Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were convicted of shooting an admitted drug smuggler in the buttocks as he ran away from them near the Rio Grande River in February of 2005. They're now both sentenced to up to 12 years in jail, in which they will begin to serve next month. And now, 48 lawmakers are asking President Bush to pardon the agents, because they believe their actions stopped more than $1 million in illegal drugs from being sold in the U.S. Joining us now, the lawmaker leading the campaign for the pardon of California -- for this particular pardon, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Sounds reasonable, right? However, after introducing the Congressman, Colmes chose to add the following thereby immediately turning what should have been an informative interview about this subject into an argument:
First of all, there's some things we didn't mention. For example, these agents didn't know that this person was smuggling drugs at the time they shot him. They shot him in the back. They then apparently failed to report the shooting as required. So they didn't follow the law, and that's part of what figured into this sentencing.
Nice bedside manner, wouldn't you agree? See how that radically changed the encounter? After all, Alan could have first let the Congressman give his position on this issue before offering his own opinion. That's why you have guests on your show, right? However, by doing what he did, Alan intentionally challenged his guest, and Rohrabacher practically jumped through the television screen to have at his opponent:
That's baloney. It’s total, absolute baloney. The fact is what they did was a minor infraction. Their guns went -- you know, they fired their guns. Now, by the way, this man was in the commission of a crime.
Colmes tried to defend himself:
But what's baloney? They didn't know he had drugs; they didn't know he was a smuggler. What's baloney?
Rohrabacher was ready: "It's baloney that you positioned them in that introduction as the bad guys. The bad guy is the one smuggling 500 pounds -- excuse me, 450 pounds of drugs into our country."
Colmes continued to weakly defend his setup:
I gave you a straight introduction, sir. I gave a fair-and- balanced introduction. I didn't position them.
No, no, excuse me. These are the heroes. The bad guy is the one smuggling the drugs in…What we've got here is a miscarriage of justice, where this individual, who is protecting us, they throw the book at him, those two wonderful Border Patrol agents. They throw the book at them for a minor crime, and they let the drug smuggler go.
Colmes then needed reinforcements to support his position:
You can attack me all you want. But let me show you what Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for the Texas Western District, had to say about this. I'll put it up on the screen.
He says -- he's a law enforcement authority -- "Federal agents do not get to shoot unarmed people, as they're running away, in the back, and then lie about it, and cover it up. It is very important for border agents to follow the laws they enforce. And in those rare instances where they do not do that, it's our job to bring them to justice." Do you want to disagree with him?
Rohrabacher didn’t take this lying down: “No, it's that guy's job to go be a P.R. man for the drug lords. That's what it is.”
Colmes foolishly asked: “So it's OK to shoot unarmed people in the back?”
Rohrabacher attacked:
Let me finish my statement. Don't interrupt. Let me finish mine. My statement is: These two guys have put their lives on the line for 10 years. They have a nonsensical policy of this administration saying that you can't shoot your guns unless you are in imminent danger? Well, that means nobody will ever, ever be able to control the border.
Colmes continued with his foolish position: “They were shot in the back, sir.”
Rohrabacher again pounced:
No one will ever stop it. Shot in the back, this man got in a physical altercation with one of our Border Patrol agents. He was involved at that moment in the commission of a crime: smuggling drugs into our country.
The fact that he got shot in the buttocks while trying to escape, I think that sends the message to drug dealers not to try to smuggle drugs in. Prosecuting the Border Patrol says, "We've got an open border. The drug people can come right in because we will prosecute the Border Patrol agents if they're trying to protect us."
In the end, what was the key element of this case that Colmes was totally ignoring due to his typical view that law enforcement agents in this country are always in the wrong? Well, once guest host Rich Lowry was allowed to ask questions, the truth about this matter was miraculously revealed to the viewer:
LOWRY: Congressman, it's Rich Lowry. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's just back up here a second. Just describe to us what happened. You say there was an altercation with this drug smuggler, and it was at night, and obviously it must have been a very confusing situation. Just walk us through it.
ROHRABACHER: OK. What happened was these two Border Patrol agents, one of whom, by the way, was up for an award for the best Border Patrol agent of the month, just a month before that, 10-year veteran. They see this truck coming across the border. It's filled with drugs. Yes, they didn't know at that time it was filled with drugs.
LOWRY: But they're looking for that kind of thing, obviously. That's why they're there.
ROHRABACHER: They are looking for a suspicious -- when they finally got the truck off the road, the guy bolted towards the border. One of the agents went around to try to cut him off. Now they have this nonsensical policies of this administration saying that a border guard can't discharge his weapon unless he is in imminent threat of death.
Well, why would anyone then take any commands from a Border Patrol agent? This drug dealer knew that. He walked right up to the Border Patrol agent when he telling him to stop, threw him to the ground, and started running away. At that point, his partner, seeing his partner on the ground, shot -- Mr. Compean, Officer Compean -- shot at this guy, hit him in the buttocks. He went across the river and got away in a van.
LOWRY: But he -- Congressman, he defied the order of the Border Patrol agent. There was a physical altercation. He throws him, assaults him, throws him on the ground, and then he runs away.
ROHRABACHER: And then he runs away.
LOWRY: And update us on the drug smuggler's, this gentleman's -- to use the term loosely -- condition. Is he OK now?
ROHRABACHER: The drug smuggler has been smuggling drugs across the border since he was 14 years old. His family says that he is armed most of the time. The man was given immunity -- our people throwing the book at our own police officers. The Border Patrol agents...
LOWRY: And the drug smuggler is still just walking free?
ROHRABACHER: ... went out to give this guy immunity.
LOWRY: He's walking free, and he's not gravely or seriously injured by this?
ROHRABACHER: Well, he was wounded in the buttocks. He's walking free now. And since then, he's been arrested again for trying to smuggle another 1,000 pounds of drugs.
LOWRY: And the Border Patrol agents are supposed to go to jail for 11 or 12 years because of this?
This interview revealed a huge problem with the media today. Alan’s position right from the start was to take the opposite side of law enforcement, and immediately attack the position of the Republican guest. However, in doing so, the viewer wasn’t given all the information about what had transpired during the event in question. If Lowry hadn’t been there, the audience would have only gotten Alan’s view of this issue. On other networks where there is only one host doing the interviewing, that is regularly the case.
What follows is the full transcript of this segment.
COLMES: Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were convicted of shooting an admitted drug smuggler in the buttocks as he ran away from them near the Rio Grande River in February of 2005. They're now both sentenced to up to 12 years in jail, in which they will begin to serve next month.
And now, 48 lawmakers are asking President Bush to pardon the agents, because they believe their actions stopped more than $1 million in illegal drugs from being sold in the U.S.
Joining us now, the lawmaker leading the campaign for the pardon of California -- for this particular pardon, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Welcome, Congressman. Good to have you with us.
REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, thank you very much.
COLMES: First of all, there's some things we didn't mention. For example, these agents didn't know that this person was smuggling drugs at the time they shot him. They shot him in the back. They then apparently failed to report the shooting as required. So they didn't follow the law, and that's part of what figured into this sentencing.
ROHRABACHER: That's baloney. It total, absolute baloney. The fact is what they did was a minor infraction. Their guns went -- you know, they fired their guns. Now, by the way, this man was in the commission of a crime.
COLMES: But what's baloney? They didn't know he had drugs; they didn't know he was a smuggler. What's baloney?
ROHRABACHER: It's baloney that you positioned them in that introduction as the bad guys. The bad guy is the one smuggling 500 pounds -- excuse me, 450 pounds of drugs into our country.
COLMES: I gave you a straight introduction, sir. I gave a fair-and- balanced introduction. I didn't position them.
ROHRABACHER: No, no, excuse me. These are the heroes. The bad guy is the one smuggling the drugs in.
COLMES: But let me...
ROHRABACHER: What we've got here is a miscarriage of justice, where this individual, who is protecting us, they throw the book at him, those two wonderful Border Patrol agents. They throw the book at them for a minor crime, and they let the drug smuggler go.
COLMES: You can attack me all you want. But let me show you what Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for the Texas Western District, had to say about this. I'll put it up on the screen.
He says -- he's a law enforcement authority -- "Federal agents do not get to shoot unarmed people, as they're running away, in the back, and then lie about it, and cover it up. It is very important for border agents to follow the laws they enforce. And in those rare instances where they do not do that, it's our job to bring them to justice."
Do you want to disagree with him?
ROHRABACHER: No, it's that guy's job to go be a P.R. man for the drug lords. That's what it is.
COLMES: So it's OK to shoot unarmed people in the back?
ROHRABACHER: Let me finish my statement. Don't interrupt. Let me finish mine. My statement is: These two guys have put their lives on the line for 10 years. They have a nonsensical policy of this administration saying that you can't shoot your guns unless you are in imminent danger? Well, that means nobody will ever, ever be able to control the border.
COLMES: They were shot in the back, sir.
ROHRABACHER: No one will ever stop it. Shot in the back, this man got in a physical altercation with one of our Border Patrol agents. He was involved at that moment in the commission of a crime: smuggling drugs into our country.
The fact that he got shot in the buttocks while trying to escape, I think that sends the message to drug dealers not to try to smuggle drugs in. Prosecuting the Border Patrol says, "We've got an open border. The drug people can come right in because we will prosecute the Border Patrol agents if they're trying to protect us."
LOWRY: Congressman, it's Rich Lowry. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's just back up here a second. Just describe to us what happened. You say there was an altercation with this drug smuggler, and it was at night, and obviously it must have been a very confusing situation. Just walk us through it.
ROHRABACHER: OK. What happened was these two Border Patrol agents, one of whom, by the way, was up for an award for the best Border Patrol agent of the month, just a month before that, 10-year veteran. They see this truck coming across the border. It's filled with drugs. Yes, they didn't know at that time it was filled with drugs.
LOWRY: But they're looking for that kind of thing, obviously. That's why they're there.
ROHRABACHER: They are looking for a suspicious -- when they finally got the truck off the road, the guy bolted towards the border. One of the agents went around to try to cut him off. Now they have this nonsensical policies of this administration saying that a border guard can't discharge his weapon unless he is in imminent threat of death.
Well, why would anyone then take any commands from a Border Patrol agent? This drug dealer knew that. He walked right up to the Border Patrol agent when he telling him to stop, threw him to the ground, and started running away. At that point, his partner, seeing his partner on the ground, shot -- Mr. Compean, Officer Compean -- shot at this guy, hit him in the buttocks. He went across the river and got away in a van.
LOWRY: But he -- Congressman, he defied the order of the Border Patrol agent. There was a physical altercation. He throws him, assaults him, throws him on the ground, and then he runs away.
ROHRABACHER: And then he runs away.
LOWRY: And update us on the drug smuggler's, this gentleman's -- to use the term loosely -- condition. Is he OK now?
ROHRABACHER: The drug smuggler has been smuggling drugs across the border since he was 14 years old. His family says that he is armed most of the time. The man was given immunity -- our people throwing the book at our own police officers. The Border Patrol agents...
LOWRY: And the drug smuggler is still just walking free?
ROHRABACHER: ... went out to give this guy immunity.
LOWRY: He's walking free, and he's not gravely or seriously injured by this?
ROHRABACHER: Well, he was wounded in the buttocks. He's walking free now. And since then, he's been arrested again for trying to smuggle another 1,000 pounds of drugs.
LOWRY: And the Border Patrol agents are supposed to go to jail for 11 or 12 years because of this?
COLMES: All right, Congressman. We thank you for joining us tonight.
