Victimizing The Victims Of Fast & Furious

Shown are some of the beneficiaries of notorious Operation Fast and Furious. The same administration that regularly attempts to hogtie the Second Amendment for American citizens is also the one that helped create a well-armed militia in Mexico. After arming Mexican drug cartel members to the teeth, resulting in deaths on both sides of the border, the administration now chooses to deny assistance for victims of their boondoggle.

Several decades back, the states and the federal government decided to assist victims of violent crime and family members by granting certain monetary compensation. In many cases, the compensation was a simple administrative act, but many others first required a formal showing of a direct link between the harm caused and the defendant charged (considerably less than a conviction in open court). As time went on, more "victim's rights" were legislated, including the right of the victims and their families to be notified of all court proceedings, to meet with the prosecutors, and to testify at sentencing and parole hearings. This latter expansion of victim's rights has had a recent unintended consequence.

So long as compensation to the victims' families was purely monetary, it had little effect on any pending criminal investigations or court proceedings. But once the victims became actual participants in the judicial process, the game plan for prosecutors changed. Honest and ethical prosecutors would proceed without regard for any possible negative effects the trial participation (active or passive) of the victims might be. But highly-politicized prosecutors often began to look at another factor. Could bringing this victim or his family into the proceedings by way of the victims of violent crimes statutes harm their position or that of the political party to which they have fealty? And thus it is with Operation Fast and Furious.

The operation has already become a major scandal for the Obama administration, and federal prosecutors under orders from their Attorney General are doing everything in their power to keep the botched and deadly operation from leading directly to the White House. We have discussed the operation and its deadly results in several posts at this site. Now a new twist to the nefarious activities of the government has been added. Federal prosecutors are denying victims of violent crimes protection and assistance to the family of Border Agent Brian Terry. Terry was killed by cartel member Jaime Avila using a high-powered rifle purchased during Fast and Furious.

Compensation that would in the past have been treated as a routine court/administrative matter has now become a political hot potato because compensating Terry's family and allowing them participation in the penalty phase would be a tacit admission that a thug murdered a law enforcement officer on American soil using a weapon purchased and reimported into the United States as a result of the government's failed operation. Attorney General Eric Holder is not going to allow that to happen without putting roadblocks in the way of the wife and children of the slain officer.

Even though Brian Terry's horrible death was the final blow to Operation Fast and Furious, federal prosecutors have decided that until the murder weapon is linked to both Avila and Fast and Furious beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, the Terry family will just have to fend for itself. There is very little doubt that Avila committed the crime and that the weapon used was part of the botched operation, but if the prosecutors can put off actual trial until after next year's elections, the taint of government participation in a resulting death would not be in front of the American voters. So the grieving family can simply wait to get that one small piece of justice that the victims of violent crimes acts provide.

The prosecutors went before a federal judge specifically to deny victim status to the Terry family, arguing that it has not yet been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Avila and the operation "directly and proximately harmed Terry (and his family). Although the same prosecutors have charged Avila with conspiring to deal in firearms without a license, dealing firearms without a license, and lying to federal investigators, they have held off charging him with unlawful homicide and use of an illegal weapon in Terry's murder. Thus they can use the reprehensible argument that "the victim of the offenses is not any particular person, but society in general."

The government's CYA tactics were bad enough before they pulled this one. Denying a widow and her now-fatherless children of satisfaction to gain a political advantage is beneath contempt. Said George McCubbin, president of the National Border Patrol Council: "I think it's pretty bold of the government to take this position. It's the government trying to cover its backside and minimize the embarrassment over a failed gun investigation. There is no other reason for this."

If there is any justice in this world, the DOJ attempt at a further coverup will backfire. As word gets out that Mrs. Terry and the kids are being told that their husband/father was just an insignificant casualty of war, mere collateral damage, the public is likely to be even more outraged than they were at the earlier revelations about the disaster that was Operation Fast and Furious. No thanks to Eric Holder and his department for even those revelations.

Terry's family is the victim of a violent crime, regardless of what is or is not proven later at trial. He wasn't struck by lightning. He didn't fall off a cliff. He was shot and killed while on duty by a criminal or criminals during the commission of a violent act. The statutes require compensation, now. Justice delayed is indeed justice denied.