What Really Happened in Border Shooting?

Former U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Ham points toward the location at Fabens, Texas, on Monday, Feb. 5, 2007, where former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean shot drug smuggler Osvaldo Davila last year. The agents began serving prison sentences in January after their convictions in the incident. (AP Photo/Mark Lambie) (Mark Lambie - AP)

"Did you guys copy? There's a blue van leaving at 76. Going pretty quick."

It was 1:11 p.m. on Feb. 17, 2005, 30 miles east of El Paso in a hamlet of cotton fields and pecan orchards called Fabens.

Agent Compean, a Border Patrol officer for five years, was on the radio calling in some tripped sensors at a spot known as area 76. He alerted his fellow officers that he suspected some sort of drug transaction was under way, and the agents of the Fabens Border Patrol station quickly responded.

Oscar Juarez, a newer officer who'd spent six weeks as Compean's field trainee, was in his vehicle not far from the Rio Grande _ "pushing back" a group of 10 or more illegal immigrants, he would testify at trial. Pushing back means exhibiting a high-profile presence to ensure would-be crossers stay in Mexico rather than attempting to cross the river.

Nacho Ramos, a senior agent with 10 years under his belt, was having lunch at the station when he heard the radio call.

They, and five other agents, responded to Compean's alert. Holding the line against illegal immigrants might be their primary job description, agents would testify, but taking down a drug load is an event every officer wants credit for.

Juarez picked up the van first, following it north into Fabens. He hit his overhead lights, but instead of pulling over, the van sped up and headed back south toward the border. Ramos joined in the pursuit.

"It's close. We got this baby," Juarez radioed at 1:19 p.m. It was his first car chase. "I was excited," he testified.

The road turned to dirt and came to a dead-end at a steep sewage ditch the agents call the Sierra Delta. It runs east to west, and was measured by investigators as 11-feet deep and 43-feet wide, too big to jump. It's filled, at least ankle-high, with putrid, murky water. Beyond the ditch, facing south, is a slight incline, then a levee road that parallels the ditch and an open vega, or prairie, about half a football field in length. Beyond the vega is the Rio Grande, then Mexico.

The van came to a stop at the edge of the ditch. Ramos pulled up behind it, followed by Juarez. Compean, having tracked the pursuit on the radio, stuck to the south side of the ditch and parked his truck on the levee road.

The van driver, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, got out and ran for the canal, Mexico in his sights.

"Parate! Parate!" Compean shouted, Spanish for "stop."