Source:
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/

ATF works on its battered reputation
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed05.htm

By Toni Locy, USA TODAY

Nearly eight years after the botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound
near Waco, Texas, led to calls for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms to be abolished, the agency has regained its footing through a
makeover that has softened its image and redirected its priorities.

The ATF's improved stance on Capitol Hill is most evident in the federal
budget for this fiscal year.

Congress - home to critics who in past years have vilified the ATF for what
lawmakers called the agency's unnecessarily aggressive approach to
confrontations - approved a record $773 million for the ATF.

It's the ATF's largest budget ever. It is also about double the amount the
agency received in the budget year before the raid near Waco on Feb. 28,
1993.

On the day of the raid, the Branch Davidians were tipped that the ATF was
on its way. During a gun battle, four agents were killed, and more than 20
were wounded.

The FBI took over and negotiated with the religious group for more than
seven weeks before firing tear gas at the compound April 19, 1993. The
Davidians set fires, and about 80 people died.

The episode put the ATF on the ropes. Investigations were launched,
congressional hearings were held, and lawsuits were filed. Critics of the
ATF's tactics unloaded on the agency.

Since then, the ATF has brought in a former head of the Secret Service and
q uietly changed its image.

The agency has used technology to enhance its expertise in everything from
complex arson investigations to the way gun sales to juveniles are tracked.

Instead of focusing on busting down doors in raids - an activity that led
critics to call ATF agents "jackbooted thugs" - the agency concentrates on
complex investigations such as one of church burnings in the South in the
late 1990s.

ATF officials "knew they had to change," says John Magaw, the former Secret
Service director who was brought in after Waco to head the ATF. " They
knew they had to become more customer-friendly, or they were going out of
business."

Congress has seen the improvement, and the money has come, says Magaw, who
left the agency in 1999.

Nonetheless, the ATF will forever be linked to Waco.

"It was our call, and it didn't work," says Bradley Buckles, the agency's
current director.

The ATF's problems began long before Waco and stem from its controversial
assignments: regulating popular and socially acceptable vices such as
alcohol and tobacco, and enforcing the nation's gun laws.

The agency is a lightning rod for gun rights groups and repeatedly has been
targeted for shutdown, with some critics suggesting that its duties be
divided between the FBI and IRS.

President Clinton, meanwhile, has taken some heat off the ATF by fighting
personally with the National Rifle Association, the nation's leading gun
rights group.

Now, the agency's future looks secure. Its 2001 budget will allow it to
have nearly 5,000 agents, inspectors, lab workers and other personnel.

Congress also has approved an additional $83 million for a new ATF
headquarters.

Outgoing Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., who was chairman of a crime
subcommittee and a critic of the ATF, says the funding increased because
the Clinton administration agreed to enforce existing gun laws.

"Given the numerous gun laws currently on the books, the ATF needs
sufficient funding to be able to do their job and enforce these laws, "
McCollum says.

The agency's other critics also have quieted down.

John Trochmann, co-founder of the Militia of Montana, says he occasionally
hears allegations of ATF abuses, "but it's not as widespread as it was four
to six years ago."

Several investigations of the Waco incident have cleared the ATF of
wrongdoing; so has a federal judge in a lawsuit filed by surviving
Davidians. But Congress, the Treasury Department and the Justice
Department said ATF agents exercised bad judgment.

The ATF's makeover also has focused on training agents, Magaw says.
Previously, agents who were used to chasing people with guns and explosives
didn't know how to change gears to deal with legitimate gun dealers or
tobacco or alcohol merchants.

Buckles says a key improvement has been the supervision of agents in the
field. Agents directly involved in a raid no longer make all of the key
decisions - as they did in Waco. Supervisors do, he says.

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