by The border town of Columbus, New Mexico just seems to attract raiders.
First it was Pancho Villa in 1916. That raid became the stuff of legend. It led to the Punitive Expedition commanded by General John J. Pershing which chased around Mexico after Villa for a couple of years without catching him.
Now it is the ATF (assisted by DEA) that has raided Columbus, New Mexico. Unlike the Pancho Villa raid, no one was killed. However, the mayor, police chief, one council member, and eight others were all arrested on drug and weapons charges. Firearms reportedly were crossing the border in an unmarked Columbus Police Department truck.
A copy of the 26-page indictment can be found here.
Breaking news… they were all CIs for ATF. /eyeroll
I guess the BATFE (&RBF) didn't like the competition from a local law enforcement agency….
From the Indictment:
“Overt Acts” beginning Page 3 of the Indictment
“In furtherance of the conspiracy, and to accomplish the objectives of the conspiracy, the following overt acts, among others, were committed between January, 2010 and March, 2011in the District of New Mexico and elsewhere.”
This appears to be another chapter in the Gunwalker saga. ATF and DOJ are in this indictment confessing to allowing guns to be walked from the state of New Mexico into Mexico for what looks to be a time period of a little over 13 months.
The best I can tell from the indictment, ATF appears to have allowed purchases of 355 firearms destined to be walked to Mexico during a 13(+) month period and acknowledges that series of actions as fact.
It could be alleged that not only was ATF attempting to pad their trace statistics, but the DoJ lawyers may have also “padded” the indictment as I note page 23 of the indictment duplicates counts, firearms, defendants, and dates that for the most part are also listed on page 22.
[W3]
I think that this is simply an action by the ATF to try and negate the seriousness of THEIR gunrunning.
Now they can say "see? what we did led to catching someone!"..which is crap.
The time to catch someone gunrunning is BEFORE they get the guns to whomever they're selling them to.
that way folks don't get killed. but what do I know, I don't work for the government and I actually believe in the 2nd amendment.