The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
June 17, 2011

Relatives Urge Probe of ATF Program in Border Agent's Death 
------------------------------------------------------------



The House oversight committee has held a hearing on a once-secret
government plan to encourage U.S. gun shops to sell thousands of guns to
middlemen for Mexican drug cartels. The operation, called "Fast and
Furious," focused on using middlemen to gain access to senior-level
figures within Mexico’s criminal organizations. Run by the U.S. Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the operation has come under severe
criticism since hundreds of the guns that were sold to the cartels were
later found at crime scenes in both countries, including two at the
murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry. ATF Special Agent
Peter Forcelli criticized agency supervisors for evading accountability
for Terry's death.

Peter Forcelli: "There were tragic errors made here and nobody has shown
the decency and leadership to step up and say, hey we made a mistake and
have done something wrong, I find that as appalling as anything else in
this case, short of course of the tragedy that happened to the Terry
family."

Brian Terry's cousin, Robert Heyer, called for a criminal investigation
into government officials involved in the "Fast and Furious" operation.

Robert Heyer: "If the dragnet set to find everyone involved in Brian's
murder will be set deep enough and wide enough to encompass anyone
involved in Operation Fast and Furious. If the guns used in Brian's
murder were part of this operation then we want to know will everyone in
that operation that had to deal with those specific weapons be brought
up on charges of facilitating the murder of Brian Terry."



.