveyers are put out of business. Lower cost until its just not worth shooting anyone over
-3- and let the people who can not control their usage weed themselves out of the gene pool. This I like as it seems we are over populated with “victims” who must have corks put on their forks to keep from taking out eyes
-4- more closely approach the libertarian ideal of a society where we are responsible for our own actions.
-5- allow people to more clearly understand that the reasons why crossing the border and fooling with law enforcement is not a healthy thing to do.
I am a bit dismayed that more people could not see the humor of the ass shot scofflaw. Seems like people take things too seriously.
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Remark on #8
I’d be more likely to accept that Freemon if the warning labels on each said substance would state “You are using too little of this substance legally for it to be effective, buy more – tax matters”
#8, legalizing drugs would lead to things like voting for Ron Paul, or worse, the idiot about to occupy the White House. These 2 hero border guards did the right thing, shot the bastard, The only thing they did wrong was letting him live.
I’d agree to legalizing drugs only if the federal government made it a government monopoly. The users would get so frustrated at waiting in line, filling out forms, and answering noisy questions that most would just quit cold turkey. Drug problem solved!
I’m glad they’re getting out. I’m glad to hear that the smuggler they shot finally got himself tossed in jail, despite the immunity the prosecuting autorney gave him to testify against the officers.
I could be wrong, but I believe they wanted a commutation and not a pardon. A pardon would require Agents Ramos and Compean to admit guilt. The commutation gets them out of prison and leaves them free to pursue their appeal to the Supreme Court. On the other hand, I am not a lawyer and was only half listening to the radio when one of their family members was being interviewed.
There is also the point to be made was, after the suspect died, the agents tried to cover it up. One could argue that it was the coverup they got punished for, not the shooting.
I agree with #8, we should absolutely legalize drugs for a few simple reasons.
1. If we legalize them, recreational drugs would fall under the purview of the FDA. That means we could regulate them just like alcohol (potency, contaminants, minimum age, big tax dollars).
2. Once they are legal, it takes the $$$$ and power from criminals and terrorists and gives it to American business. If we limit production of processed drugs to companies that meet US Pharmacopia standards, the hippies would end up financing our R&D/clinical trials.
3. It frees up law enforcement to go spend their time on the real bad guys.
Right. Legalizing drugs will do all that.
Just like organized crime vanished the second Prohibition ended.
#16 Trish – Would rather smoke Mexican stinkweed (soaked in lovely carcinogenic man-made pesticides) than a joint from Marlboro? BTW, yes I am aware of the high natural carcinogen count in marijuana. Would you rather get your crack rock from the pocket of a dirty junkie (cut with rat poison for extra flavor) or a bottle from Pfizer? American industry could out-compete the criminals in two seconds with their quality and existing distribution system (drug stores for hard drugs/liquor stores for mj). Obviously, this plan does not act as much of a deterrent to drug use. On the other hand, drug use is so prevalent in our population that I can’t see it getting much worse. The useless people are always going to use drugs, but making them legal goes a long way to cleanings up our streets and borders.
11 Plentyobailouts….how do you think the current clown was voted into the White House in the fist place?
The only thing I have against legalizing drugs; why do you think, in the last 20 years, liberals have become exceptionally psychotic? I would accept the legalization of drugs under a few conditions. 1) Those that sign up for their use are gated into secluded areas, so the tweakers can’t bother / rob/ shoot anyone. 2) Those using drugs forfeit their right to vote, but that would sink the democrats, so it would never happen.
Lesson learned by Compea and Ramos…shoot to kill the second one steps across the boarder. Dead men don’t hire ACLU lawyers.
We could save a few bucks by buying surplus automatic machine guns from the Russians. The Soviets had thousands of these things on their border fence, and surely they have a few left over. That way, cleanup would be limited to scraping charred frijoles refritos off of the electric fence.
The suspect did not die. He went on to continue running drugs a second and third time.
The prosecution withheld/did not allow crucial evidence – like the fact he was a drug runner, fleeing capture (yeah right – drug runners never carry weapons) We have no way of knowing if he had a gun because, at the time he escaped. He was tracked down in Mexico by the prosecution and offered immunity to testify that he was shot by said border agents(I believe there was no ballistics done – but would have to go check)
This prosecution was a political bone thrown to Mexican president by Jorge Bush to show he
wanted open bordersloves Mexicans. That is also why they didn’t get a pardon.Also see the Haditha Marines as another example of the same thing. They were chosen as examples (even though 7 of the 8 already have been exonerated.) for punishment to show how good we are.