Back in December, I blogged about two border guards who had gotten ten year terms for chasing down illegal aliens smuggling drugs into the country. Rather presciently, I titled my post “There’s gotta be more to this story than meets the eye.” Turns out there is. I’ll quote here the background story that I wrote in my earlier post, because it spells out what was exercising everyone at the time:
Two U.S. border control guards chased an illegal alien who was caught in the act of smuggling drugs into the US. One of the guards was wounded in a violent physical confrontation with the smuggler; the other shot the smuggler in the buttocks after he thought the bad guy had turned on him with a gun. The smuggler’s mother, living in Mexico, complained, at which point the US granted immunity to the smuggler, paid his medical bills, and then instituted proceedings that ended with both guards getting more than a decade in prison. Apparently the guards erred by chasing the guy, by thinking he was shooting at them, and by removing shell casings from the ground.
I now have it on good authority that the guards’ conduct was a little more extreme than removing shell casings from the ground. Had they behaved as they did in any context other than dealing with illegal aliens, it would have been manifest that they were merely corrupt cops, and no one would have squawked on either side of the political aisle about the government’s eventual decision to prosecute.
I don’t know about the violent physical confrontation (I didn’t get that info from my source), but the guards’ sob story starts to break down regarding the chasing and the shooting. To begin with, border guards aren’t authorized to give chase. It may be a stupid rule, but it’s the rule. As it is, these guards did give chase, firing as they went. It would have looked like a Keystone Kops slapstick, if it hadn’t been for the fact that, not only did they wound one guy when shooting him in the back (that is, after all, where those buttocks are lodged), they killed the other guy the same way. Also, it wasn’t just a couple of shots to protect themselves from possible return fire. Instead, the guards fired 14 shots at the bad guys’ retreating backsides.
All of that might have been a sustainable situation — cops do make mistakes in the heat of the moment — if the guards hadn’t gone out of their way to cover up the crime. They didn’t just removing the shell casings from the ground, which sounds like mere housekeeping, or careless crime scene control. Instead, they carefully collected all of the casings they could find and tried to dispose of them forever by dumping them into a river. That’s a crime, plain and simple. They also tidied up the scene in a way that removed any connection between the aliens they’d shot and the drugs those same aliens were trying to smuggle in.
This last point is important, because there was a whole lot of screaming about the fact that, at the end of the day, the U.S. didn’t prosecute the surviving drug smuggler for his crime. The fact is, the U.S. couldn’t. Although everyone knew that the guy was guilty, that he’d smuggled drugs before and that he’d smuggled drugs on that fateful day, there wasn’t any admissible evidence left. In that regard, remember that, in American criminal courts, there’s a big difference between knowing someone is guilty and proving he is. Even in a less enlightened civil rights era, the government was hamstrung when it came to Al Capone. Knowing that he was one of the greatest crime kingpins in America didn’t mean there was any useful evidence. As you may recall, the government finally was able to imprison him by proving (not just knowing about) tax evasion.
At the end of it all, if my authority is correct (and I have very good reason to believe it is), the U.S. government did the right thing, which was to prosecute corrupt cops. The latter, if allowed to flourish are a plague upon, and will eventually destroy entirely, a functioning criminal justice system.
To me, the whole story is a good reminder that media drivebys can occur on both sides of the political spectrum as different political interests seek to advance their agenda before the American public. I think the liberal side of the media has a greater problem with this because they have more access to media outlets, but that doesn’t make them the only ones guilty of misrepresenting the facts in order to score political points.
Filed under: Crime and punishment, Immigration
Hello…..? Hello……?
Greg? Hello……?
Nah….stupid expectation. This post doesn’t fit the template.
Ya, Book’s being too Lefty partisan.
To get to the point, not even the Republicans are omniscient and all wise. People still need the facts, and if the media are not interested in the facts, then mistakes can be made and will be made.
What is the point to having a Loyal Opposition (or any Political Opposition) if you and only you are the ones that are available to correct your own flaws? If that is the way it is Book, then why do we even have a two party system? Isn’t two parties supposed to be there because if one party gets things wrong, the other party will slide in and get it right or criticize the party in power until that party gets it right?
Earl, you owe Greg an apology for using your poured-concrete slab conservatist mindset to misconstrue what he hasn’t said yet.
I have to admit, I really did get a kick out of reading Book saying that she won’t apologize.
I’m sure I do, Zhombre…..
Hehehe…..he’ll whistle for that apology, however.
Somehow, I don’t see him responding to this one – so he’s unlikely to be offended, in any case.
On the issue at hand, why did the Justice Department oppose bail for these guys, pending appeal? What about Lou Dobbs’ report that there was considerable evidence of the guy’s drug-smuggling….even if it’s no more than testimony of others, how come the jury was denied any hint of the smuggler’s activities?
What we have from BW is a source she trusts, who says that these guys got what was righteously coming to them. Maybe so, but I’d personally like to see something a little more solid than that….we have apparently trustworthy people saying the exact opposite, as well.
Hello Bookworm,
I don’t know if you heard about this, but Border Patrol Union are releasing a no-confidence resolution to the Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar for not backing up the two agents.
Okay, okay, so the border agents weren’t authorized to give chase and they acted criminally when they scrupulously picked up their shell casings and tossed them into the river. They shouldn’t have tried to erase evidence. And for that, since they violated the law of the land, they should have been called on that.
But really, Book, the borders are become a violent, free-for-all zone. Imagine watching drug smugglers, illegal aliens and their enablers, gun runners, etc. marching up and waltzing through our borders day in and day out, week after week. In some cases, American citizen living near the border get killed. The border patrol agents can’t chase after them. They can’t shoot them.
As you probably know, I’m from Texas and we can find examples of this in Texas history. The Oklahoma territory used to be used by Indians to launch their attacks against Texans. They would come down from their Oklahoma reservations and raid towns. Authorities and Texas Rangers couldn’t follow them since they ran back to their reservations up in Oklahoma.
These events also happened again in the run up to the US-Mexican War, and we also had trouble with scum like Pancho Villa, who invaded the US and tried to used Mexico to cover his retreat after raping, killing and pillaging Texas and New Mexico.
Imagine yourself in shoes of border patrol agents, knowing what you know about all them and their methods and all the shootouts along the border. You encounter a few of them, they’re armed. They don’t halt when you tell them to halt. You can’t chase them. In fact, you can’t do much of anything except watch them come across the border again one day, probably more prepared for you than before.
Heck, if I were in their shoes, seeing that these men were armed, seeing these men lug drugs around, I’d be hard pressed NOT to shoot them, not to kill, but definitely to incapacitate them.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s case closed for me. If our government can’t perform its BASIC function of protecting its people, what recourse is there for Americans?
Book, you bemoan the lost of self-reliance, personal responsibility, manhood and protectors. These kinds of laws where you constantly see injustice being done and are powerless to do anything about it is part of the reason why we don’t see men stepping up. Why should they? And get their head chopped off by their own countrymen?
These agents may very well be corrupt, and they definitely behaved inappropriately under the law, but I agree with their apprehension of these criminals. Armed drug runners using the Mexican border to shelter them? I’m sorry, Book, we’ve got to defend ourselves at some point. I’m not even addressing our illegal alien problem. This is a matter of national sovereign and control of our borders.
Is our government signaling its citizens to disarm and do nothing to protect ourselves and our own homes (if you do you’d be prosecuted under the law), while they, the government, does nothing?
How much is enough, Book?
Thomas:
I agree with everything you say about the border, and I think our laws regarding the border are bad ones. Nevertheless, there is never a good reason for cops to chase after unarmed people, shooting them in the back, and then to cover up the evidence. Had the cops given chase and even shot at the drug dealers, it might have been different — probably a lot of administrative hand slapping. What they did, though, amounted to murder and a cover-up, which is a crime whether or not you’re a cop, and which is profoundly deleterious to the system if you are a cop.
By all means — let’s change the laws. Let’s give these border patrols more fire power and more latitude. But that doesn’t mean we should allow them to become lawless vigilantes, who can murder with impunity.
Bookworm,
My understanding was that these fellows were armed and they were moving about 743 pounds of marijuana. If you’re source was right and these drug runners weren’t armed and these border patrol agents killed with impunity, however, then we’ve got ourselves a problem. I quite agree that we shouldn’t all our agents to become lawless vigilantes.
But again, the question is how much is enough? Our political parties are conducting the biggest sumo wrestling match I’ve ever seen. And while that’s going on, nothing is being done to secure our borders.
Our border patrol might as well be stone sentries with sensors. We’ll know if something is coming across the border but we’re just too busy to do anything about it.
How much is enough? I’ve heard that people near the border are arming themselves. If criminals trespassed their property and threatened them and their families, would it still be vigilantism to apprehend these criminals should they be passing through their property? It is painfully obvious that the border patrol is a joke on both sides of the border since we’ve de-fanged them as an agency.
At what point, God help us, would Americans tell their government, “We do not consent?”
But again, the question is how much is enough?
We have Harry Reid and the Democrats giving aid and comfort to the enemy. We have CIA and State Department leakers harming national security. We have domestic insurgents paid by foreign powers, and State Department boyos paid on the side by Saudi powers. We also have organizations of institutions hostile to the US, organizing seditious activity inside the US.
Are all these enough for the President to arrest, try, or execute the targets? No.
What is enough is what the President decides is enough. That’s just a fact.
On the scale of things however, I tend to think the current President can learn a lot from how Bookworm balances the justice and righteousness of necessary actions with the necessary rule of law and obedience to the law.
I’ve heard that people near the border are arming themselves.
iraqis are arming themselves as well, or did arm themselves and are now targeting Al Qaeda. The point is that in lawless situations, people will have to defend themselves, because they cannot just be passive and rely upon some far away power or government to do security for them. That kind of obedience to corruption and degradaded decadence is never a good thing. That’s why reality and nature likes to remind us of our place in the heirarchy of things.
Safety is never forever. It used to be these cycles of anarchy and safety, destruction and reconstruction, were a lot closer together. Someone lived on a farm and worked on a farm for 5 years, and then he gets attacked and his farm burned down. That’s one cycle. Now a days, it is going into the decades if not centuries.
The cycle can’t be stopped, it can only be delayed. The border is only a symptom of the decay and decadence in the United States, it is not the cause of it. One would have to freeze or stop the source of the decay itself, or if barring that, find something that can revitalize the souls of men.
Bookworm,
My apologies. I’m a bit heated over this subject since I don’t know if any government can remain legitimate and not protect its borders and its citizens. A government, civilization itself, exists for the sole purpose of having families, especially women and children, be free and secure in their own homes.
What other function is more basic than that? Even Medieval feudal Lords understood this dynamic…
I know you are addressing a very narrow particular with respect to the authorities vested in a border patrol agent. I know you are addressing specific border patrol agents and their violation of the existing laws.
I just think this issue goes much further than that…
But Thomas, Book is addressing the larger picture. Which is that you can’t create a more lawful society if you are willing to violate the law to do it. This is the dynamic difference between revolutionaries and reformers. It is very hard to create a stable system when you yourself have torn the law apart, because it makes it easier for the next group to attempt to do the same to YOUR system.
Iran prevented this with their counter-revolutionary thugs, secret police, and torturers.
Ymarsakar,
Yes, that is true. And let me stipulate that I am definitely not a revolutionary. It just seems to me that we are reaching a crossroad in the history of America very similar to the moment preceding the American Civil War. Neither the legislation of Congress nor the urgings of the President could stop Kansas and Missouri from shooting it up in those territories.
Personally, I don’t know how long it will be until the law break down along the border, with or without the approval of Congress. Americans have a very, very long history of acting without the approval of our “aristocracy” to keep order. (Judge Roy Bean for example. The appalling lack of black-shirted SS officers and German critics after Germany’s surrender for another. Despite the commands from Patton and Eisenhower, our troops killed them outright anyway.)
I’m not even advocating that border towns should disregard the law. I do wonder how long the law would be obeyed when one side tries to obey it and another side blatantly violates it. Human nature will just out. And I don’t think we will like the consequences.
I agree that the rule of law only matters if it is enforced. If it isn’t enforced, then breaking laws doesn’t have any consequences. Good or bad. As I said to Book before, the President is fully justified in ignoring laws that the Supreme Court cannot enforce.
Personally, Thom, I’m not worried about your scenario so much as the other variation. If it was just a total breakdown in law and order, then Americans would have an advantage. But what about a partial breakdown in law and order? by that I mean, when the federal government doesn’t enforce the law against criminals, but DOES ENFORCE the law against lawabiding citizens, punishing them for protecting themselves when the feds won’t?
VirginiaTech, free gun zone, as they say.
Sweden, refuse to punish the Islamics but punish their victims.
That, to me, is probably the most dangerous situation and will probably come way before a total breakdown in order.
Y,
To my way of thinking, one will just lead to the other. Well, I think we are already into the opening stages of such a scenario as you described.
Here in California, I heard that if a robber comes into your home and you have a firearm, you cannot fire upon the intruder who is physically standing inside your home unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you made all attempts to escape. If you cannot prove that your life was being threatened and that you didn’t exhaust all options to escape, then you’d be charged with murder if you killed the robber or attempted murder if he didn’t die or you be sued into bankruptcy.
The law as I understand it here in California says that you cannot defend your own home against intruders.
I hear this sort of perverse legality present in these border towns…
Y,
Book, being an attorney here in California, can probably shed more light on this strange law than I can…
California’s always seemed to have been that way with guns compared to say my state, Georgia. Or even any other Southern state. It isn’t true everywhere, but certainly it is a general trend between the South and the great Coastal Zones of Common Wealth.
Technically, obviously California itself was a frontier zone not long ago in human terms. Its location as a port and resupply zone however, allowed it to grow civilized faster than those that had to be reached by land. Anything that becomes civilized, will eventually become uncivilized. And the faster one reaches civilization, the faster one loses it as well.
It isn’t a strange law, technically. A lot of urban centers have something like that, or if not certain cities, then Australia, Europe, and Britain certainly has such laws in spades. And they are even more draconian than what you described. You cannot even defend yourself with a bat in Australia, if your assailant is unarmed. Could be 5 against you, but it doesn’t seem to matter legally there. Australia’s small pop, what 20 something million, probably accounts for how they could even survive under those conditions. You could not do that in the United States with 300 million people and more people coming into it every day. Law and order must be upheld, and much of it is upheld by the citizens themselves.
Democracy was never designed to allow the federal government to do everything, concerning upholding local law and order and security. And that’s the problem. Democracy or representative republics depend upon the will, spirit, and self-sufficiency of the people. Without the wisdom of the people, the government can’t do jack.
Ymarsakar,
If you are talking about how widespread this law is, then yes, it ain’t all that strange. However, given the way I was raised, I think this law very unjust. Our system is understandably and rightfully weighted toward the presumption of innocence because we consider the cost of a single human life precious. The risk of placing an innocent man into prison horrifies us, so we err on the side of caution and we let known criminals go free more often than not.
But it seems to me there is a vast difference between the presumption of innocence and weighing the law in favor of criminals. If a person is standing in your home uninvited in the dead of night in a ski mask with a gun or knife and a bag of your property, you don’t need to guess this fella’s intentions. Now, if you decide to defend yourself in your own home, a place that is supposed to be sacrosanct, and the government is refusing to acknowledge that the police takes an hour to reach distress calls because the system is overloaded— if you take up arms to defend yourself because obviously the government will not, you’d be brought up on charges?
Y, you’re right. Democracies are different from totalitarian governments because they allow individuals to have the freedom of thought and action. Totalitarian governments, like the Soviet Union, takes away all the responsibilities of the individual and hoards it onto itself. That’s what totalitarianism means: no piece of an individual’s life is not decided on by the state.
At least for the moment, our government still allows people some room for action…
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Police and Firemen in Irving Texas make meth in the firehouses and use the ambulance and firetrucks to deliver and pick up. They use city vehicles, gas and manpower to deliver equipment and pallets of chemicals.
I have followed them and they take big bags up to a house instead of taking someone to the hospital. Fire Marshal Lewellyn says that someone was injured at that address but they can’t divulge the injuries. YEAH, like I’m that stupid after seeing this 6 times in a row at 2704 Catalina Way on Sunday mornings. No one gets injured every Sunday at 6:00 a.m.
They also steal cars, use semi’s for smuggling and have an organized prostitution right on our sidewalk.
Then any person, usually innocent old ladies, who call and report these things to 911 have their homes broken into, their TVs and cameras broken, have ID’s stolen and are harassed until they have to evacuate their homes.
The victim is first sprayed in their sleep with chemicals like Shield which is a temporary car bra which can stop you breathing or blind you, or they spray you with pesticides or fiberglass which gets stuck in your face, lips and nose.
Then they break in your house every time you leave, stay on your roof every night and don’t let you sleep by shooting you with tasers, some kind of shock weapon, plasma weapons and microwave emitters.
When you report this to 911, the police refuse to make reports, investigate or divulge the fact that the person who is doing all this is paid by the city of Irving. His name is JUAN SANCHEZ and his accomplice is believed to be JASON OR JOSH.
They have killed one woman on my street, blinded another, kicked her dogs to death, given another chronic bronchitis, asthma and eye inflammation.
If that’s not enough, they converge microwave sources as shown at mikrowellenterror.com under the heading Bildergalerie. If you see someone sitting outside your house for hours, they are microwaving you with a suitcase size High frequency microwave transmitter.
the 911 operator, Courtney and the other lady, we believe is allyson, refers you to officers Kelly and Allen who are the face of the gang. Many officers are involved Rutledge, Hover, Browning, Orr, Frarr, Weidman, Vandervreen, Aussen and others.
Our taxes pay these officers to deal drugs from their squad cars, protect the drug dealers, steal cars, semis and buses, smuggle god knows what and run a prostitution business. We have no police protection.
DON’T TRUST ANY IRVING TEXAS POLICE OR FIREMAN. MR. BOYD and LEWELLYN will cover it up.
Direct any reply to MicrowaveCrime@yahoo.com
irving cops are so corrupt its unreal, lie trickery,racial profile big time,screwing me cant do nothing