https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/w...l?_r=0&referer

D.E.A. Says Hondurans Opened Fire During a Drug Raid. A Video Suggests Otherwise.

Surveillance footage from 2012, published for the first time, shows four civilians being killed during a drug operation.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has for five years steadfastly defended the behavior of its agents in a late-night drug seizure carried out with Honduran forces on the remote Mosquito Coast, a mission that resulted in the deaths of four Honduran civilians.

In the D.E.A.’s view, the dead — one man, two women and a 14-year-old boy — were among those on a boat that shot at a canoe carrying a joint D.E.A.-Honduran antidrug team. The D.E.A. said it had evidence in the form of night-vision video taken from a surveillance plane showing an “exchange of gunfire” between the two vessels after the larger boat collided with the canoe carrying the agents.

Now, for the first time, the three-hour video has been released to the public. It strongly suggests that the D.E.A.’s account of crossfire in the May 2012 mission was not accurate. The release of the video, under a Freedom of Information Act request, follows a scathing report published by the inspectors general of the departments of Justice and State earlier this year that challenged the D.E.A.’s version of events.

The video shows numerous flashes of light consistent with gunshots originating from the antidrug unit, according to Bruce Koenig, a forensic expert hired by ProPublica and The New York Times to analyze the images.

Mr. Koenig, who formerly was supervisor of the F.B.I.’s forensic audio/video group, examined the video frame by frame and concluded that only one flash originates from the passenger boat. In Mr. Koenig’s view, that flash could have been caused by a bullet striking the engine, which was later found to have a bullet hole. Infrared cameras detect heat and turn it into bright spots on video, so a muzzle flash from a gunshot and a spark from a bullet ricocheting off a metal surface can create similar flares.

As the D.E.A. braced for the May release of the inspectors general report on the episode, the agency disbanded the program that had run the interdiction operation, named the Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Teams, or FAST. The FAST program provided military-style training to law enforcement officers in other countries to counter drug traffickers.

The inspectors general report, which found no evidence to support the D.E.A.’s account that its agents were fired upon, has also drawn attention from lawmakers. A bipartisan group of four senators asserted that the D.E.A. and State Department “repeatedly and knowingly misled members of Congress and congressional staff.

he D.E.A. convinced themselves of a false version of events due to arrogance, false assumptions, and ignorance,” said Tim Rieser, an aide to Senator Patrick J. Leahy and one of the staff members who has spent years delving into the shooting. “They rushed to judgment and then stuck to their story.”

Mary Brandenberger, a D.E.A. spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether the agency still believed that an exchange of gunfire had taken place, because the episode was still under internal review. The agency has never retracted its view that the agents were fired upon and acted in self-defense.

For a crucial piece of evidence that it asserted would exonerate its personnel, the D.E.A. kept the video under tight control. The first time it was shown outside the agency was in May 2012, shortly after the shooting, when it was screened in a secure conference room for a group of congressional staff members.

The D.E.A. and State Department briefers controlled all the information, said Peter Quilter, a former staff member for the House Foreign Affairs Committee who attended some of the initial briefings. “It was very difficult to second-guess them.” He added: “They very simply misled the Congress. The video did not back up their story of what happened.”

In at least eight briefings over six months, and in multiple letters in response to senators and representatives, the D.E.A. maintained that the shooting was justified.

In June 2012, United States officials allowed a New York Times reporter to briefly view portions of the video, probably those shown to Congress. The officials pointed to blips in the grainy night-vision video, which they said were indications that the occupants of the passenger boat had fired on the team on the canoe. The Times described these flashes as less clearly visible than the ferocious series of shots from the canoe carrying the agents. The still-secret video was not definitive in supporting the D.E.A.’s version of events, The Times reported, saying that the video “answers some questions while raising new ones” about the operation.

The video was released to the public through the Freedom of Information Act, with the law firm Jenner & Block taking on the case pro bono. A federal judge ordered the release of the video in January 2016, and the agency appealed. In June 2017, an appeals court ruled against the D.E.A., and the agency released the video.

In the months after the shooting, the D.E.A. struggled to produce evidence that someone on the passenger boat had been armed. No bullets had struck the helicopters, the agents or their canoe.

The Ahuas killings were among three fatal shooting cases that took place during Operation Anvil. The inspectors general found that the other two cases were also followed by inaccurate reports from the field. In one, they concluded, a Honduran police officer planted a gun on the dead body of an unarmed drug trafficker.

Carson Ulrich, who served as deputy for the FAST team missions at the time of the Ahuas shooting, stands by the D.E.A.’s assertions that the passenger boat was searching for the drugs and had fired on the antidrug team.

Mr. Ulrich argued that the now-disbanded FAST program was “desperately” needed to “bring the rule of law to an area governed by the cartels.” The government inspectors general investigators were biased, Mr. Ulrich contended. “They are slandering heroes. I dare anyone to pick up a rifle and do what these American agents did.
but I'd like to hear all the excuses the faux conservatives give for excusing an ENTIRE branch of the federal government an excuse for the murder of 4 civilians and then lying about it and proceeding to a cover up.