Brought to you by the FBI
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33384
Barbara Hartwell
From the FBI web site at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
FOREWORD
At this year's Criminal Justice Information Services Division's memorial ceremony to honor the fallen West Virginia Law Enforcement Officers, keynote speaker Colonel Gary L. Edgelt, Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police, remarked that people not closely associated with law enforcement often wonder why a man or woman would choose a career as a police officer. He stated that the pay is not the best, and the job can be very dangerous and thankless. He further observed that most of the men and women who choose to work behind the police officer's badge will confess, "I am proud of my profession and I have no regrets." However, Colonel Edgell said,"... police officers do not choose law enforcement as much as law enforcement chooses them" and there is "the expectation that the police officer will stand on the right side of humanity, no matter the cost."
The cost to pursue this choice can be a dear one. National data collected by the Uniform Crime Reporting Program show that 658 officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty between 1990 and 1999. Thankfully, these numbers are gradually decreasing, due in part to the concerted training efforts of law enforcement. The cumulative experiences of fellow officers—the bedrock of law enforcement discipline and instruction—help to equip officers to face the increasingly dangerous duties of their profession. Improved training built on the lessons learned over the years, along with advanced technological support and other factors, have garnered obvious results: this publication shows that the number of officers feloniously killed is at its lowest point in more than 35 years.
Even so, the 42 officers murdered in 1999 and the additional 65 who were killed accidentally in the performance of their duties are far too many. Far too many as well are the 55,026 line-of-duty assaults reported by 8,174 law enforcement agencies for 1999. Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted is a compilation of data surrounding each tragic incident involving our Nation's officers and a reflection of the dangers they face. It offers information used by many law enforcement training personnel who strive to build effective strategies that shield law enforcement professionals and the citizens they protect.
CITIZENS' RESPONSE
You don't have to be an anti-government bigot to admit that, as an American citizen, you are insulted by such self-serving platitudes from any federal organization which brought you Waco, Ruby Ridge, and probably the Oklahoma City Bombing. But you do need to do a bit of research to realize that this organization wouldn't even exist if it had to meet the standards set forth by the federal courts, the free enterprise system, or simple cost/benefit analyses. The first thing this self-serving platitude omits is the fact that law enforcement officers themselves killed at least 7 times as many citizens "in the line of duty" than citizens killed officers (294 versus 42). And thanks to corruption within the FBI, we don't even know how many of those citizens killed federal agents in self-defense. If you ignore the highly publicized cases like the ones above where law enforcement officers were clearly in the wrong, and the siege mentality it represents, you might view this as a necessary component of their jobs.
But then you must consider what their job is, and how well they performed that job. Let's assume, in spite of these revealing self-serving platitudes, that the FBI truly has the interests of society in mind and that our tax dollars are achieving the maximum result:
We the taxpayer still need a cost/benefit analysis to be performed by a neutral third party of taxpayers to analyze the total cost of having a national police force, including the loss of Constitutional rights, so it can be compared against the perceived benefits. And we need to understand how much those benefits would be reduced if the FBI were to be disbanded and its headquarters turned into a shrine to Vicki Weaver.
FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 13, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
From killings to cover-ups, rogue agency has no place in free nation
The FBI has been much in the news, of late. Federal agents don't
hesitate to arrest and imprison licensed gun-shop owners if they're
careless enough to "lose" firearms recorded on their books -- especially if
one or more turn out to have been used in a crime. But on the eve of
congressional oversight hearings, officials revealed last month that the
Federal Bureau of Investigation is in precisely that posture: 184 of their
weapons have been stolen and 265 "lost," one of those illegally transferred
weapons having been used in a homicide and many being fully automatic
submachine guns.
(One hundred eighty-four laptop computers are also missing, at least one
containing classified material.)
FBI agents led away in chains? Dream on.
A one-time misstep?
John E. Roberts, himself an agent with the FBI's internal watchdog, the
Office of Professional Responsibility, told the Senate Judiciary Committee
last month that approximately 140 high-ranking FBI agents from around the
country attended the retirement bash of disgraced former Deputy Director
Larry Potts back in 1997. To get the federal government to pay for their
travel, many of those FBI big-wigs signed up for (ironically enough) an
"ethics conference" scheduled for the next day in Quantico, Va. -- though
only five of the party-going federal police actually showed up for the
seminar.
Mind you, this is the supposedly elite agency designated to enforce our
nation's highest laws -- supposed paragons of civic virtue and examples of
selfless service to little children everywhere.
If Potts' name is familiar it's because it was he who approved the
outrageous "shoot-any-adult-who-moves" rules of engagement which led FBI
sniper Lon Horiuchi to assassinate the unarmed Vicki Weaver as she stood in
her kitchen holding her baby at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, nine years ago.
(Undercover federal ATF agents had entrapped her husband, Randy Weaver,
into a minor firearms violation concerning the length of a wooden shotgun
stock -- then offered to go easy on him if he agreed to infiltrate and
snitch on the members of a neighboring church -- their goal from the start.
After Weaver refused, U.S. marshals with fully automatic military rifles
but carrying no warrant entered the family's property, shooting and killing
both Weaver's 12-year-old son Samuel and the family dog. One marshal was
shot in self-defense -- an Idaho jury ruled that killing justified.)
If Agent Roberts' name is familiar it's because it was he who was
subjected to threats and retaliation by FBI higher-ups for conducting a
thorough investigation of those Ruby Ridge killings.
The government was later held by a civil jury to have wrongfully caused
the deaths of Vicki Weaver and her teen-age son, and was required to pay
the family more than $1 million in damages. Justice Department officials
last year called for the disciplining of FBI Director Louis Freeh and three
other FBI honchos after they learned of the attempts to block Agent
Roberts' inquiry into the agency's homicidal misconduct at Ruby Ridge, but
that recommendation was overruled in the waning days of the corrupt and
bribe-riddled Clinton administration.
FBI agents who spent years exposing the agency's misconduct at Ruby Ridge
told the Washington Post that Clinton Assistant Attorney General Stephen
Colgate's refusal to discipline Freeh and others was "outrageous" and "a
whitewash."
Ruby Ridge was "a textbook example of (FBI) abuses," Judiciary Committee
Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a recent statement. (The
committee learned of Colgate's decision only last month.)
These problems, of course, come hot on the heels of the Bureau's still
inexplicable failure to provide thousands of "discovery" documents to
Timothy McVeigh's lawyers (McVeigh was unpopular enough that the government
decided it was politically safe to execute him, anyway); the bizarre Robert
Hanssen spy case; the Branch Davidian massacre by fire at Waco, Texas; and
the botched investigation of former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee -- in the
end never even charged with espionage but meantime buffaloed into signing
English-language statements which he probably did not understand and which
the Bureau then incorrectly represented as "confessions."
(There's little doubt the Red Chinese received much classified American
technology during the time in question. There's also little doubt who gave
it to them -- President Bill Clinton, overruling the advice of his own
departments of State and Defense after receiving million in "laundered" Red
Chinese campaign contributions.)
The Founding Fathers never intended for our central government to have
its own federal police force, and thus created none. Though it dates from
the days of Teddy Roosevelt, the FBI was a small agency of extremely
limited function until J. Edgar Hoover led it to prominence fighting the
bootleggers of the 1920s.
The Bureau might have dwindled away again after alcohol was re-legalized,
but the cross-dressing Hoover and his boyfriend and assistant chief, Clyde
Tolson, developed a legendary expertise at assembling classified dossiers
on congressional leaders, the better to blackmail them into assuring the
agency's continued (and ever-expanding) funding.
Hoover -- who denied the existence of the Mafia and was extremely
reluctant to aid the fight for Civil Rights in the South in the 1960s, who
knew or should have known of the plans of New Orleans mobsters to
assassinate President Kennedy but did nothing to inform either the
president or Attorney General Robert Kennedy (whom Hoover despised) -- is
still honored with his name on the Bureau's Washington headquarters.
What are the FBI's legitimate functions? Maintaining a central index of
the fingerprints of known felons (though I suspect the number of suspects
thus apprehended is grossly exaggerated), chasing foreign spies, and doing
background checks on prospective employees of secure federal facilities
(though "We do FBI background checks on far too many people ... jobs that
aren't really security-related" U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., told me last
week.)
Which of these legitimate functions could possibly lead a federal bureau
to dispatch a military sniper to shoot an Idaho housewife through the
throat as she stood holding her baby in her own kitchen? Which could lead
it to dispatch agents to inject toxic gases in flammable suspension from
armored vehicles into a Texas church full of women and children, leading to
a fire which killed dozens of innocent citizens ... all over the invented
suspicion that the church's leader might have failed to pay a $200 tax?
A free nation has no need of an agency which undertakes such pursuits.
"Reforming" the FBI is unlikely to change the agency's nature, or
increasingly misguided mission. Its few legitimate functions should be
divested to other agencies, and the FBI should be closed -- its
headquarters razed and converted into a park.
With a statue of Vicki Weaver.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to
Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing
775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom
Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site
www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
McVeigh fallout: Powerful pol demanding `sweeping changes' at FBI
by Jules Crittenden
Sunday, May 13, 2001
http://wwww.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/mcve05132001.htm
Congressional calls for FBI reform have begun in the wake of the shocking news that the agency failed to hand over 3,135 documents to Timothy McVeigh's defense team.
Meanwhile, President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft were expected to discuss the FBI's bungling of Oklahoma City bombing records in a meeting yesterday, while McVeigh and his lawyers consider whether to appeal his conviction.
McVeigh, who was convicted of the 1995 bombing that killed 168, was scheduled to die Wednesday, but his execution has been delayed until June 11 while lawyers sort out the issues raised by the newly revealed documents.
``We must change the FBI culture that has caused these colossal mistakes,'' said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.
The committee will review nominees to replace FBI Director Louis Freeh, who is retiring in June.
``I want to know that the next FBI director is committed to sweeping changes,'' Grassley said.
The new misstep follows a decade of bad news for the FBI, including revelations that allegedly corrupt agents got cozy with murderous mobsters in Boston; allegations of shoddy work by the FBI crime lab; the treatment of Richard Jewell in the Atlanta bombing case; the overcharged treason case against nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee; the unmasking of accused turncoat FBI counter-intelligence agent Robert Hanssen; and misdeeds related to the sieges at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
Bush and Ashcroft have been cautious when questioned about the FBI's fumbling.
``I'm obviously concerned about an incident where documents have been misplaced. But I withhold judgment until I find out the full facts,'' Bush said Friday.
The FBI blames the problem on a computer glitch. Grassley questioned that.
``We saw documents suddenly disappear in the Waco, TWA Flight 800 and Wen Ho Lee cases,'' Grassley said. ``FBI careers are made in high-profile cases, and this is the fourth time in recent years where evidence has belatedly appeared. We have to be careful that withholding evidence is not done simply to win a case.''
Kris Kolesnik, director of the National Whistleblower Center, a Washington-based nonprofit public interest organization, said the recent blunders reflect what he contended was the FBI's tendency to emphasize public relations over pure science or good investigative technique.
``The culture is driven by image - don't embarrass the bureau, make the bureau look good,'' he said.
Ashcroft was expected to join Bush at Camp David yesterday. He had been invited to the presidential retreat in rural Maryland earlier this week, aides said.
Attorney Rob Nigh described his client as frustrated and possibly reconsidering his earlier decision against challenging the execution order.
Nigh said yesterday that he has just started going through the documents. ``It's a slow process. I'm at the very beginning of it.''
Last week, McVeigh's defense team was handed 3,135 pages that the FBI should have provided more than three years ago during trial.
Since the 1995 bombing, the FBI had asked field offices five times to forward all materials to the Oklahoma City bureau, where they were being archived. The latest request was made last December.
As materials filtered in earlier this year and were checked against 26 databases of investigative files, officials made a startling discovery - some of the papers appeared to be new. These materials consisted of interview notes and physical evidence such as photographs, letters and tapes.
FBI senior managers were not informed until Tuesday, and the papers were turned over to McVeigh's lawyers on Wednesday, a week before McVeigh's original execution date.
The delay in disclosing the material is among the issues under investigation, on Ashcroft's order, by the Justice Department's office of the inspector general, the agency's internal watchdog division.
``They disclosed 3,000 plus pages now, but when did they have 20 pages that seemed relevant?'' said Michael Bromwich, former Justice Department inspector general who investigated a previous scandal involving the FBI's laboratory. ``Was it back in January and why wasn't headquarters told?''
FBI spokeswoman Angela Bell said millions of pieces of paper were involved in the archiving effort and checking them against the investigative databases was tedious work - some were matches, some were duplicates and a small percentage was new. Rather than stop the process, officials decided to continue the work to get a fuller picture of the problem.
In the end, some 3,135 pages turned up from 46 field offices.
Retired FBI agent Danny Coulson, who worked on the case, said that many of the documents involved were generated from interviews on the day of the explosion and the day after - when field offices were chasing leads all over the world about a possible ``John Doe No. 2'' suspect.
Ashcroft said Friday government the newly disclosed documents do not contradict McVeigh's guilty verdicts.
But another McVeigh lawyer, Nathan Chambers, called Ashcroft's decision a public-relations attempt to restore public trust in the federal justice system.
``Regardless of the content of materials recently released, the most recent episode demonstrates in dramatic fashion why trust and confidence should be reserved,'' Chambers said.
Meanwhile, the father of two children who were injured in the Oklahoma City blast, Jim Denny, said with resignation, ``There is never going to be an end to the twists and turns. As long as justice comes in the end.''
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
OKC BOMBING FALLOUT
http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/nov/28/arjj112801.htm
Kentucky Man Vows to Take on BATF Over Questionable Raid
By J.J. Johnson & Angel Shamaya KeepAndBearArms.com 11.28.01
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
� 2001 Sierra Times.com. Reprint permission granted upon request.
Lancaster, Kentucky -- An automotive technician had his home raided by
federal agents over a 35 year-old non-violent felony on Tuesday. After the
7-hour action by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms that cost the
loss of all firearms and a computer hard drive, Charlie Puckett vows to
fight back. "I will do whatever it takes to get my firearms back," he said.
At issue is the Constitutional guarantee against enforcement of ex-post
facto laws. Puckett was convicted in Virginia back in 1966 after for a crime
of petty theft -- stealing food from a grocery store. Some years later, that
crime was upgraded to a felony based on the value of the theft being over
$100. The Gun Control Act of 1968 stated a convicted felon could not possess
firearms, but this crime was not processed as a felony, and it happened two
years before GCA '68 was signed into law. Puckett was 19 years of age when
the incident took place.
"I was young then, and we were hungry", said Puckett. But somehow, someway,
a 35-year-old, non-violent felony justified Puckett's home being ransacked
by treasury agents, his property confiscated.
According to Robert Young, Special Agent in Charge for the BATF, a search
warrant was served on Puckett for 'suspicion of illegal firearms possession
'. This is what they apparently told the local newspaper (and probably
convinced Federal District Judge Todd, who signed the warrant). Don York, a
spokesman for the BATF said that Puckett has never applied for a
"restoration of rights'' with the BATF to allow to him to own firearms.
And it was never an issue -- for 35 years.
But the BATF failed to mention that Puckett -- who has never been charged
with any crime since, married to the same woman for 33 years, and a father
of two, with one grandchild -- had voted in every presidential election
since 1968. "I even filled out the 4473 forms to purchase these firearms,
and went through background checks," he told Sierra Times.
Convicted felons are also prohibited from voting, and background checks are
supposed to catch them. Perhaps he never made it into the system because he
was never convicted of a felony.
Puckett also stated that he has a Kentucky Conceal Carry Permit. "And they
check it every week to make sure nothing new comes up on someone's record,"
he said. Puckett has worked as an automotive technician for all of his adult
life.
The Take Down
Steve Anderson
Still at Large
According to Puckett, the incident began with a call from the BATF around
9:30 am. "They wanted to meet me in a neutral location to look at photos
concerning the Steve Anderson case." Anderson was allegedly involved in a
gunfight with two police officers in Bell County, Kentucky on October 14th
of this year. Despite a $5,000 reward for capture, Anderson is still at
large.
Puckett, insisting he has no ties to Anderson, agreed to meet at a local
store to assist the BATF in their ongoing investigation of Anderson. Upon
arrival, he made the mistake of taking federal agents at their word, and was
served with a federal search warrant instead. "From there, we got in their
car and drove back to my place," said Puckett.
Reports say that between 35 and 50 federal agents (backed up by locals) took
part in the search. The dress was fed-casual: no ski masks or helmets, but
the body armor (with ATF logo) was on top of the shirts, sporting Glock
.45's and at least two M-16 rifles at the ready. No snipers were spotted.
The agents spent about 7 hours in the Puckett home, while Charlie remained
in his garage -- prevented from watching them rifle through his belongings.
He was not harmed, nor was he handcuffed during the search. "I feel like a
woman that has been raped and left to die," he said after they left. His
wife remains emotionally distraught over the ordeal.
The Loot
The mystery about the Puckett search and seizure is not what was taken, but
what was left behind. Puckett reports 5 weapons taken: Two bolt action
(single shot) rifles, two side arms and 1 SKA semi- auto are now in BATF
possession. But for a home that warranted up to 50 tax-supported, armed
agents in body armor, the firearms belonging to Puckett's son were left
behind. The jewel of the Puckett raid seems to have been the hard drive from
his computer.
"But they won't find much there. I never leave sensitive information there.
All of my contacts and other important information is kept off site and in a
safe place," said the angry BATF victim.
The Fallout
No arrests were made. No charges have been filed. No court date has been
set. "They just left," he said. Still, Puckett says he's not done with this
matter in the least bit. He is throwing down the gauntlet. "My questions are
for the Assistant U.S. Attorney in the case: Are you going to prosecute
this? Under what grounds? If you took an oath to follow the Constitution,
this cannot be prosecuted due to the ex-post facto provision!"
Puckett said that he has found legal counsel and will be speaking with him
on Wednesday. He also stated that he has a network of close associates who
would assist in any legal costs. There is wide speculation that the raid on
the Puckett home was merely a desperate attempt to glean any information on
the whereabouts of Steve Anderson -- hence the hard drive seizure.
Puckett said he had plans to run for a seat in Kentucky's 34th congressional
district. But after his bout with federal authorities, he has a different
taste about working or associating with any federal authority. "First thing
I'm going to do [Wednesday] morning is call that FBI contact and tell him we
are done. I am never talking to them about anything again." He included a
newly developed unwillingness to disclose any information about Steve
Anderson, if such information ever came his way.
Puckett stated that he has worked with law enforcement before. According to
Puckett, he helped local Danville police round-up 28 suspects back in 1997.
"We also recovered a stolen police pistol," he said. But those days are over
now. "I am breaking off all contact with federal law enforcement. I have
lost all faith in this government."
Puckett also urges friends and associates from around the country to remain
calm, and not to jump to any conclusions. "No need to do something stupid,
folks. You could be next."