ATF and Their Horrifying Criminal Acts - Pt. 3: Final

A tale of 7 cities... a fitting way to describe how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, [and Explosives] conducted rogue sting operations in 7 cities all over the country, committing all sorts of crimes, putting people in harm's way, and shutting down their stings with either nothing or next to nothing to show for it.
as first reported in exhaustive detail by the Journal Sentinel, the ATF's crimes include:

- Using mentally disabled people as rubes, then arresting them on federal charges.
- Letting known violent criminals walk out of stings with guns.
- Allowing weapons to be stolen.
trashing the buildings they rent to set up fake storefronts.
- Entrapment.
- Allowing their storefronts to be robbed.
- Creating crime waves and illegal gun/drug markets.
- Creating crime.
- etc.

         

In the wake if these stings, politicians have demanded investigations. Civil liberties groups and mental health advocates have demanded reforms. Various lives of innocent people have been wrecked. A few guns have been taken off the streets (and a few put back). The top guy who headed these operations is now running the Phoenix, AZ office (where the "Fast and Furious" debacle originated, more on that later). And approximately ZERO heads have rolled within the ATF agency.

We've covered the local botched sting here in Portland, and the one in Milwaukee where some of the worst of this shit occurred. Now we focus on Atlanta, Pensacola, Wichita, Albuquerque, and Phoenix.

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/backfire-190528221.html




ATLANTA, GA
In June 2010 ATF buffoons, in cooperation with the Atlanta Police Gestapo, set up "Operation ATL Blaze" along with a phony smoke shop business called "ATL Blaze" which lasted 7 months. A business purported to have sold only cheap-ass "urban" cloths and tacky drug paraphernalia, agents posing as store managers and workers encouraged people to bring in guns for cash. Where the guns came from didn't seem to matter much. Instead of a buy-back, the sting created an out-right crime wave where criminals would commit all manner of burglaries and break-ins, steal guns and other items, then take them directly to "ATL Blaze" to sell them. As was done in other cities, the Atlanta operation paid way over top dollar for weapons, giving people a huge incentive to commit crimes whereas, they wouldn't have before.

In some cases, agents knew that items being brought in were stolen. Some weapons were stolen from police squad cars! Not only that, but there was poor communication between ATF and local police. Weapons and other items brought in and sold at the fake shop weren't typically cleared with the Atlanta cops. So when citizens and businesses reported burglaries, APD scrambled to locate guns and items that were already in the ATF's possession.

An undercover operation in Atlanta, a smoke shop called ATL Blaze, experienced similar problems. Some defendants came to the store as many as 20 times after stealing weapons and other goods.

Some guns were stolen from police squad cars. ATF agents said in court documents they tried to deter such thefts by paying less for police guns.

The burglaries associated with ATL Blaze caused other problems for local law enforcement. Sheriff's deputies and local police — unaware the weapons had already been recovered by federal agents — scrambled around to solve the burglaries, spending untold resources interviewing witnesses.

At times, they never solved the case. And the weapons never made it back to the owners.

A Hi-Point pistol stolen from a car just after Christmas in 2010, for example, was still listed as stolen by the Fulton County Police Department when the Journal Sentinel contacted the department last month. ATF agents bought the gun at their secret storefront a week after it was taken.

"If the ATF recovered this weapon, it should be in our system." said Lt. G.T. Johnson, of the department. "We have not received any notification that it was recovered."  --- excerpt courtesy of the Journal Sentinel

 PENSACOLA, FL
In 2010 ATF set up a fake pawn shop called "Anything for a Buck". Instead of doing all the dirty work themselves though, this time they hired a convicted felon named Gary Renaud to run the shop for them. Renaud had already been secretly cooperating with ATF scum since 2008, when they picked him to run their Pensacola operation. Doing this not only expanded the dragnet of potential convicts and petty criminals that would bring in guns/stolen items to sell, but even people who would legally sell or pawn their guns. ATF weren't the least bit concerned about this, nor that many of the cases garnered would eventually end up in probation, not-guilty verdicts, or being dropped all together.

Nor that "their guy" Renaud was a violent repeat offender would eventually be arrested for pointing a gun at another man outside a bar. But he would got off with six months for that. They just wanted to boost arrest numbers as much as possible. That looks good on paper, in public press conferences, and on official govt. law-enforcement web sites.

An interview with ATF stooge/rat Gary Renaud can be listened to here:
http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/video/?bctid=2907801440001&bctid=2907801440001

ATF informant/shop keeper/felon Gary Renaud in recent police photo.




Anything for a Buck snags 'Little Squirrel' in Pensacola

Jeremy Norris wasn't a felon. He wasn't prohibited from owning or selling weapons when he put his guns up for sale in March 2010 in a local weekly newspaper.

The unemployed 24-year-old Norris — who lived with his parents and girlfriend — got into trouble when he answered a phone call from someone inquiring about the guns.

He didn't know the caller was working for an undercover federal sting. Norris has an IQ of 76, defined by experts as diminished mental capacity, bordering mental retardation.

Norris didn't have a car, so ATF agent Craig Saier — assigned to a fake pawnshop called Anything for a Buck — went to him. And he brought along the operation's top asset, a felon named Gary Renaud.

Anyone who sold to Renaud — knowing he was felon — could be criminally charged.

That first day, Renaud bought guns from Norris — but because he never said he was a felon, Norris could not be charged with a crime.

The next time was different. Renaud told Norris he was a felon. Norris sold him a gun anyway. And Renaud and agents went back.

Again and again. Each time paying far more than retail for the guns. So much that sometimes Norris, his parents and his girlfriend went to gun stores, bought firearms and sold them to Renaud at the storefront for a profit the same day, according to court documents.

The agents called Norris "Little Squirrel". Surveillance video captured one of them saying, "I can use his desperation against him," according to court documents.

"They were abusive to him," Norris' lawyer Jennifer Hart said in an interview. "These are federal agents. Jeremy was like shooting fish in a barrel for them. Jeremy Norris is mentally retarded and the agents in this case used that to take advantage of him."

Renaud told the Journal Sentinel that nobody took advantage of Norris. Although he and agents joked that Norris was "half retarded," he knew what he was doing, Renaud said.

Citing Norris' low IQ, a judge sentenced him to probation.

Norris was not the only mentally diminished defendant involved in the Anything for a Buck operation.

John Molchan, a state prosecutor in Florida, said his office reviewed and prosecuted several of the storefront cases. He said they decided not to pursue cases against a number of low-mental-functioning defendants.

"They didn't even arrest those people", Molchan said, noting prosecutors have great discretion when deciding whether to charge in such cases.

"I tell all the assistants, 'Do the right thing.' What is the right thing when dealing with someone who is not as gifted as everybody else?" Molchan said. "There is a great deal of responsibility placed on us to deal with that kind of problem." --- courtesy of the Journal Sentinel

 



WICHITA, KA

Agents ensnare 'slow-headed' man

Tony Bruner was looking for a job when he noticed a new store opening a few blocks from where he lived with his grandmother in a lower-income neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas just east of Interstate 135.

With an IQ in the mid-50s — considered extremely intellectually deficient — Bruner hadn't been able to hold down a job. His 2009 felony burglary conviction didn't help. Still he was under pressure from his probation agent and grandmother to find work.

Bruner hadn't heard of "Bandit Trading", but the thrift shop full of hip-hop clothes and shoes looked like a good prospect when he walked in.

The 20-year-old Bruner was just what undercover agents running the store were looking for.

Agents could see Bruner was intellectually disabled. On a video of one of their first meetings in November 2010, agents referred to him as "slow-headed," according to Jeff Griffith, Bruner's attorney.

"It was essential to have someone like Tony or your low-IQ guy in Milwaukee for this operation," Griffith said. "These 30-something bearded and tattooed white guys aren't going to knock on doors in the hood and say 'Do you have guns?' They had to get someone to do it for them."

Agent/pig Jason Fuller hired Bruner to hand out cards in the neighborhood and do bullshit "gofer" jobs, such as clean up the parking lot... and watch out for police. The agents paid him in cigarettes, cheap clothing from the store, and cash — $20 to $50 in commission to find them electronics and other goods. And they took him to McDonald's when he was hungry.

Eventually they asked him to find guns.

Bruner said he didn't have any but he would try to find some. He ended up brokering dozens of gun sales.

And then, they arrested him on more than 100 counts of being a felon in possession of a weapon.

"I thought I was doing, I was just doing my job. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong," Bruner told the judge. "And they tricked me into believing I was doing a good job. And they'd tell me I was doing a good job, pat me on the back, telling me, 'You're doing a good job.' We'd hug each other and stuff like that, and they treated me like they cared about me. I told 'em I had a felony, I'm trying to stay out of trouble."

While other defendants suspected the store was a front — one was captured on video saying, "You are straight-up police!" — Bruner kept telling the people in the neighborhood that the agents were his guys, "his bosses."

Glenda Thomas, Bruner's grandmother, said the ATF pigs duped him. She warned him to stay away — just like a grandmother in Milwaukee warned her brain-damaged grandson about Fearless Distributing.

"Those guys kept preying on him about everything — giving him a shirt, a pair of pants, shoes, and a pair of shorts —that's how they paid him," Thomas told the Journal Sentinel.

"I told him, I said, 'Tony, those people are not real. Why would they pay you to look out for a police car?' I said, 'Tony, you need to stop messing around with them.' He said, 'Oh, Grandma, those are my friends.'"

The judge found Bruner legally competent to proceed in his case.

Bruner told the judge he worried he would be killed in prison because the government made it look like he was working with the agents, and most of the defendants believed it.

He was sentenced to three years in prison. The judge told him he was getting a big break because he could have gotten 10 to 12 years.

Advocates for the developmentally disabled called the ATF's tactics disturbing.

People with mental disabilities "have a responsibility to be law-abiding citizens like anyone else," said Leigh Ann Davis, a program manager for the Arc, a national advocacy organization for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. "The question that comes into play is 'How much do they know they were committing a crime, and were they used?'"

"People working in the justice system — from street cops to federal judges — need to give additional consideration to circumstances involving people with disabilities." Davis said. "This is a population of people that are easy to get to do things. They are easy prey... They can't make good judgment calls. That's a serious issue if an ATF agent comes up and wants to be your friend." --- Courtesy of the Journal Sentinel.

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/national-disability-group-the-arc-rips-atf-operation-demands-reform-b99163143z1-235763721.html

 
The letter ACR, national advocacy organization for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities wrote to Attorney General Führer Eric "F&F" Holder on December 12th 2013:

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/895414-atf-letter-to-ag-holder-dec-12-2013-signed-1.html





ALBUQUERQUE, NM

Attorney says defendant got 'tutorial' on gun

Guillermo Medel was a heroin addict and drug dealer hoping to make some cash to support his habit when a friend brought him to Jokerz Traderz(sic) pawnshop in a strip mall in a working-class neighborhood on San Mateo Blvd. in Albuquerque, NM.

The 28-year-old Medel, who had been convicted of felony drug possession and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, carried a revolver for protection but had never dealt in guns, according to court records.

When undercover ATF pigs running the store offered him $400 for his gun, he saw an opportunity. He didn't sell it then — he said he needed it — but over time he developed a relationship with the agents, bringing them guns he would get from trading drugs on the street.

When they asked for a machine gun, Medel thought he had one for them.

One problem: he didn't know what a machine gun was.

Medel had brain damage. Hit by a drunken driver when he was 7, Medel had spent months in the hospital and never fully recovered.

Agents took advantage of that and his drug addiction when they offered such high prices for guns, Medel's attorney, Brian Pori, said in court.

Pori told the Journal Sentinel he is "certain that the agents were aware that Guillermo was a drug-addicted, brain-damaged street hustler who never trafficked guns in his life."

"He wouldn't know how to use a machine gun to save his ass," Pori said.

Pori said agents gave Medel a "tutorial" in the back room of the pawnshop to help him distinguish a machine gun from a semiautomatic weapon.

ATF pig/pendejo Brandon Garcia acknowledged in court Medel didn't know how to identify a machine gun. Garcia said he "field tested" the machine gun in front of Medel to determine whether it was a machine gun but wasn't teaching Medel how to use it.

"And even though he saw me do it he still doesn't know how to do it," Garcia said in a March 2, 2011, hearing.

Garcia denied knowing Medel was brain damaged.

Ultimately Medel brought them a fully automatic machine gun, the only one seized in the sting. Medel was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

In another case stemming from the Albuquerque sting, federal charges were dismissed against a defendant with "an extensive psychiatric history."




PHOENIX, AZ

The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating the Milwaukee operation as part of an even larger probe into the corrupt agency following the disastrous "Operation Fast and Furious". In one of the worst scandals in AFT history, agents in Phoenix allowed more than 2,000 guns to walk into the hands of suspected criminals. Basically, the ATF sold thousands of assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels in an effort to "track" them - then they lost track of them. The ATF supervisor who had authority over the failed Milwaukee operation, Bernard "B.J." Zapor, has now been put in charge of the Phoenix office. The same office from which the "F&F" debacle first originated. The sorry son-of-a-bitch should've been forced to resign his post over that utterly clown shoes sting in Milwaukee... instead he gets shifted to another messy, scandal-wrecked office. In a state with NO shortage of police corruption and police terrorism!

 http://www.c-spanvideo.org/bjzapor

*********************************************************

Thanks to the Journal Sentinel for their exhaustive reporting on this. Based out of the city of Milwaukee, the Journal first broke the story of the botched ATF sting "Operation Fearless". Further investigations on their part soon revealed that, far from an "isolated incident", ATF have been running rogue stings all over the country using many of the same tactics as they did in Milwaukee.

Thanks to the Willamette Week, who first picked up on the failed ATF Portland sting "Operation Kraken" and for linking its readers to the Journal Sentinel article series, 'Backfire', which chronicles the rogue methods and out-right crimes of the ATF.

ATF and Their Horrifying Criminal Acts - Pt. 2: Milwaukee

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/188932381.html

A tale of 7 cities - a tragic poetic on how to describe how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) ran rogue sting operations all over the country. An enforcement wing of the [so-called] Department of Justice, the government agency's crimes included:

- Using teenagers and mentally disabled people as stooges, then arresting them on bogus charges.

- Encouraging people to commit crimes and bring them weapons and drugs.

- Allowing KNOWN violent felons to walk away with deadly weapons.

- Allowing govt.-owned assault weapons to be stolen from police vehicles (never recovered).

- False arrests of innocent (or at least the wrong) people.

- Damaging and/or destroying the property they've rented and refusing to reimburse owners/landlords. 

- Creating, encouraging, and facilitating crime (including burglary) in safe zones and near schools, possibly putting children in harms' way.

- Basically, creating crime waves in neighborhoods where none existed prior. Ensnaring otherwise harmless citizens. And letting dangerous criminals get away scot free.




The case of Portland, OR was the focus of the previous post. In that case, in 2010 rogue ATF pigs rented out a storefront within 1000 feet of a middle school, lured in teens, conned them into getting tattoos to "promote" the phony business they set up, arrested said teens months later, and pretty much destroyed the commercial unit they leased under false pretenses, before taking off. 

Now we will take that focus to Milwaukee. As a pivotal and shocking report published in January 2013 by the Journal Sentinel shows, the crooked ATF have been pulling these sorts of dirty tricks in cities all over the country!  

 

MILWAUKEE, WI:
In January 2012 a citizen named David Salkin rented commercial space he owned to individuals looking to sell clothing. They soon opened a store called "Fearless Distributing", selling so-called designer cloths, jewelry, athletic shoes, and drug paraphernalia. The people who ran the business were really ATF thugs - Salkin did not know this. ATF were running a sting called "operation Fearless" [apparently] meant to buy drugs and guns and arrest the "dangerous" criminals who sold them. This did not happen. Instead, the fake clothing store was burglarized in Oct. 2012, forcing the operation to shut down after ten months - with very little to show for it (ATF re-wired the building, disabling the alarm system in the process).

It gets worse... or more hilarious, depending on one's point of view. A military-style assault weapon was stolen from an ATF official vehicle! Actually, three govt.-owned guns had been stolen from an ATF vehicle during the sting. Two of the weapons have yet to be recovered, to date. Also - A ballistic shield (typically used in high-risk situations) was stolen from an ATF vehicle, which has since been turned in to a Milwaukee district police station by an anonymous citizen. This happened on the same day the store burglary was first discovered.

ATF and Milwaukee police who took part in the sting cleared out when the 10-month operation ended after the burglary. However, sloppy as they were in Portland, OR ATF left behind not only property damage, but sensitive documents listing the names, vehicles, and personal phone numbers of undercover agents. DOH! Salkin is currently in litigation with the agency, claiming they owe him $15,000 in utility bills, holes in walls, busted doors, and water damage from an over-flowing toilet (good luck getting his money, but at least this citizen is putting up a fight!). And if this were not fucked up enough, ATF even THREATENED Salkin for daring to contact the agency and asking to be paid for damages!!! This goes to show the sheer criminal thuggery of the ATF!

 

The sting did result in the arrest of 34 people, mostly pissant low/no-level drug and gun possession. Of this, 16 ended up with NO jail time. NO big-time dealers were taken down, no dangerous gang members, not a single mastermind. Only crumbs. And even then, in several of those cases, some of the WRONG people had been charged!

Not only that, but the sting runners were paying such overtly high prices for guns, that people who typically didn't deal in guns at all would buy them LEGALLY from area stores, then turn around and sell them to the ATF front for a profit! You can't make this shit up!

Business owner David Salkin shows off the destroyed door to the commercial space he unwittingly rented to ATF in 2012. The business was broken into, resulting in $35,000 worth of merchandise stolen and putting an end to the ATF sting. Salkin was threatened by ATF when he had the nerve to ask that the agency reimburse him.



ATF agents didn't want to use the building's phone system and internet, for some reason. So they re-wired the building and disabled the alarm system, rendering the building helpless when it was burglarized in Oct. 2012.

 

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!!

 The botched and utterly fucked-up Milwaukee operation ended with the phony storefront being robbed, tens of thousands worth of merchandise stolen, tens of thousands in damage to the building (caused by ATF pigs), govt.-owned weapons stolen, and 34 measly arrests for either drug or weapons possession mostly. 145 guns were recovered, BUT, some of those weapons were bought directly from local stores such as sporting retailer Gander Mountain. This happened because ATF were paying as much as twice the market rate for guns. You might expect such a level of incompetence and sheer buffoonery from local police, not govt. salaried law enforcement [necessarily]. Yet, here you have it. However, as laughable as this all is, there are several very real horror stories involved here.  

 

Several of the people arrested were innocent. One suffers from brain damage.

 

Chauncey Wright was 28 when he was first "marked" by ATF in 2012. Wright suffers from brain damage stemming from an accident where as an infant, he nearly drowned in a bath tub. and has an I.Q. tested to be in the 54 - rendering him mildly retarded for an adult. He was living with his girlfriend, Terri Giles, during this time. Agents had him ride his bike around town handing out flyers for the "Fearless Distribution" store. They also had him doing "odd jobs" within the store. His was paid in cash, cigarettes, and cheap junk from the store. When ATF shut down the sting in Oct. 2012 (following the burglary), they charged Wright with 7 federal counts. The charges carry a maximum of life in prison. However, after a mental health evaluation, fed. prosecutors agreed to terms of probation. Wright was set for sentencing in June 2013. Wright was eventually sentenced to six months house arrest and four years probation.

 

 His grandmother, Willie Campbell, tried to warn her grandson against whom she saw as suspicious characters. She knew that he was "slow" and would not be able to catch on to what they (ATF agents) were up to. Sadly, Wright was convinced that the store workers were his "friends" and that they "looked out" for him.

 

Chauncey Wright, seen here during the time he "worked" for Fearless Distributing.

 

“With him being slow, they knew that and they used him. He was too slow to catch on to what was going on. He was saying, ‘These are my good friends. These are my guys. They are looking out for me.’”- Willie Campbell, Chauncey Wright’s grandmother.


Wright's court-appointed attorney had to read the charges to him in court because Wright reads on a kindergartener level... one of the "masterminds" ATF managed to capture in the wake of their botched scheme. The storefront itself looked like a ruse right away to many people, including Wright's grandmother who drove by the warehouse-like building located on a dead-end street. ATF pigs posing and promoting the store would hand out flyers in a Wal-Mart parting lot, using a logo which was a direct rip-off from a well-known recent action movie. When they "hired" people, no formal application process was ever used. The store had gun catalogs on it's front counter - a bit out of place for a store that sold cheap cloths, shoes, cigarettes, and bongs. They never sold guns, but were eager to buy guns - which was no doubt a dead give-a-way to many people. As one can easily see, this was the reason the sting failed to net any major criminals... all they got were drug addicts, pissant thieves, retarded people, and law-abiding citizens who were simply desperate for money.

It ought to be out-right CRIMINAL to take advantage of and exploit someone who basically has the mental capacity of a child. Yet, this is exactly what agents did to Chauncey Wright. He was simply looking for work, and ended up being federally indicted instead. The ATF pigs who hoodwinked him are no doubt sleeping soundly at night - they continue to be protected by anonymity, and that they ruined the lives of innocent people and netted virtually ZERO gain from a phenomenally fucked clown-shoes operation certainly doesn't bother any of these pigs one bit!

The building ATF agents in Milwaukee used for their cluster-fuck of a sting from Jan. to Oct. 2012. Burglars easily broke through a single door, making off with $35K in merch. Agents disabled the alarm system when they re-wired the building for personal use.



Known criminals ADMIT to burglarizing ATF storefront, as well as selling guns to agents. Charged with possession of stolen property, but never burglary.



ATF pigs who ran the Milwaukee operation were soo thoughtlessly lazy and sorry-ass, that the 'logo' they used for their fake storefront, "Fearless Distro", was a direct rip-off from the "Expendables" film!





 Courvoisie Bryant, 33, was an unemployed barber with no criminal record when he first walked into Fearless Distributing. It was the worse mistake he had even made. 


Courvoisie Bryant, seen here.


Word had gotten out that the [clothing] store was not only offering to buy guns, but were offering to pay far above market prices for them. Bryant did not question this, he needed the money. So he bought several guns from Gander Mountain, a local sporting goods store. he then turned around and sold the guns at the ATF store, which paid him far more than what the weapons cost at the legitimate store. In one case, Bryant bought a $700 rifle from the Gander store, and hours later took it to Fearless Distro. where undercover agents paid him $2,000 for it! To be perfectly clear, NONE of what Bryant did was illegal itself. However, his cousin, a felon, was along with him during these trips. THIS is what put Bryant in the crosshairs of the ATF.

Facing many years in prison initially, Bryant was eventually sentenced to probation in a Milwaukee courtroom on Tuesday Dec. 10th 2013. He was the last of the defendants sentenced who were ensnared in the horribly botched sting. Even the fed. prosecutor agreed with Bryant's lawyer that he should not go to prison simply for buying guns LEGALLY, then taking them to the phony ATF store for a quick profit.

"What they did was manufacture a crime and created a criminal," Joshua Uller, Bryant's attorney, said after Tuesday's sentencing. "The government provided a significant financial incentive to commit this crime."


    
GUNS STOLEN... DOH!

 

In September 2012 three guns, including a fully automatic M-4 .223 Caliber machine rifle, were stolen from an official ATF SUV. The Ford Explorer was parked outside a coffee and doughnut shop, about half a block from the Fearless Distro. set-up. Four men were soon taken into custody, one of whom admitted to holding one of the guns. Another witness claimed to have seen one of the guns stashed under a bed at a residence. Shortly afterwards, that residence was raided and stolen ammunition was recovered... but no guns. As of the last days of December 2013, two of the weapons - including the M-4 machine gun - have NOT been recovered. Not only that, but none of the four men initially arrested for the theft have been charged.

 

M-4 .223 fully automatic assault rifle

 

  

 http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/leads-on-gun-stolen-from-atf-fizzled-out-ih9b3i8-201363991.html

 

 

 

 

 

ATF LET'S KNOWN FELON WALK AWAY WITH GUN... DOH!

 

Bobby Ball, 32, is one of the very few people arrested that might actually qualify as a dangerous criminal. On July 11th 2012, Ball walked into the Fearless Distro. storefront and sold five grams of heroin to undercover agents for $1,000. Two days later, he went back and sold them marijuana. He also showed agents the gun he had - a Taurus .38 Caliber revolver. Ball threatened to "shoot someone" who was apparently involved in an alleged shooting of his cousin. Agents offered to buy the gun, but Ball refused. He said he would return later to sell it, but never did. After the drug sell Ball walked out of the store, yet agents failed to arrest him, nor did they take the gun. Ball was arrested four months later in Minnesota on a DUI charge. Apparently Ball never did carry out that plan to avenge his cousin, though it remains unclear whether the gun he possessed was ever recovered.  

 

Bobby Ball

 

Having a criminal history significantly worse than any of the other 30+ people arrested, including aggravated assault, multiple counts of armed robbery, and firing a gun at someone (sounds like an ex-cop),  Ball was sentenced in August 2013 to 12 years in prison after having plead guilty to selling drugs to undercover agents. This was the largest sentence of anyone arrested due to the sting.

 

 

*****************************************************

 

 

Here is the final tally from "Operation Fearless":

 

34 people were arrested.

6 of those arrests resulted in cased dropped.

4 of the wrong people were charged.

1 person charged was already in prison at the time.

2 people had charges against them dropped the same day they were filed.

17 of the 34 initially arrested resulted in convictions.

Only some of those 17 convictions resulted in any jail time at all.

The average median amount of time received was little more than one year per conviction.

Many convicted got probation.

Most cases involved minor drug and gun possession.

Most of the 34 arrested have either a non-violent history or no criminal record.

145 guns were seized. Many of those guns were bought directly from local stores and were never used - much less used in any crimes.

 

The ATF created and facilitated an illegal market for guns were none had existed before.

 

The ATF set-up, entrapped, and exploited a mentally disabled man only to arrest him on federal charges.

 

The ATF allowed a known violent felon to walk right out of their store knowing he had a weapon, even after he threatened to shoot someone in revenge.

 

The ATF allowed 3 govt.-owned weapons and a ballistic shield to be stolen. Two weapons, including a fully auto assault rifle, have yet to be recovered.

 

The ATF allowed the building they rented to be burglarized, losing nearly $40K in merchandise.

 

The ATF pretty much destroyed the building they rented, then threatened the owner when he asked to be reimbursed for damages.

 

The ATF ruined the lives of several innocent people.

 

The ATF buffoons who conducted "Operation Fearless Clown shoes" remain protected by anonymity to this day, despite having left behind several sensitive documents when they aborted their sting in Oct. 2012. Despite their numerous criminal acts, no ATF agent has lost his job, much less been indicted to date. Most of the real "bad guys" were careful enough to have stayed far away from the storefront, which was rife with red flags from the start. People who were either completely innocent or otherwise, no one to worry about, were ground up in the matrix.