By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A fed judge in D.C. appeared skeptical of the Justice Department’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit centering on the poorly thought out ATF operation known as Fast and Furious, according to the Associated Press. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has filed a lawsuit seeking records related to the operation….
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com An independent watchdog group for the Justice Department is investigating claims that President Obama’s nominee to head the ATF retaliated against a whistleblower, the Roll Call reports. B. Todd Jones is accused of suspending an employee in retaliation for lodging a complaint. Carolyn N. Lerner, the head of the Office of…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The ATF has failed to inspect 58% of licensed gun dealers every five years because of understaffing and other obligations, the Houston Chronicle reports. The Justice Department’s inspector general examined data from 2007 to 2012. The report also criticized the ATF’s failure to track its industry operations investigators. Most of the blame…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com An ATF agent and two informants are alive today because the guns of two drug-dealing suspects failed to discharge. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports that Frederick “Freaky” Crayton, 23 (pictured to the right) and James “J. Blood” Jones, 21, tried to open fire on the agent and informants in a car…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A tiff between the ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Reno has left crime-stopping teams without the proper equipment to conduct undercover gun operations and gun buyback programs in northern Nevada, the Reno Gazette Journal reports. Since ATF agents left the Nevada office, local and regional police have been unable to…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com As a former ATF supervisor and the current Medina police chief in Ohio, Patrick Berarducci knows a thing or two about gun safety. But that didn’t stop the 62-year-old with more than 40 years of experience in law enforcement from accidentally shooting himself in the leg at home, the Cleveland Plain Dealer…
Columnist Joe Davidson Wall Street Journal This time it’s Boston. As they did with bombings in New York City and Oklahoma City, and many lesser-known crimes every day in cities all over the country, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, better known as ATF, rushed to the scene. Their specialized expertise…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The Connecticut gun store that sold two guns at the scene of the Newtown elementary school massacre had more than 500 violations of federal firearms regulations, reports the Journal News of Westchester County. Still, the ATF allowed the store to stay open without yanking the license until after the shooting, the Journal…
