10/23/13
Posted By Douglas V. Gibbs
In a case that is prompting comparisons to the botched Operation Fast and Furious, police believe explosives found at a murder scene in Mexico may have come from an American bomb-maker whom the U.S. attorney in Arizona refused to prosecute.
According to an internal U.S. Department of Justice memo, a "Kingery grenade" was among the 10 explosives found at the scene of a shootout between police and drug cartels in Guadalajara on Oct. 10 in which three officers were killed.
The "Kingery grenade" refers to those manufactured by Jean Baptiste Kingery, a California resident who made grenades in Mexico from parts sourced in the U.S. He also converted AK-47s from semi- to fully-automatic weapons.
ATF agents arrested Kingery in 2010, but the assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona at the time, Emory Hurley, referred to the grenades as harmless toys and told the ATF the case "lacked jury appeal," according to the ATF supervisor in charge, Pete Forcelli. Forcelli had handled the case until the U.S. attorney declined to prosecute.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., compared the situation to Fast and Furious, in which U.S. officials let weapons "walk" across the U.S.-Mexico border; weapons from the program were later found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
"These aren't the only deaths that undoubtedly will come from weapons being allowed to walk and an individual allowed to escape justice for more than 18 months after he was in our hands and released," Issa said.
Read More
Posted By Douglas V. Gibbs
In a case that is prompting comparisons to the botched Operation Fast and Furious, police believe explosives found at a murder scene in Mexico may have come from an American bomb-maker whom the U.S. attorney in Arizona refused to prosecute.
According to an internal U.S. Department of Justice memo, a "Kingery grenade" was among the 10 explosives found at the scene of a shootout between police and drug cartels in Guadalajara on Oct. 10 in which three officers were killed.
The "Kingery grenade" refers to those manufactured by Jean Baptiste Kingery, a California resident who made grenades in Mexico from parts sourced in the U.S. He also converted AK-47s from semi- to fully-automatic weapons.
ATF agents arrested Kingery in 2010, but the assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona at the time, Emory Hurley, referred to the grenades as harmless toys and told the ATF the case "lacked jury appeal," according to the ATF supervisor in charge, Pete Forcelli. Forcelli had handled the case until the U.S. attorney declined to prosecute.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., compared the situation to Fast and Furious, in which U.S. officials let weapons "walk" across the U.S.-Mexico border; weapons from the program were later found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
"These aren't the only deaths that undoubtedly will come from weapons being allowed to walk and an individual allowed to escape justice for more than 18 months after he was in our hands and released," Issa said.
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment