Brad Heath

USA TODAY

A new report has found “strong, consistent and statistically significant” evidence that federal gun agents singled out minorities for controversial drug stings in Chicago.

The stings had been a centerpiece of efforts by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to target violent crime. Agents lured suspects with the promise of a huge payday for robbing a drug “stash house” that did not actually exist, then left them facing long prison sentences for plotting to resell the imaginary drugs.

An investigation by USA TODAY in 2014 found that the stings overwhelmingly targeted minorities. At least 91% of the people agents charged nationwide were racial or ethnic minorities. The ATF stings are particularly sensitive because they seek to enlist suspected criminals in new crimes, rather than merely solving old ones, giving agents unusually wide latitude to select who will be targeted.

The new report is the most detailed examination yet of the ATF’s tactics. The Justice Department insisted that it be sealed when it was filed earlier this month in federal court in Chicago. It was unsealed on Friday after a request by USA TODAY.

The report was made public amidst yet another national convulsion over race and policing, stoked most recently by a pair of deadly police shootings that sparked unrest in Charlotte and Tulsa.

ATF agents operating around Chicago have arrested 94 people in the undercover stings since 2006; 91% were either black or Hispanic.

The new report, prepared by Columbia Law School professor Jeffrey Fagan, found only a 0.1% chance that agents could have selected so many minorities by chance, even if they were targeting only people with criminal records that suggested they were likely to be part of a robbery crew, as ATF policies require. Those results, Fagan wrote, show that “the ATF is discriminating on the basis of race” in choosing targets for the stings.

The report was filed alongside motions by a University of Chicago legal clinic to dismiss federal charges in three ATF sting cases because agents intentionally targeted minorities. That request also accuses the agency of violating its internal rules for conducting the sting when agents targeted black and Hispanic suspects, but not when they targeted whites. Defense lawyers in seven other sting cases said they anticipate that similar requests will be filed to drop the charges against their clients as well, an unusually broad challenge to federal law enforcement tactics.

The ATF declined to comment on Fagan’s report. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago, Joseph Fitzpatrick, declined to comment, saying prosecutors would “file our opposition to the motion in court at the appropriate time.”

An investigation by USA TODAY in 2013 found that the ATF had more than tripled its use of stash-house stings, frequently ensnaring small-time criminals in the process. In at least one case, agents had to supply their would-be armed robbers with a gun. The stings left at least seven suspects dead.