Tucson Tea Party demands "Fast and Furious" answers
CREATED SEP. 26, 2011
Tucson Tea Party members rally Monday night
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau attended the rally
http://www.kgun9.com/news/local/130613113.html
Reporter: Kevin Keen
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Tucson Tea Party members are demanding answers on
Operation Fast and Furious, the federal program that let high-powered
guns go from the U.S. into Mexico. The idea was agents would track
their movement, but the program backfired.
Some of those guns were left at the scene of border patrol agent
Brian Terry's death. Congress is investigating the program, but local
Tea Party members are unsatisfied.
"Clearly, the investigation hasn't proven anything because nobody's
been held accountable at this point," said local Tea Party organizer
Trent Humphries.
Pressing for answers, a crowd of more than 450 rallied in Tucson
Monday night.
"Until we find out why this happened, what the consequences were and
why this will never happen again, I think it's important that the
people get an answer," Humphries said.
An answer as to who in the federal agency in charge was responsible
for the operation.
"Who knew about this and who gave them credibility because we have to
have that answered," said Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar (R, 1st
District).
Congressman Gosar spoke to the crowd, sharing the frustration. He's
part of an ongoing congressional investigation on the program.
Reporter Kevin Keen asked, "Is there more of a focus on where are the
guns right now, how can we maybe get them back?" "We don't know
that," he replied. "This is the first time we've allowed surveillance
and tracking when we allowed guns to walk. Never have we ever done
that before. That's the most important part about that--we've
recovered a little over 400 guns so we've got all these other guns
still sitting out there that are going to end up at crime scenes."
Keen asked Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, "Do you know if there's a
possible solution--do you have any ideas of how we could possibly get
them back? Or, it is completely a lost cause?" "Right now, it's
aggressive enforcement," he replied. "But these weapons are mainly
turning up in Mexico. This is like try to put toothpaste back into
the tube. It's too late."
Tea Party members and Congressman Gosar go as far as to say the lack
of information being released by federal agencies constitutes a cover-
up. They hope Washington will notice their rally and give them answers.
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