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By Jerry Seper
Friday, December 14, 2012
The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry have filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), claiming the failure of officials within the agency to properly oversee the "Fast and Furious" gunrunning operation led to the agent's death. The lawsuit seeks $25 million in compensation.
Terry
was fatally wounded on the night of Dec. 14, 2010, during a firefight
with Mexican bandits in an isolated canyon just north of the U.S.-Mexico
border, about 60 miles south of Tucson. He was shot in the back by one
of five men who had sneaked across the border with the intent to rob
marijuana smugglers.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday and made publicly available on Friday, also
accused a federal prosecutor who previously handled the case and the
owner of a Phoenix-area gun store where the weapons were purchased by
"straw buyers" with the knowledge of the ATF. Two AK-47 semi-automatic
assault rifle variants were found at the scene of the Terry killing.
According to the lawsuit, ATF officials and the federal prosecutor
oversaw an operation that put law enforcement personnel at risk. It said
they should have known their actions and lack of oversight would prove
dangerous to law enforcement officers and could have resulted in the
injury and death of police officials as well as civilians.
The lawsuit also alleges that when the Fast and Furious operation became
publicly known because of the investigations in Congress, efforts were
made to cover up the ties between the Terry killing and the
operation.
"ATF's failures were not only negligent but in violation of
ATF's own policies and procedures," the lawsuit says.
The man who bought the semi-automatic assault rifles found at the site
of the Terry killing was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Phoenix
to 57 months in prison. Jaime Avila Jr., who was among 20 people
targeted as "straw buyers" in the ATF investigation, pleaded guilty in
April to two felony charges of purchasing hundreds of weapons at
Phoenix-area gun shops that then were smuggled, or "walked," to drug
cartels in Mexico.
He pleaded guilty to dealing guns without a federal license, conspiracy
to deal guns without a license, making false statements in a gun
purchase and smuggling goods out of the U.S.
Prosecutors have said Avila spent nearly $60,000 in buying 52 weapons as a straw buyer.
"I´m sorry about the Terry family — what happened — and that if I had
the power to change everything, I would," Avila told U.S. District Judge
James Teilborg during his sentencing hearing. "I am just trying to
change my life — just trying — to be a good father to my son, that
that´s it, your honor."
Terry's cousin, Robert Heyer, who runs the Brian Terry Foundation, had asked the judge to impose the maximum 10-year sentence.
By the time of the Terry shooting, Avila had been under surveillance for
more than two months. It took ATF less than 24 hours to confirm that he
had purchased the weapons found at the site of the Terry killing. The
operation was then shut down, and Avila was arrested along with the 19
others named in a federal grand-jury indictment.
Straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation purchased hundreds of
high-powered weapons and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to government records, they spent an average of $648 for each
AK-47-type assault rifle they bought. Some Barrett sniper rifles went
for more than $6,000 each, and FN 5.7mm pistols cost an average of
$1,130 each.
Uriel Patino, a food-stamps recipient, proved to be the most prolific
straw buyer, an indictment in the case said, buying 316 weapons,
although congressional investigators said the number might be twice as
high. Included were 246 AK-47 assault rifles purchased during 24 visits
to two Phoenix-area gun shops over nine months. He and Avila, the
indictment said, shopped together at the Lone Wolf Trading Co.
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