Operation Fast and Furious Hits Too Close to Home(town)

Chris and I have stayed pretty silent about the whole ATF/Gunrunner/Gunwalker/Fast and Furious issue. This is due to a mix of factors, from lack of time to not wanting to to go down that particular angry rabbit hole. Other gunbloggers have covered the issue far better than we have the time or inclination to.

That being said, we are incredibly pissed off. But pissed off isn't always enough.

Turns out Fast and Furious hit a little closer than we originally thought.

So literally a few days before we moved to the great free North, we took a few of our friends / menial packing labor to dinner. One of our friends, known to the internet as a whole as Kommander, asked Chris if he knew about this blogger that lived near us who runs the Spoony Experiment. Chris knows everything on the internet right?

When the name Noah Antwiler came up, Chris didn't have a clue, but my best friend and I knew exactly who they were talking about. After all, there can't be more than one person with that name in our hometown. We went to high school with Noah, and shared many of the same honors-level courses.

I never really followed up though, as following the blog of someone you went to school with a decade ago seems like the blogosphere equivalent of finding all your old buddies on Facebook and talking about the good ole days until your kids want to kill you.

But anyway fast forward a few months and this comes up:

MCSO: Man shot by deputy in Mesa was undocumented immigrant

Posted: 01/17/2011

• By: Erisa Nakano

MESA, AZ - Authorities say a man who was fatally shot by a deputy after pointing a weapon at the deputy in a threatening manner in Mesa was an undocumented immigrant.
The suspect died Monday morning from his injuries, said spokesman Jeff Sprong with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
Sprong said the deputies responded to a call of shots fired around 10:30 p.m. near Ellsworth and Broadway roads.
It was determined that 47-year-old Felipe Ramirez Castellanos was in an argument with his wife and was leaving the residence in a vehicle. Castellanos reportedly fired several rounds from his vehicle in an unknown direction.
When deputies arrived, they stopped a vehicle backing out of the driveway of the home driven by Castellanos, Sprong said.
As a deputy approached the driver’s side door, Castellanos rolled down the window and pulled out an AK47 assault rifle and pointed it at the deputy in a threatening manner, Sprong said.
The deputy then reportedly fired his handgun at Castellanos and struck him in the hip and head.
Castellanos was taken to the Maricopa County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries where he later died.

The deputy in question? Noah's brother Miles. Where? In an area of Mesa that was within our high school's boundaries while we were in school. Also a handful of miles south of where my best friend used to live, and literally 5 minutes away from where I lived when Chris and I first got together.

Oh, but it gets better.

Kommander forwarded me this tweet of Noah's while Chris and I were out and about last night:

@TheSpoonyOne Noah Antwiler

The man my brother shot in the line of duty was carrying guns provided by Operation Fast and Furious. Bravo, ATF, for handing him an AK-47.

The effects of Operation Fast and Furious. In my hometown. 130 miles north of the border.

That's. Just. Bloody.Wonderful.