"Bungalow Bill" wrote in message
...
The drug dealer running had a gun, dumbass.

The court said they found no evidence of that, and even the border guys
admitted that while they *thought* he had a gun, they couldn't be 100% certain
of it. Now, perhaps he did have a gun and was just very good about getting
rid of it, but courts have to make rulings based on what can be reasonably
substantiated, not what *might* have been.

Secondly, border guard #1 *emptied his entire clip * at the guy -- missing him
every time -- before his buddy, border guard #2, shot the guy in the butt
*while he was fleeing*. You can bet that if this same scenario occurred
between a regular old set of U.S. cops and some drug dealers in the streets of
L.A., the cops wouldn't be getting much sympathy either -- shooting fleeing
suspects is generally considered poor form, unless you're *certain* they have
a gun in hand.

The entire case was a mess, with agents changing their stories while on the
stand and much of the case revolving around unprovable accusations of what was
or wasn't said or done (the incident was never formally reported, the border
guys said they verbally informed their supervisor about it -- as he'd be the
one to file the formal report -- he claimed they never did). Bush's pardon is
entirely reasonable, but I think it's a stretch to suggest that the two border
guards were any kind of upstanding guys who'd you want to hold out as someone
for your kids to look up to.

Jim is correct that if they'd shot him in the head, everything would have been
a whole lot simpler.

---Joel