ATF Manufacturing Crimes Using Mentally Disabled Teens

[ravdin]

From the folks who brought you Fast And Furious, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Aaron Key wasn't sure he wanted a tattoo on his neck. Especially one of a giant squid smoking a joint.

But the guys running Squid's Smoke Shop in Portland, Ore., convinced him: It would be a perfect way to promote their store.

They would even pay him and a friend $150 apiece if they agreed to turn their bodies into walking billboards.

Key, who is mentally disabled, was swayed.

It would be months before the young men learned the whole thing was a setup. The guys running Squid's were actually undercover ATF agents conducting a sting to get guns away from criminals and drugs off the street.

The tattoos had been sponsored by the U.S. government; advertisements for a fake storefront.

The teens found out as they were arrested and booked into jail.

So the ATF is in the business of luring low IQ teenagers into getting neck tattoos, manufacturing manufacturing crimes, then charging them after they've been used. The article goes into great depth about how it is a widespread practice for the ATF to use disabled people to do their dirty work only to charge them later.

I have to ask, just how bad can this agency have to get before it is disbanded?

 

[DragonLady]

<skims most of article, as she is too tired to read a lot of it>
<reads a few sections; decides that's enough>
<shakes head with sadness and profound disappointment>
<backs slowly away>

 

[GodMark2]

So, the ATF agents go to high-crime neighborhoods with a known trade in stolen guns, set up a shop, let people sell them stolen guns, and arrest them.

What was the 'manufactured crime' again? Paying someone to get a tattoo?

 

[quixotecoyote]

So, the ATF agents go to high-crime neighborhoods with a known trade in stolen guns, set up a shop, let people sell them stolen guns, and arrest them.

What was the 'manufactured crime' again? Paying someone to get a tattoo?

Did you even read the article?

Some highlights:

1. Making friends with borderline/actually mentally disabled people, convincing them to buy guns, then arresting them.

2. Doing the same thing to easily influenced high school kids.

3. Encouraging criminals to go out and rob/burglarize multiple actual victims before making an arrest.

 

[KatieG]

Yet another reason I'm glad I don't live in Portland.

 

[ravdin]

3. Encouraging criminals to go out and rob/burglarize multiple actual victims before making an arrest.

That part made me think of Whitey Bulger, the Boston mob boss who was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's role in The Departed. Like the movie, Bulger was a paid FBI informant. Outraged families of Bulger's victims wanted answers at his trial about how a known serial killer could be on the FBI's payroll and under their protection, and naturally no explanations have been forthcoming.

 

[pantsorama]

So, the ATF agents go to high-crime neighborhoods with a known trade in stolen guns, set up a shop, let people sell them stolen guns, and arrest them.

What was the 'manufactured crime' again? Paying someone to get a tattoo?

He's just mad because now he has this terrible neck tattoo.

 

[GodMark2]

Did you even read the article?

Some highlights:

1. Making friends with borderline/actually mentally disabled people, convincing them to buy guns, then arresting them.

2. Doing the same thing to easily influenced high school kids.

3. Encouraging criminals to go out and rob/burglarize multiple actual victims before making an arrest.

I did read the article. They make all those claims loudly and repeatedly. The few facts they present support none of those claims.

The arrests of the 'mentally disabled' people were for selling drugs within 1000 feet of a school. The AFT agents did not ask even for the drugs, they were offered as payment for clothing the kids wanted.

The entirety of their evidence for 'Encouraging criminals to go out and rob/burglarize' is the simple existence of the shop. No evidence was presented showing (or even hinting) that the AFT agents ever asked people to 'to go out and rob' anyone.

Why do these people always like to wait three to four years after the incidents in question before trying to make them 'front page outrage'? Do they really thing the internet can't be searched for the actual record of events? Do they think the locals won't remember how unsafe that neighborhood was back then?

He's just mad because now he has this terrible neck tattoo.

That's my take, too.

 

[Puppycow]

Providing alcohol to minors is a crime.

 

[Puppycow]

That part made me think of Whitey Bulger, the Boston mob boss who was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's role in The Departed. Like the movie, Bulger was a paid FBI informant. Outraged families of Bulger's victims wanted answers at his trial about how a known serial killer could be on the FBI's payroll and under their protection, and naturally no explanations have been forthcoming.

The FBI knew he was a serial killer? At the time he was on their payroll that is?

 

[quixotecoyote]

The entirety of their evidence for 'Encouraging criminals to go out and rob/burglarize' is the simple existence of the shop. No evidence was presented showing (or even hinting) that the AFT agents ever asked people to 'to go out and rob' anyone..

So the fact that it's a shop set up specificly for the purpose of providing an easy fence for stolen goods, that they pay well above average for them, and they allow the criminals to go out and burglarize multiple times before arresting them means nothing because they didn't say, "hey, go rob a house."?

No.

 

[Puppycow]

I noticed while looking up something for another thread that sting operations of this type are illegal in some other countries. Maybe we should consider that? Do the social benefits justify the cost to taxpayers?

 

[angrysoba]

I noticed while looking up something for another thread that sting operations of this type are illegal in some other countries. Maybe we should consider that? Do the social benefits justify the cost to taxpayers?

Do you know if there are any incentives for number of arrests that would lead law enforcement agencies to drum up business?

 

[Puppycow]

Do you know if there are any incentives for number of arrests that would lead law enforcement agencies to drum up business?

I don't think it's an "official" policy but I have heard of "arrest quotas":

http://nypost.com/2013/10/14/cops-lied-to-reach-arrest-quotas/

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/07/24/how-quotas-pervert-police-priorities-fir

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/second_cop_confirms_nypd_arrest_quotas/

 

[squealpiggy]

That part made me think of Whitey Bulger, the Boston mob boss who was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's role in The Departed.

Considering that The Departed was a virtual shot-for-shot remake of Korean movie Internal Affairs I'm not sure how true this is.

 

[Carnivore]

Considering that The Departed was a virtual shot-for-shot remake of Korean movie Internal Affairs I'm not sure how true this is.

The Departed is based on Infernal Affairs, and has a very similar story but is not exactly a shot for shot remake. Life was imitating art when the movie was being made and was incorporated into the story. Whitey Bulger's childhood friend and FBI handler John Connolly had been indicted in 2005 for a 1982 murder committed at Bulger's behest. Jack Nicholson's characterisation of the villain, translated in The Departed into a Boston Irish mobster, was very different from the HK film and explicitly based on Bulger.

 

[GodMark2]

So the fact that it's a shop set up specificly for the purpose of providing an easy fence for stolen goods, that they pay well above average for them, and they allow the criminals to go out and burglarize multiple times before arresting them means nothing because they didn't say, "hey, go rob a house."?

These 'innocent teens' were already selling stolen goods to other pawn shops in the area, so adding one more doesn't 'create' a demand. According to the actual evidence in the case (rather than the three-year later pontificating) they didn't pay higher than average for the goods. Allowing people to sell multiple times before arrest provides multiple offenses for charging, leading to higher conviction rate and lower rate of 'not-guilty by technicality', and creates a sense of security in the community of people looking for a place to sell their illegally gotten goods, pulling more ill-doers to their high-surveillance store instead of an untrackable one.

So... yep.