By: Anthony Morelli
So many people have been harmed by the ATF, and the agency may finally have to pay the price.
They ruined the life of one man who was completely innocent.
But now they are facing dire consequences for their actions.
More than virtually any other government agency, the ATF acts with total impunity. Their mission as an agency is to attack the Constitution, and they do it aggressively and sometimes violently.
Oftentimes they get away with this behavior. For example, there were virtually no consequences for the loss of life they caused during the Waco siege of 1993.
But the price tag always comes due at some point, and it appears that the ATF may be on the verge of having to pay up for their actions.
Specifically, they targeted a man in South Carolina who turned out to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
They thought their actions towards him would go unnoticed and that they would get away with it like they always do.
But now they are facing heavy scrutiny in a courtroom and could be on the verge of taking a big loss.
According to Bearing Arms, “Imagine showing up for work one morning and finding multiple law enforcement agents waiting to put you in handcuffs for a crime you didn’t commit. That’s what happened to Bryan Wilson last December, when a drug task force comprised of officers from West Columbia, South Carolina and the ATF took him into custody in front of his co-workers and employer after accusing him of trafficking guns and drugs.”
An arrest like this can ruin someone’s life, and that is exactly what the ATF was trying to do to Bryan Wilson. The only problem is that he didn’t actually commit the crime.
The article continues, “Wilson protested his innocence to everyone from the cops who arrested him to the judge who formally charged him, but those pleas fell on deaf ears until a federal public defender was assigned to represent him started to dig into his story and realized that Wilson was telling the truth.”
Here is what AOL reported about the case: “It turned out there was one person in the courtroom who believed him — Jenny Smith, his court-appointed federal public defender — and over several hours, she convinced a federal prosecutor to double check the arrest and see if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives didn’t, after all, have the wrong man.”
“After more investigation that day, the feds realized they had blown it. They made a motion to drop all charges against Wilson. Federal prosecutors apologized. U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs apologized.”
Now Wilson is exploring a massive lawsuit against the ATF, and it looks like one they are going to be unlikely to win.
After all, no one disputes that they messed up. They ruined the life of an innocent man.
The ATF’s strategy of cracking down on the American people in order to take away their rights is finally coming back to haunt them.