Feds seized nearly 1,500 guns in raid

[Paslode]

So DHS raids a guy in New Mexico they have been watching for years, DHS confiscates over 1500 firearms and no one has been charged with a crime.

For the safety of the children in mind, why in the hell would DHS perform a raid during school hours? Surely DHS was aware that a raid during school hours would create a lock down situation and create panic in the community?



The initial report is here:

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/raiders-pull-arsenal-records-from-home

“My wife called me that they had locked down Montezuma School,” a concerned father, who did not want to be identified, said. “I rushed over here. The first thing you think of is another shooting or something.”

I wonder why that is?


The follow up report is here:

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/feds-seized-nearly-1500-guns-in-raid

One neighbor who did not want to be identified said it was a shock.

“I didn’t really see the guns but from a distance," the neighbor said. "I saw them being pulling them out into the front yard.

“Its very scary in the fact that the school is so close by makes it seem even more dangerous.”

Why would you think like that?

[Streck-Fu]

School hours coincides with working hours and the DHS agents needed to be off by 3pm....

[Utah Bob]

Od timing for the raid. You'd think an outfit like DHS would be used to operating in the dark.:rolleyes:

[blue02hd]

If you watch the vid it demonstrates several shotguns, rifles, and antique's. I guess brown (wooden stocks) is the new black (evil plastic Fienstien jewelry).

Additional comments indicate that the owner of the house is a licensed dealer/ collector. Love to see how this resonates.

[glebo]

Od timing for the raid. You'd think an outfit like DHS would be used to operating in the dark.:rolleyes:

oh...they're operating in the dark alright....:p

[Richard]

Additional comments indicate that the owner of the house is a licensed dealer/ collector. Love to see how this resonates.

Yeah - BUT...

Federal investigators confirm that. However, they're also investigating him for possible gun smuggling, tax evasion and violating importation laws.

Richard :munchin

[Dozer523]

.

[cbtengr]

I would think that if the govt. were to come into my house and confiscate my property that they would have charges in hand and not just an ongoing investigation. How long before gun owners are banned from owning and storing firearms within X amount of feet of a school? The neighbors statement was ridiculous.

[Badger52]

I guess brown (wooden stocks) is the new black (evil plastic Fienstien jewelry).Are you telling me I flipped for XXX Bastogne Walnut furniture and that's in the new AWB too?!?!
:eek:

[The Reaper]

Are you telling me I flipped for XXX Bastogne Walnut furniture and that's in the new AWB too?!?!
:eek:

Unless you can prove it is pre-ban wood.

TR

[monsterhunter]

Could it be DHS was encouraged to conduct this raid during these hours in order to achieve maximum exposure, having the school locked down, etc..., so more attention could be drawn toward government regulation, intervention, and their gun control agenda?

[Richard]

Could it be DHS was encouraged to conduct this raid during these hours in order to achieve maximum exposure, having the school locked down, etc..., so more attention could be drawn toward government regulation, intervention, and their gun control agenda?

Weeping effin' beejeezus on a Lebanese Cedar surfboard! :eek: LOLOLOL! Stop it! You're killing me!

Richard :munchin

[SF18C]

Isn't New Mexico a "blue state"???

I bet the those Evil Wooden Rifles (*EWRs) were probably bound for Chicago on the Obama Fast-n-Furious express.


See I can play the smear game too!

* I am trademarking Evil Wooden Rifles so Peirce Morgan will have to pay me 8¢ for each time he says mentions EWRs!

[monsterhunter]

I'm just sayin'... If they think anything like our local sheriff "moonbeam"...I wouldn't put it past some in office right now.

[SF_BHT]

This is great. They will quit poaching our cases and go after the BATF side since it has a Higher visability with the new Gun debate going on.

They do coordinate Opns for the best Media effect. Been watching from the front row for 5 years and it is part of their daily play book. No Tin Foil here just facts.:lifter

[Badger52]

Unless you can prove it is pre-ban wood.

TR2 points. :D

[Ghost_Team]

I saw this on Drudge. I would think that if he was guilty of anything illegal, there would have to have been some kind of paperwork filed allowing the agency to seize the guns to prevent him from disposing of them. I could be wrong.

I do know that in NC if the cops get a domestic violence call on you from your spouse, they impound all your guns. It happened to a guy in my office, and luckily the cops let us lock them in the arms room. According to the cops, regardless of the disposition of the case, even if you are acquitted or it is thrown out, it is still at the sheriff's discretion as to whether you get your guns back or not.

[Cordite]

Another good question is what is going on in New Mexico?

What is not mentioned in the article below (but in other articles on that site) is that the government seized all of the Reese's property - inventory, personal belongings, house, land, bank accounts and instituted a civil forfeiture action, which froze the Reese's assets. It is difficult if not impossible to find a lawyer to represent you with no financial resources.

The government relied on two informants to gather information, both of whom were arrrested previously for drug and other charges and were trying to "earn" reduced sentences or other concessions.



Tuesday, 19 June 2012

Eighteen months after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in Arizona by Mexican bandits using guns purchased through a US government program called Fast and Furious, we still don’t know who within the Department of Justice knew about the program, much less who authorized it. Certainly there has been no serious talk about prosecuting any of the people responsible for assisting in the illegal sales of over 2000 guns to Mexican arms traffickers – guns that were subsequently involved in the murders of BPA Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, as well as possibly hundreds of Mexican citizens. But while that investigation has dragged on, with Attorney General Eric Holder denying knowledge of the program, denying knowledge of who was involved, and denying congressional investigators access to tens of thousands of documents that might answer those questions, New Mexico gun dealer, Rick Reese and his two sons Ryin and Remington, have sat rotting in separate detention centers, jails, and prisons around the state accused of a similar crime involving some 30 guns. The Reese family, including Rick’s wife Terri, ran a gun shop in Deming, New Mexico, and were arrested in late August of 2011 on charges of knowingly selling guns to Mexican smugglers, and various other related charges. After spending 6 months in jail, Terri Reese was finally granted bail in March of this year, but Rick and the boys have been repeatedly denied bail on the pretext that they are flight risks or might try to engage in a Ruby Ridge type standoff. The rationale for denying the Reeses’ constitutional rights is that Rick knows some people in Mexico, his home has a well and solar power, and there were guns and ammunition in their homes and businesses when they were arrested. That’s right, guns and ammo in the home and business of a federally licensed firearms dealer (all of which were seized a year ago and have never been returned) is being offered as evidence that they can’t be trusted – and a judge bought it. Well, there’s also the fact that Rick and Terri were involved with a local Tea Party group. That’s probably reason enough right there.

The Reeses are scheduled to finally get their day in court in late July, almost a full year after they were arrested and incarcerated. The first of several pre-trial motion hearings was held last week in which the judge heard arguments as to whether the charge of criminal conspiracy should be dropped. The prosecution contends that the Reese family members were all in cahoots in a conspiracy to sell guns to illegal buyers, falsify purchase paperwork, smuggle guns to Mexico, and launder the illegal proceeds. The defense contends that the family operated a business buying and selling firearms, ammunition, and accessories, and that they made every effort to ensure that every sale they made was legal and properly documented. During this first hearing we learned several things about the prosecution’s case. For instance, we learned that prosecutors acknowledge that every gun the Reeses sold was properly logged into and out of their store inventory, and that FBI background checks were conducted, and approvals received, for each purchaser. They also agree that all taxes were paid and no money was exchanged “under the table,” nor did any of the family members receive compensation above their normal company paycheck. We learned that Rick Reese also employed retired and off-duty law enforcement officers as part-time help in the shop, and that a substantial portion of the company’s business came from law enforcement officers and agencies. We learned that prosecutors consider three family members standing close to each other and quietly talking to be evidence of conspiracy, and that the lead investigator in the case has a very low opinion of fellow law enforcement officers. When asked if he considered the fact that the Reeses employed LEOs in the shop to be contraindicative of a criminal conspiracy, he replied that he did not because “a lot of them (cops and former cops) are dirty.” Probably the most important fact we learned at this hearing was that the entire investigation was instigated based on a tip that a woman named Penny Torres was making suspicious purchases of guns and ammunition, and might be illegally buying for someone else. That tip led to Torres’ arrest and her subsequent grand jury testimony against the Reese family and another gun shop where she had made some purchases. The presumption is that her cooperation garnered her leniency in the charges and sentence she was facing for her criminal activity. What is most significant about the arrest of Penny Torres is that the original tip identifying her as a potential “straw buyer” came from Terri Reese.

Torres had claimed that her purchases were in preparation for a large family reunion at an area ranch where her relatives wanted to do a lot of shooting. At some point after the sales Terri Reese became suspicious of Torres’ story and contacted a friend in the Luna County Sheriff’s office who acted as the shop’s go-to guy in law enforcement. He assured Terri that he would make a report to ATF and get back to her. Torres testimony against the Reese family led to a months-long sting operation conducted against the Reeses by a federal agency called Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI. That investigation involved a confidential informant named Roman who was trying to earn a reduced sentence for drug and human smuggling. His job was to make purchases of firearms and ammunition from the Reeses while dropping hints that his intent was to illegally take the guns to Mexico. The trick was to drop those hints in such a way that they wouldn’t alarm the Reeses, but that someone listening to a recording of the tape and reading a transcript would conclude that the Reeses knew, or should have known, his intentions. Roman, by the way, speaks only broken English and his conversations with the Reeses included a lot of Spanish, a language that no one in the Reese family speaks, but which has been transcribed for the court in English.

Who would believe that a gun dealer reporting a suspicious purchaser would lead to a federal investigation of the dealer culminating in a raid with armored vehicles, helicopters, and heavily armed officers and agents from multiple jurisdictions? Or that a few firearms and ammunition sales in a high-volume gun store, including the sales that Terri Reese had reported as suspicious, would result in confiscation of virtually everything the family had accumulated over a 25-year marriage and 17 years in business – bank accounts, gun and coin collections, store inventory, vehicles, real estate, just about everything the family had? Or that the same Justice Department that had instructed dealers to sell over 2000 guns to known straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels while making no attempt to track or interdict them – with a few arrests and minor charges against the straw purchasers, but no charges against the ATF and DOJ employees who masterminded the criminal operation – would effectively destroy a family for not being quite diligent enough in their efforts to screen their customers? It is worth noting that as HSI progressed in their investigation against the Reese family, they were briefing and receiving guidance from Phoenix ATF Bureau Chief Bill Newell – the man responsible for directly overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

For the Reese family, who have already served 10 months behind bars and had all of their worldly possessions taken from them, the July trial is an opportunity to prove their innocence and try to reassemble what’s left of their lives. For the prosecution, it is imperative that they prove that the Reeses were intentionally engaging in the criminal activity they have already been being punished for. Failure to get a conviction would leave egg on the face of a relatively new federal law enforcement agency trying to establish itself, and would mean that the various agencies involved wouldn’t get to divvy up the spoils already pillaged.

Once again though, we see a case where those inside the government and law enforcement are handled with kid gloves and given the benefit of every doubt, while those outside of government and law enforcement are presumed guilty until they can prove their innocence – even after the government has taken away the resources they need to make their case.

http://www.firearmscoalition.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=614:guilty-until-proven-innocent&catid=19:the-knox-update&Itemid=144

Some additional insight here: http://www.examiner.com/article/unnoticed-pieces-reese-case-form-puzzling-picture


The Reese's trial was this past August, and they were acquited on 24 of 28 counts the government had filed. The charges they were found guilty of were "false statements". http://alibi.com/blog/s/news/42314/Jury-Returns-Verdict-in-Deming-Gun-Store-Trial.html

No telling what the government spent to investigate and prosecute the Reese family. I am certain that the total is in the millions of dollars.

It is going to be interesting to see what the facts are behind this most recent raid.

[BrokenSwitch]

Bad links.

http://www.firearmscoalition.org/index.p...omment-177
http://www.examiner.com/article/nm-gun-c...own-cont-d
http://alibi.com/blog/s/news/42314/Jury-...Trial.html

[Cordite]

Bad links.

Thanks. Fixed it.

[Hambone933]

Well, one things for sure that's 1,500 rifles they don't have to buy. Seeing how they placed an order for 7,000. Personal defense weapons. I wonder if thy called them that in Ny and Ca, would they be legal to own.