Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been agitating of late for a pardon of Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, convicted in 2006 of shooting a fleeing suspected drug smuggler on the U.S.-Mexico border and then covering up their actions -- even offering a petition for people to sign (which, as we've noted, is a tad disingenuous). But as it did before, WND is shielding from its readers the most damning aspects of the case against Ramos and Compean -- namely, what exactly they did to earn their prison sentences.
A Dec. 15 article by Chelsea Schilling summarized the case this way: "Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, for shooting at a fleeing illegal alien drug dealer while he smuggled nearly 750 pounds of marijuana across the border." While Schilling did go on to note that the two "were convicted of assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence, tampering with an official proceeding and deprivation of civil rights," at no point does Schilling explain it, preferring instead to tell the sob stories of the families of the agents. Schilling does admit that the Ramos and Compean's convictions on nearly all of the charges were upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As we detailed when WND endeavored to suppress the full story the first time around, the agents were accused of covering up their involvement in the shooting by picking up their shell casings and failing to file an incident report. Further, pursuing fleeing suspects violates Border Patrol policy.
While this article had some semblence of balance, a follow-up Dec. 22 article by Schilling did not. She repeated the "illegal alien drug dealer" slant, noted the charges the two were convicted of -- then went on to claim, based solely on a claim made by an anonymous source, that Border Patrol agents "fear losing their jobs or ending up behind bars like agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean."
Other recent WND articles on the case demonstrate a similar bias by not reporting the details of the case explaining why Ramos and Compean faced those charges and were convicted of them. A Dec. 15 article promoting the petition whitewashes things further, noting only that Ramos and Compean "were convicted and sentenced under a law requiring a minimum 10-year sentence for the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime – a law the Congress never intended to apply to law enforcement officers" without mention the cover-up charges. A Dec. 24 article by Bob Unruh recited some of the charges Ramos and Compean wereconvicted of but failed to detail the circumstances of the crime.
A Dec. 19 column by Joseph Farah engages in a total whitewash, stating only that "Ramos and Compean were Border Patrol agents who slightly wounded an illegal alien drug smuggler with a gunshot while in pursuit and in the line of duty" without explaining the attempted cover-up of their actions. Farah added that "They have already served nearly two years – mostly in solitary confinement" without explaining that they are in solitary confinement for their own protection. Law enforcement agents convicted of crimes typically are held apart from the general prison population for their own safety -- as illustrated by an assault on Ramos while he was held among the general prison population (and yes, WND complained about that, too).
