The Mexican gunman who killed a United States Border Patrol agent, and set off one of the earliest and most infamous scandals of the Obama Administration, has just been sentenced to life in jail for the crime, The Daily Caller reports.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge David Bury, who sentenced Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes to life in federal prison, on the charge of first-degree murder. Arellanes was one of the gunmen involved in the shootout that killed Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010.
Tucson Sector Chief Roy Villareal issued a statement declaring that the sentence was “one step closer to justice for Agent Brian Terry’s murder,” and that it “serves as a reminder of the grave dangers our agents face in their selfless commitment to the safety of their communities and country.” A joint statement issued by Terry’s two sisters described Terry as “a man filled with so much dedication to keeping our country safe.”
It was eventually revealed that the AK-47s used in the shootout, including the one that fired the fatal shots, were deliberately given to Mexican criminals and illegal aliens by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in a gun-running operation that attempted to track the guns back to various cartels in Mexico. However, the government soon lost track of most of the guns that were sold.
The subsequent scandal left a stain on the presidency of Barack Obama, with particular criticism aimed at his first Attorney General, Eric Holder, who oversaw the operation.