The Chronicle‘s Anne Marie Kilday reports on U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton’s swing by the editorial offices at 801 Texas Avenue this week. Sutton’s successful prosecution of border agents who shot an alleged Mexican drug smuggler and then engaged in a coverup of the affair has set off a firestorm among some critics of U.S. immigration policies (mostly conservatives), and Sutton has apparently decided to undertake a public awareness campaign in defense of his actions.
Here’s an excerpt from Kilday’s reporting:
Despite months of criticism from the media and members of Congress, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas has stepped up his defense in a decision to prosecute two former Border Patrol agents who shot an illegal immigrant and suspected drug smuggler two years ago.
Sutton told the Houston Chronicle on Thursday that “the rule of law” required him to prosecute former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean who are appealing their March 2006 convictions on federal charges stemming from the February 2005 shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila. Aldrete-Davila was unarmed and fleeing the Border Patrol when he was wounded by one of 15 shots fired at him by the two agents.
The case has become a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration reform, with immigration-control advocates and conservative House Republicans hailing Compean and Ramos as heroes unfairly prosecuted by the government.
“The facts have been misrepresented as ‘These guys are American heroes doing their job, and a drug dealer has been set free,'” Sutton said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle editorial board.
“All I want to do is get the truth out, and I think the way to get the truth out is to duke it out in the public sphere,” Sutton said. “That’s what I am trying to do now, is to get the facts out.”
The former Harris County prosecutor said he came to Houston to appear on the Edd Henry talk radio show, where the host has taken to calling him “Johnny Satan.”
“I’m giving him the benefit of a doubt,” Sutton said. He added: “I try not to take it personally. I went on that show because I grew up on the west side. I know Edd doesn’t have many listeners, but the listeners he does have are on the west side of Houston.”
It’s actually the Edd Hendee show. The reporter might have gotten the name right if she or her editors had thought that perhaps a comment from Hendee was in order after that unnecessary slam from Sutton, but at least the error wasn’t as bad as the following one that was recently corrected:
Houstonian Nancy Kinder, who was on the invitation list for the White House state dinner in honor of Queen Elizabeth II, is president of the Kinder Foundation. The foundation’s name was listed incorrectly on Page A11 Tuesday.
You have to love those vaunted layers of editing and fact-checking!
The Edd Hendee/Pat Gray exchange with Johnny Sutton on KSEV-700 is available for download on Pat Gray’s website here, and an interesting discussion has emerged on the Chron.com website.
We’re going to follow David Benzion’s lead on this one, and suggest that the Chron.com forum is actually the best place for what is likely to be a discussion of immigration policy, a subject that strays from our usual focus here. That’s where I’ll be leaving a few non-Houston-ish thoughts on the matter.
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