Joe Taylor

Updated:October 19, 2022

-Montana Right Now

 

We reached out to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in regard to the undercover Canadian police officer found at the gun show in Great Falls in September.

ATF’s public information officer Crystal K. McCoy told us they are not going to comment on the issue with us and they will not have a conversation about it.

In September, local county employees and people saw someone with  Canadian license plates watching people at a gun show in Great Falls.

The person in question was an undercover police officer assigned to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Task Force for gun smuggling and was working with ATF.

Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter told Montana Right Now the sheriff’s office was not informed about the undercover operation.


GREAT FALLS, Mont. – According to Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, local county employees and people noticed someone with Canadian plates watching people at the gun show.

Once deputies and the sheriff arrived, the operation was shut down immediately.

“It’s very dangerous to have an operation like that, and we should have been notified. So we told them the operation was over and to their credit, they agreed and they left that,” said Slaughter.

The police officer was assigned to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Task Force for gun smuggling and was working with ATF.

“We want to work with our federal partners. We do. And I want to have a working relationship with them. We have always had a really good working relationship. But there needs to be that mutual respect,” said Slaughter.

Slaughter tells Montana Right Now that not much information is known about the investigation as he wasn’t informed about the undercover operation.

“That could have been extremely, extremely dangerous. And then you had the variable that there was a Canadian Canadian law enforcement officer in there, and that would have been an international incident,” said Slaughter.

c. MONTANA RIGHT NOW