I believe the agents did involve themselves in procedural wrong doing after the incident. But I also believe that at the time of the incident, they acted within the scope of their training and procedures. They saw that the guy had gotten away, and they most probably thought that they had missed him so they did not think reporting the incident would be any big deal...even though they should have done so anyway.
That's my considered opinion after a lot of review on both sides of the issue.
You agree with the Border Patrol. According to Bonner, their punishment would have ordinarily been a few days suspension.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1822357/posts
Agents: No confidence in border chief
WashingtonTimes ^ | 4/23/07 | Jerry Seper
The leaders of the U.S. Border Patrol’s rank-and-file agents have unanimously voted a no-confidence resolution against Chief David V. Aguilar, citing, among other things, his willingness to believe the “perjured allegations” of criminal aliens over his own agents.
The resolution won endorsement from all 100 top leaders of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), which represents all 11,000 of the U.S. Border Patrol’s nonsupervisory field agents, and targeted Chief Aguilar’s lack of support for field agents, several of whom have been prosecuted on civil rights grounds involving arrests of illegal aliens and drug-smuggling suspects.
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