Agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives are feuding over bomb investigations. The Associated Press quotes a draft Justice Department inspector general’s report as saying that the two agencies are racing each other to crime scenes, failing to share information, and refusing to train together. The report by Inspector General Glenn Fine says the Justice Department has repeatedly failed to fix the problem.
In the most recent documented argument, last December the FBI protested a local prosecutor’s request to use the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to investigate a blast that killed a local bomb technician in Oregon. FBI and ATF supervisors “tend to deploy their employees to the larger, more sensational explosives incidents, sometimes racing each other to be the first federal agency on the scene and disputing upon arrival which agency should lead the investigation,” said the report.