Sunday, April 20, 2008

Border Controversy

I recently read about a story near the American-Mexican border which seemed a little controversy to me. Two men were patrolling the border when they observed a Mexican man illegally passing from Mexico to America transporting drugs. The men pulled out there firearms and shot. The men took the drug trafficker into custody. What happen was the men who took the drug trafficker got into trouble. The men were not legally allowed to fire there weapons. The government then were going to allow the drug trafficker off just to testify against the two men who fired there weapons. Does anyone think that this is American justice? I thought we were trying to prevent illegal immigrants? I also thought the U.S disliked drugs...Hmmmm.

6 comments:

Kristina McOmber said...

This issue can become very thorny because you're dealing with rule breakage on both sides, and America trying to prove its fairness and whatnot, and does not want to be caught out on letting its own people go on a violent rampage while shamelessly persecuting the poor mexican man just trying to feed his family. However, it was obviously mishandled, and now everyone looks like an idiot. Both sides ought to be charged for their misdemeanors/crimes

Farrah Ng said...

Well, Mexican-American border matters are almost always controversial. I definitely both trafficker and police should be punished. I definitely agree with what Kristina said. There are a lot of illegal immigrants crossing the boarder, but a lot of the times, the US and its government has been reprimanded for being harsh and cruel. By punishing the police, perhaps they want to push for a fair image....

Anonymous said...

I think it is good that the narcotraficante was released. I am firmly against the hypocracy of breaking the law to catch one who has broken the law. It would be like a cop searching your car without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, finding some sort of contraband, and arresting you. That would be comlete balderdash. therefore, it is completely right for the cops to let the immigrant go free.

Anonymous said...

Two evils dont make anything good. Both sides shoud be condemmed. They cops fired when they werent supposed to, and the man brought illegal drugs into the country. We shouldnt let one off just to justify the other. This is an example of how poor our legal system can be sometimes. The man with the drugs is going to continue trafficking drugs, so why let him go? To what extent will this "balancing" of crimes take place? Some standards should be set quick!

Annie C said...

Addie, it isn't so much a poor system as one with occasional problems.

Even though they're releasing the man, they'll probably continue to keep tabs on him.

They can't charge him, like in Greg's example(about the search and seizure).

The larger problem at the moment isn't that he chose to traffic drugs, or illegally cross the border, but that the police officers who were sworn to upholding peace and protecting others chose to shoot at him.

Ellie said...

The thing is, so much of law enforcement and government depends upon respect. We trust the government to take care of us and run the country, and in exchange we follow the rules. But the system only holds up as long as we can trust the government to do the right thing, so as soon as they start screwing up their own rules, we have problems. As unfair as it may seem, I think it's far worse for police officers to break the rules than anyone else, because it's part of their job to be careful about those things. Law enforcement should expect to have to follow its own rules, and when situations like this arise, be ready to recognize them as resulting from its own negligence.