By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com
A federal judge in Chicago slammed the ATF on Monday over its phony stash-house stings, saying they primarily target people of color and should “be relegated to the dark corridors of the past.”
Chief U.S. District Judge Rube Castillo urged the federal agency to stop conducting stings that involve undercover agents promising lucrative payouts to suspects to steal nonexistent drugs from fake stash houses, ABC News reports.
“It’s time for these false stash-house cases to end and be relegated to the dark corridors of the past,” the judge said, reading parts of his 73-page ruling. “Our criminal justice system should not tolerate false stash-house cases anymore.”
The judge said the operations have “inherent problems” and that the stings “must be seen through the lens of our country’s sad history of racism.”
But Castillo still dismissed a defense motion to toss the shares against primarily black suspects after their attorneys argued the cases were racially biased.
