No Longer Untouchable
Pate, James L.
In April, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents in charge come to Washington for an annual meeting, the nearby Baltimore field office organizes the Idiot Ness birthday party, honoring...
...The Waco gunfight comes as no surprise...
...Nothing illegal was found and ATE refused to pay damages...
...But as the FBI was created, the agency was sent back to Treasury as a division of the Internal Revenue Service...
...in 1972 ATE was re-moved from the IRS and elevated to bureau SUM] s— hut oversight reJames 1, Pate is a jeec-Itineel.Vriter who covered 14.1/co/or Soldier of Fortune...
...The unanswered question here is whether there is legitimate justification for the creation of such exotic units, especially when they become a tactic of choice...
...After Prohibition repeal...
...No wonder...
...ATF's claims, both of focus upon gun-using criminals and of recent reforms, are empty words," the report said...
...If one spoils for a fight, it will soon find him...
...The agency's primary focus switched back to law enforcement, and its jurisdiction grew exponentially...
...Like the old philosopher said, if the only tool you keep in your box is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails...
...Not since Ness had ATF been so much in the spotlight...
...who photographed them and forced them to sign a "warning...
...February 1982: A Senate subcommittee published a report documenting ATE abuses, chiding the agency for violating federal law against "secret lawmaking" by repeatedly not publishing new regulatory interpretations in the Federal register...
...A few examples: • June 1971: Plainclothes ATF agents in ski masks burst into the home of Ken Ballew, an Air Force vet and newspaper pressman living in a high-crime neighborhood in Silver Spring, Maryland...
...Its leadership—mainly tax regulators with little or no law enforcement experience, returned to the swashbuckling, door-smashing days of the 1930s...
...The ATE refuses to pay damages...
...No charges were filed...
...Bureaucratic regulators have no ability to exercise any control over even routine tactical operations," the former ATE official said...
...Once an agency has such components as ECTs and sniper teams, it will look for opportunities to use them...
...dumped out drawers and closets, broke into locked filing cabinets and left guns and ammunition strewn about the unsecured house...
...unaware of what was happening, grabbed an antique pistol to defend himself...
...Unfortunately, while ATF's law enforcement duties had changed, its practices had not...
...The tragedy of the initial raid was multiplied by the final inferno of April 19...
...starring Robert Stack as Ness...
...He was shot in the head and paralyzed...
...This is a situation inviting trouble...
...broke furniture, pulled down a ceiling...
...Ballew...
...That was the day that Eliot Ness the "Untouchable" who resisted temptation only to die an impoverished alcoholic—would have had his 90th birthday...
...Ninth-grade dropout David Koresh and his well-armed followers reached out and irrevocably touched "The Untouchables...
...IRS gave it the statutory leftovers of tax collection: obscure excise taxes, forfeitures, and protection of its old nemesis, the now-legal alcohol industry, including suppression of unlicensed competition...
...The only surprise is that it took so long...
...December 1991: Agents raided John Lawmaster's home in Tulsa, with two television crews in tow...
...Department of Treasury to the Department of Justice...
...Indeed...
...Now the ATF is at an unprecedented low point...
...During Prohibition, Ness and his T-Men were transferred from the...
...Agents knocked down the front and back doors...
...As a result, ATF agents were forbidden for years from attending such shows...
...His wife was held in a room while her frantic 6year-old daughter cried for her mother in another room and a 1 -year-old daughter was left in a bathtub, An elderly neighbor who offered to watch the children was handcuffed...
...Vintage 1920s and 1930s automobiles are featured, and closed-circuit TVs play reruns of the 1950s series, "The Untouchables...
...The host agents dress as gangsters, donning double-breasted pinstripe suits and white fedoras...
...This bullying has created a dangerous mindset—that the subject will always he intimidated by the sight of a federal badge," the former ATE official said...
...Given the choice of a peaceable interview and kicking in a door just for the pure entertainment, ATE special agents instinctively reach for the battering rain...
...Crime and gun control became hot political issues and ATE's enforcement responsibilities became high-profile...
...In April, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents in charge come to Washington for an annual meeting, the nearby Baltimore field office organizes the Idiot Ness birthday party, honoring the ATF's most revered agent...
...Nothing illegal was found...
...Some misidentified gun parts were confiscated--all legal...
...Drastic changes came with passage of the Gun Control Act in 1965, and the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970...
...The "dangerous mindset" proved fatal in Waco...
...Six weeks before, ATF suffered its bloodiest day ever, and arguably the worst disaster in federal law enforcement history...
...This year's event, which drew more than 1,500 agents and guests to Baltimore's Timonium Fair Grounds, was "sort of quiet," said Joan Neels of Thnonium's front office...
...June 1978: Hundreds of lawful gun owners and dealers -at a gun show in San Jose were detained for two hours by twenty ATF agents...
...Instead of the more sophisticated, low-key approach to criminals adopted by the modem FBI, ATE policy-makers saw SWAT teams--and the newer Entry Control Teams used in Waco—as tactics of first resort...
...April /991: The home of Del Knudson was raided by a 23-man team outside Colville, Washington...
...and troubles began to appear...
...spousibllitieS remain with congressional tax and regulatory committees, not those with law enforcement jurisdiction...
...whether needed or not, to justify the budget increases these teams require," said a former senior ATF official who asked not to he named because he is frequently involved with litigation against ATE...
Vol. 26 • August 1993 • No. 8
