Before the Safeway Massacre hit the headlines, TTAG was hot on the trail of a scandal involving agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (and Really Big Fires). Rumors were swirling that ATF agents walked guns into Mexico to hype the agency-justifying “iron river” of assault rifles flowing from Bob’s Gun Shop to Los Zetas drug cartel. Worse still, we’d heard noises that one of the guns may have been used to kill Border Agent Terry. Our radar is on. Meanwhile, a contact forwarded me a link to a bizarre story from Houston’s chron.com involving the ATF—or not the ATF—that indicates that something VERY fishy’s going on around the Brazos.
Police said the chase began when a Houston patrol officer spotted a silver Chevrolet Monte Carlo running a stop sign at Knox and Little York. The officer tried to pull over the car, but the driver refused and sped away. The officer followed and saw the car run at least one other stop sign and a red light.
During the chase, the officer saw the driver and passenger throw out the windows what appeared to be clothing, police said.
Another officer placed spike strips on the road in the car’s path on the Hardy Toll Road feeder near Crosstimbers to puncture the tires. But the suspects avoided any damage.
They eluded police and apparently stopped their car, jumped out and ran away, police said. Officers found the abandoned car a short time later at 3400 Bostic near Curry.
Officers also found two sweatshirts on the road along the route of the chase, police said. The sweatshirts were marked with the initials “ATF,” which were affixed either with yellow tape or were stitched with yellow thread. Official clothing for agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is emblazoned with the initials.
Police said no ATF impersonators have been reported recently.
I’ve been a journalist long enough to know that there’s a LOT more to this story than . . . what? Who would want to impersonate an ATF Agent? Don’t we have enough trouble with the real ATF?
Maybe they were Rockets fans and the Yao Ming sweatshirts were all sold out.
Actually, Houston is a little over 300 miles from the old Rio Grande, so the something fishy is closer to Brazos River.
Text amended.
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