Another border shooting lands law enforcement officer in jail

There were certainly two sides to the account of the two Border Patrol agents who went to jail for shooting a fleeing pot smuggler in the butt. It sounds like they were being pretty shady in the way they covered their tracks.

There's another case in the Washington Times today that sounds less defensible. A deputy is going to jail for ten years because he shot at a Suburban (full of illegal immigrants) that tried to run him down. The Times paints a pretty sympathetic picture of the deputy, and the facts of the case sound very different: there seems to be little dispute that the Suburban really did try to hit Deputy Guillermo Hernandez and that his life was in danger when he fired his weapon. He faces ten years in federal prison.

This is the same U.S. attorney who prosecuted the two Border Patrol agents. (They're becoming experts at this sort of case!) Why is this even taking up the time of the federal courts? Isn't the state justice system capable of disciplining Deputy Hernandez? And isn't ten years a little severe for someone who reacted in the heat of the moment after nearly being run over?

Given the facts of the pot-smuggler shooting, I'm not going to jump to conclusions about what ought to happen with this case until I hear both sides. But this account certainly raises my hackles.