ATF agents used mentally disabled individuals in sting operations; one brain damaged man was used for six months and paid with cigarettes
First there was Operation Fast and Furious. Now the ATF is involved in another scandal, but this one is a new low.
The ATF has been using brain damaged men in sting operations. Earlier this year, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel uncovered Operation Fearless in which agents in Milwaukee used a 28-year-old man with an IQ of 54 to “stage drug deals and criminal transactions at a set-up store where undercover agents could swoop in and make arrests.”
The Journal-Sentinel reported that ATF agents used Chauncey Wright for six months and paid him with cigarettes. He had no idea that the store was a fake. Wright was told to ride his bicycle around the area and hand out fliers touting up business for the new store. The agents also got Wright to help them stock shelves with illegal merchandize, including drug paraphernalia.
When confronted with the paper’s report, the ATF insisted that the use of the mentally disabled was confined strictly to the Milwaukee area. However, the Journal-Sentinel discovered that the ATF also used brain damaged individuals in at least four other cities.
The ATF agents working undercover in the Milwaukee store also reportedly “allowed the operation to be compromised by a burglary, let an armed felon leave the store without apprehension, lost government weapons – including a machine gun – to theft, and damaged a rented building they used during the investigation and refused to pay for it.”
The Justice Department Inspector General is now investigating the tactics used in Operation Fearless. I suspect that when all is said and done, a few scapegoats will be fired. But, just as in Operation Fast and Furious, ATF higher-ups will escape unscathed.
Oops, I almost forgot. If you agree that the use of brain damaged individuals is a new low, there’s more to this report that is even lower. When they finally closed down the storefront operation, the ATF arrested Chauncey Wright and charged him with several counts of federal drug and firearms violations.
1 comment:
This is in a way like the Taliban using mentally disabled suicide bombers who are unaware of what they are truly doing? It is disgusting and reprehensible, which pretty much describes much of the federal government, especially under the Obama administration.
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