Well, there's a problem. The agent said that the perp turned toward him and made the infamous "furtive gesture." Problem: the perp was shot in the a$$. Physical evidence does not match agent's testimony. Coupled with destruction of evidence, that's enough to establish mens rea.
The agents claimed that they did not believe they hit the perp so rather than spend the rest of the day writing memos, they made the mistake of not reporting the weapons discharge. (a policy violation not a crime).
You are forgetting that they also destroyed evidence that indicated the agent had fired his gun.
If the perp had a gun, then no “crime” was committed, only a policy violation (failure to report a weapons discharge) to which I believe they should be fired not imprisoned.
Key word in bold.
One may not engage in hypotheticals without end; they must, ultimately, be anchored in the facts of the case. If you report that the perp has a gun, there'd better be a gun--or something that can reasonably be construed to be a gun--at hand.
Well I can play that game as well.
Since the perp continued to run after the weapons discharge the agents had no reason to believe they had hit the subject and thus no reason to believe that picking up their brass would be destroying a “potential” crime seen.
No gun was recovered because the subject escaped back to Mexico and that’s a fact not in dispute.
As for the shot in the ass, armed encounters are never as simple as they appear on TV. The guy could have been spinning while reaching or pointing.
These agents have collectively apprehended thousands of illegal aliens and unknown numbers of drug smugglers over their careers, most of who ran. They never were involved in any other shooting to effect arrests.
Since there is no reports that the agents have a record of civil rights abuse the rouge cop thing won’t fly and somehow I don’t think the race card will play either given their last names.
So why on this one day would they decide risk everything and shoot a fleeing alien in the back? For fun? I don’t think so.