District Court Judge Otis Wright slammed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in his opinion last week, writing “Society does not win when the Government stoops to the same level as the defendants it seeks to prosecute — especially when the Government has acted solely to achieve a conviction for a made-up crime.” Wright was referring to the ATF practice of “unfairly [enlisting] people in a ‘made-up crime’ by offering them a huge payday for robbing a non-existent drug stash house.”
The ATF has more than quadrupled the number of stings it conducts over the last decade. They use fake stash houses to target violent criminals, though generally capture only small time crooks.
“The time has come to remind the Executive Branch that the Constitution charges it with law enforcement — not crime creation. A reverse-sting operation like this one transcends the bounds of due process and makes the Government the oppressor of its people,”
The opinion is a response to a case in Los Angeles Antuan Dunlap was arrested by the ATF. According to Wright, there was “no evidence that Dunlap had been involved in drug house robberies in the past or that he would have participated in one had an undercover ATF agent not offered him the chance to steal as much as 25 kilograms of non-existent cocaine,” USA Today writes.
“Zero. That’s the amount of drugs that the Government has taken off the streets as the result of this case and the hundreds of other fake stash-house cases around the country. That’s the problem with creating crime: the Government is not making the country any safer or reducing the actual flow of drugs,” Wright wrote.
Source: Rare
Photo: BATF
joe francis: Govt gone wild
They have all gone MAD like rabid dogs ..
Isn’t this called entrapment? Isn’t entrapment a criminal offense? Shouldn’t some people at ATF be indicted? Isn’t Eric Holder, as the Attorney General of the United Stated, responsible for the ATF? When is Holder’s rap sheet going to be long enough to get some positive action from Congress?
possible they were forced by the person sitting in the oval office do this and I won’t cut your funds
nobody is going to jail over this or anything else they do, we are not in America anymore.
Ashcroft got his job as attorney general by selling chemical weapons to Iraq holders a puss ant compared to him
ATF WAS ALSO INVOLVE IN FAST AND FURIOUS–ATF SHOULD BE ELIMINATED
Tsarist Russia?? Try COMMUNIST RUSSIA right after the Tsar!! They executed THOUSANDS of times as many people as the Tsar! Why on earth do people keep using Tsarist Russia as the example??
The sole and only purpose of government is to transfer wealth to politicians and their cronies from their subjects. Reforming government is akin to reforming slavery. We are now ending it through our growing awareness of government’s true nature:)
They are supposed to solve crimes not make them.