Border Patrol Agents Turn Themselves for Shooting Mexican Drug Runner

    Two Texas Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in the backside while on duty turned themselves in to U.S. Marshals Wednesday.

    Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean began serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, for the February 2005 non-fatal shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila.

    Several groups, including Friends of the Border Patrol, The Minutemen and Grassfire.org, have been trying through petitions to keep the agents out of prison — either by a motion to allow them to remain free on bond during an appeal or through a presidential pardon.

    "This ruling by Judge Cardone is the most disgraceful act that I have ever heard of in the history of our great nation and both she and the prosecutors should be ashamed of themselves for taking the word of a drug smuggler, caught in the act, while ignoring the facts," Friends of the Border Patrol Chairman Andy Ramirez wrote in a statement.

    "Evidence that would have severely damaged the credibility of the known drug smuggler, and exonerated Compean & Ramos was sealed and suppressed and the attorneys were prevented from mounting a proper defense."

    Ramirez said El Paso Border Patrol chiefs Robert Gilbert and Luis Barker and Robert Gilbert have hung their agents out to dry.

    "I must remind the public that narcotic traffickers and human smugglers laugh at law enforcement as they know that the Johnny Sutton's of DOJ will not prosecute them, and instead will prosecute officers who do their job and keep that poison off our streets and out of our schools, parks, and neighborhoods," Ramirez wrote.