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... and Justice For All (Mexican Drug Smugglers)

OK, people, we have a problem.

More specifically, I have a big friggin’ problem, so now I am going to make it yours, too. Thank me later.

Do you know who Ignacio Ramos and Jose Campeon are? Doesn’t ring a bell, does it? That in itself is disgusting and makes this article even more important. I will give you the background story to one of the gravest injustices ever rendered upon an American citizen (two in this case) and then tell you what we are all going to do about it – because I will not stand for this travesty on justice, and neither should you. It’s time for you to snap out of your vegetative state and take a stand about something. Apathy was the flavor of last week. This week, action is the new black.

I know that the thought of getting involved sends shivers down your spine, replaying flashbacks of high school fund raisers before your eyes, but cry me a river already. I am going to give you a chance to “make a difference”, for all the right reasons, without holding hands and singing, and without having to adopt a whole damn village in Africa.

To fully grasp the implications in this judicial farce, you will have to go back in time with me, all the way to February 17th, 2005…

... gently…

There.

We’ve arrived at the Texan-Mexican border by the little town of Fabens, 40 miles south of El Paso.

American Border Patrol Agents Jose Campeon and Ignacio Ramos spot a suspicious vehicle making its way from the levee road off Rio Grande into the little town of Fabens, TX. Almost a decade with the Border Patrol has fine tuned the agents’ senses as to what constitutes a “suspicious” vehicle, and what doesn’t. This one sends up red flags. For whatever reason. That is their job to know, and ours to be clueless about. Agent Ramos follows the van through town in a patrol car and is rewarded when the suspect takes off, peeling back towards the levees of Rio Grande. More red flags. The agent follows and once the man in the fleeing vehicle realizes he can’t out-drive his hot pursuit, he comes to a grinding halt by one of the levees and makes a run for the Mexican side. Surprise, surprise; agent Campeon is already waiting for him on that side, but still on American soil.

Now this is where the story takes two different turns, depending on whom you believe.

Scenario 1: One of the agents is brutally knocked down by the fleeing suspect, as he repeatedly tells him to stop – and then, when the suspect suddenly pulls a gun on them, the two agents react immediately and fire, maybe hitting him… maybe not. The suspect turns and runs for Mexico again, makes it and jumps into a waiting car on that side of the border. The agents can’t pursue. By this time five other agents are on the scene, including two Border Patrol Supervisors. The abandoned van is searched and an excess of 800 lbs of marijuana is found in the back. The red flags waved true. No report on firearm discharge is filed. Just another Mexican drug smuggler chased out of town. Maybe they’ll get him tomorrow. Whatever. Done. Another day at the office. They all go home and eat pie.

Scenario 2: The suspect is a poor Mexican, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, down on his luck, who just wants to sneak into America – even though he knows it’s wrong. He’s hoping he can get an honest job, off the books, picking tomatoes for $2/hour. That way he can send money home to his poor sick mother. Upon entry in America two rogue cops pull their guns and shoot him in the back, point blank. Just like that – out of nowhere. Valiantly he manages to drag himself back to his motherland and into a friend’s car. A friend that was just there to wave him off, mind you. Gun? He don’t need no stinking gun! An upstanding Mexican citizen such as he? Never. Now, he is deeply depressed about how his Civil Rights have been violated.

Yeah, I know… but stay with me. It gets much worse.

Two weeks later – two weeks of this not being brought up by BP supervisors or colleagues – the Mexican mother of Osvaldo the Suspect calls her good friend in America, Mrs. Toquinto, and tells her that her son was shot in the ass by Border Patrol Agents. Mrs. Toquinto, in her turn, tells her son-in-law, Rene Sanchez, who is also a Border patrol Agent, and he gets on the phone with Osvaldo himself. Osvaldo the Victim tells the agent his sob-story.

Rene Sanchez, the Border Patrol Agent son-in-law, sends a memo to a department of Homeland Security, reporting the incident. Homeland Security tracks down Osvaldo, who also happens to be an ill-reputed drug smuggler - notorious for his raids across the border, in Mexico. They offer him absolute immunity, both on account of the obvious drug charges and the supposed illegal immigration charges, and free medical treatment for his injuries, if he wishes to testify against the two agents.

Agents Ramos and Campeon are then subsequently charged, out of the blue, by the US Attorney General, with:

1.Assault resulting in serious bodily injury

2.Assault with a deadly weapon

3.Discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence

4.Assault with intent to commit murder

5.Plus a bunch of related accounts of obstruction of justice and such…

US Attorney Debra Kanouf, with a heart of rust, representing the Attorney General Office, repeatedly stated during the trial that it is against Border Patrol regulations to follow a vehicle without authorization from HQ. Furthermore, she reiterated, it is a violation of the fourth amendment to shoot a person in the back. Especially since there was no evidence of foul play. Gun or no gun, who’s to say? Word against word, right? The US Attorney was especially driven to point out how poor Osvaldo’s civil rights had so very gravely been violated by these two sadistic Agents. His constitutional rights had been abridged and defiled!

Would that be his American constitutional rights, or his Mexican constitutional rights? Civil Rights apply to citizens and legal residents – Osvaldo was neither.

Osvaldo the Immune Mexican Drug-Smuggler testified under oath, giving the same sad sob-story as before – but now with the modification that he wasn’t crossing into America, he was indeed heading back to Mexico. The fact that the defense was not allowed to submit the evidence of the impounded drugs, or allowed to even mention any amounts or facts thereof, didn’t exactly help the defendants. At one point Ramos’ lawyer, Mary Stillinger, was allowed the exception to use one measly picture of the drugs found in the van to punch a hole through Osvaldo’s lies, since he repeatedly stated that he “never saw no drugs”. In the picture the 800 lbs of marijuana are pretty much blocking the view from much else, so that was a lie right there. A lie the defense was not allowed to pursue because of Osvaldo’s immunity.

Then the five other Border Patrol Agents who had been present at the scene also testified that they hadn’t seen a gun either. “No, ma’am. No gun. Can we go now?” All these agents were offered immunity to testify – either that, or facing the same charges Campeon and Ramos were. Tough choice. Go to prison or side with the smuggler? I have a feeling these guys’ wives said, “I don’t give a shit about Campeon and Ramos. Who’s gonna feed your kids when you’re in prison? Not those two assholes, that’s for sure!” So they all testified.

End result: Ramos and Campeon were found guilty by the Texan jury, on all charges, except for the one stating intent to commit murder. The two agents are to be sentenced in September this year. The US Probation Office in El Paso has recommended they get the maximum penalty; 20 years each.

This is such a travesty I don’t even know where to begin. How do we unravel this?

I don’t know what’s worse? Really? What is worse?

* The fact that Homeland Security took the word of a disreputable dirty smuggler, with all sorts of ulterior motives, over that of their own trusted agents, and went through the trouble to track him down and bring him in – granting him immunity.

* That an ill-reputed foreign drug smuggler even has any civil rights to begin with in America?

* That this sends the message to every potential gun-wielding criminal out there that the borders are now a free-for-all for anybody who wants to cross – as long as they run backwards? All they have to learn to say in English, as they make a run for it, is: “No shoot, no shoot! I plead the fourth amendment, I plead the fourth amendment”.

* That Ramos, nominated for Border patrol Agent of the Year - and with hundreds of successful border arrests on his belt, will now have to leave his wife and three young children to fend for themselves as he’s sent to prison with the people he, himself, put there once?

* That Osvaldo the Smuggler, supposedly, has threatened to “take care” of Ramos’ family as soon as he’s safely tucked away in prison? The El Paso Sheriff Department has a car outside Ramos’ home at all times.

* That America, now in these times of elevated terror alerts and tighter security checks, will silently stand by and watch as the very people we trust to defend us are charged for doing their damn job?

It sickens me.

Listen… I don’t know Ramos and Campeon personally. They could be two assholes, for all I know. Chances are they have their faults and that they may, or may not, have followed proper protocol that day, neglecting to do things exactly by the book. As most cops do on a daily basis. Sometimes you just have to get the job done to get the job done. Easy as that. Chances are that Campeon and Ramos are just like any of us, working hard at our jobs – meaning well, but occasionally missing a beat. Should they have filed a discharged firearms report? Yes. Did they? No. But neither did any of the other five agents at the scene. That is a mandatory 5-day suspension according to Border Patrol regulations.

Five days. Fine. Suspend them. I have no problem with that.

Not 20 years in prison. Never. Has the world gone absolutely bat shit crazy?

Do you know that 20 years is more than Osvaldo the Bastard Smuggler would have gotten if he had sold a bad batch of heroin to American kids, killing dozens of them, and then raped a 5-year old under knife-point, on his way back to Mexico?

This guy was a foreign criminal, on the wrong side of the border, pulling a gun on the agents that went to apprehend him. You try that in the airport tomorrow and see what happens. I triple dog dare you. Go ahead. No? Well, apparently you can pull that stunt at the Texan-Mexican border and then laugh all the way to the bank. (Yes, Osvaldo is preparing a million dollar lawsuit against Border Patrol.)

Were they wrong for shooting at the guy?

Of course not. They told the man to stop, and as a response he knocked one of them down and pulled a gun. Do you know any law enforcement officer who would have just stood there? Me neither. Ramos and Campeon did what every damn cop in the country would have done in a similar situation, and what they are paid to do on a daily basis.

In the BP edicts we learn that the Border Patrol has the right to:

"detour illegal entries through improved enforcement" and "apprehend and detour smugglers of humans, drugs and other contraband."

Sounds exactly like what Ramos and Campeon were doing. The same stuff they have been doing for the last decade, keeping America a little cleaner from drugs, and a little safer from hardcore criminals.

And the veteran drug smuggler’s testimony, that he wasn’t carrying a gun, holds no water. Do you know any Mexican drug smugglers who don’t? Ha, gotcha, I don’t know any Mexican drug smugglers either, unlike Homeland Security - but you can bet your sweet ass that they are packing when they conduct their business. It could be career suicide, literally, not to.

In London, last year, two cops chased a suspect all over the subway, finally cornering him in a car, and then pumped 20 bullets into his head.. They had reasons to believe he was a terrorist getting ready to wreck some serious havoc upon the world. Turned out the guy was a Brazilian student. OK, so that was bad. But no matter how very bad that was, those cops are still back on the beat today, because it was deemed that they acted in good faith to protect the public from greater harm, even if they did commit overkill. Are the Brits that much smarter than we are? Osvald the Drug Smuggler is not even dead. Far from it. He is having barbecued Iguana in Tijuana as we speak, laughing his ass off at the stupidity of the American Justice System.

He’s laughing at you, too. Yes, you. Unless you do something about it.

20 years.

That is the prison time these two agents are facing, each, and that is enough to ruin theirs and their families’ lives forever. Even though Ramos and Campeon can appeal their sentences, they will have to do so while incarcerated with people who want them dead. How long do you think they will last? That’s a long time to be dodging shanks and group-showers.

20 years.

Sentencing is in September.

What you can do?

Actually, this is one of those cases where you can do plenty. We always sit there, watching the news and shaking our heads, saying “somebody should do something”, and, well, that somebody is you this time. Congratulations. Now get stepping, people. It will only take 5 minutes out of your life, but 20 years out of theirs.

Write the lawyers of Ramos and Campeon. Make a short statement about how upset you are that this is even in court, much less in terms of guilt on the parts of the defendants. The lawyers will present all letters to the judge on the day of the sentencing in hopes of leniency.

You can also write the judge, Kathleen Cardone, directly and demand leniency. As always, make it snappy but strong. Nobody has the time to hear you play the pity violin on behalf of somebody else for page after page (look who's talking). This is an injustice, suffered upon American citizens right before our eyes. Forget about Lebanon and the rest of the world for a while. This is something happening in the here and now in our own backyard, carrying much stronger winds of things to come, unless we act now.

Call, or fax, the White House and demand a Presidential Pardon in the case of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Campeon. Keep it short. That’s the only swift immediate justice that can be measured out in this case. Bush is a Texan and always preaches about defending our home turf. It’s time for him to put his money where his mouth is, no matter how much he has screwed Border Patrol over for the last years. These guys have been wronged by the American Justice System and have to be set free immediately. There is nothing “judicial” about this case.

Here are the numbers and addresses:

The White House:

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

FAX: 202-456-2461

E-mail: comments@whitehouse.gov

Ramos’ lawyer Mary Stillinger:

Fax: 915.775.1337

E-mail: Stillingerlaw@sbcglobal.net

The Sentencing Judge:

Judge Kathleen Cardone

U.S. Federal Court House

El Paso, TX 79911

Read up on this case on the internet, get involved. I have, myself, talked to Ramos’ lawyer, Mary Stillinger, to get my facts straight. The underground is buzzing with this case, even if the media is not.

It was your security these agents were defending, and your kids they wanted to keep safe from this fucking drug-smuggler. They are paying the price because nobody stood up for them in court. Stand up for them now.

5 minutes of your life.

20 years of theirs.

Do it.

** edited to add: I found an online petition for pardon with 100,000 names that is going to be delivered to the President. Sign it HERE.

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~ The Eye of Grace ~