President Bush on Monday commuted the sentences of two former border patrol agents who had been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for shooting and seriously wounding a Mexican drug dealer in Texas in 2005.
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This one hits unusually close to home with me.
My stepdad (who I love very much by the way) and my brother were both Border Patrol agents stationed in Texas. Both went on to become undercover agents, my stepdad (now retired) as an undercover agent for the INS, and my younger brother an undercover agent for the newly-formed ICE (basically the same department with a new name). My stepdad retired as assistant director; my brother is still working as an agent now.
The things they’ve done, the things they’ve seen, the things they can talk about (and some they can’t talk about) would fill more than one book.
That said, it would be an insult to the men and women who wear that badge to suggest that they’re allowed to just shoot at anyone who runs away from them. Even if they’re pretty sure he’s dirty.
Truth of the matter is they did something wrong. They tried to "clean up" evidence because they knew they’d done something wrong and they tried to cover it up. But to me, the sentence for that should be something considerably less than 11 or 12 years of hard time. Mandatory sentencing is a horrible idea and we should not have it.
Still, you don’t just shoot at a guy because you *think* he’s dirty. They shot him in the buttocks as he ran away, and that could easily have been his lower spine, leaving him crippled for life, or even dead on the spot. Based on what, 5 or 10 seconds of judgmenet as he sprinted away?
Clemency was the right way to go. That Border Patrol badge is not a license to kill.
The key word in this is seriously wounding. If this was also the intent as well as the deed, the only thing they should be punished for is irresponsible and debatably unethical behavior. Clemency is the right choice.
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