I remembered this going on after I returned from Desert Storm. Before this I was very supportive of the "Alphabet agencies" but the incidents at Ruby ridge dismayed me, then Waco really pissed me and a bunch of other people off. Ruby Ridge in my opinion was basically a "dick" measuring contest and it got worse after Bill Clinton became President. Bill and Janet Reno wanted to use WACO to make examples of people that they didn't like for ideological reasons. This all started in Ruby Ridge and the lawlessness and cancer spread due to the political appointments by Bill Clinton and yes I blamed Hillary back then, the phrase was "Co president". Hillary was very active and I believe that she told Reno what to do, Bill was too laid back to get stupid like that and I am sure that the administration wanted to make an examples of the Branch Dividians. Gotta put those people in their place you know...
I met Randy Weaver at a gun show at the farmers market in the late 1990's. I only talked for him for a minute but I did buy a sticker. I should have bought more but back then I didn't.
The article was supposed to post earlier than it did, but I got the time wrong in the scheduler thingie.
I got this article from ammo.com
The Siege at
Ruby Ridge is often considered a pivotal date in American history. The shootout between
Randy Weaver and his family and federal agents on August 21, 1992, is one that kicked off the
Constitutional Militia Movement and left America with a deep distrust of its leadership – in particular then-President George H.W. Bush and eventual
President Bill Clinton and
Attorney General Janet Reno.
The short version is this: Randy Weaver and his wife Vicki moved with
their four kids to the Idaho Panhandle, near the Canadian border, to
escape what they thought was an increasingly corrupt world. The Weavers
held racial separatist beliefs, but were not involved in any violent
activity or rhetoric. They were peaceful Christians who simply wanted to
be left alone.
Specifically for his beliefs, Randy Weaver was targeted by the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in an entrapping “sting”
operation designed to gain his cooperation as a snitch. When he refused
to become a federal informant, he was charged with illegally selling
firearms. Due to a miscommunication about his court date, the Marshal
Service was brought in, who laid siege to his house and shot and killed
his wife and 14-year-old son.
Randy Weaver was, in many ways, a typical American story. He grew up in an
Iowa
farming community. He got decent grades in high school and played
football. His family attended church regularly. He dropped out of
community college and joined the
United States Army in 1970. After three years of service, he was honorably discharged.
One month later he married
Victoria Jordison. He then enrolled in the University of Northern
Iowa,
studying criminal justice with an eye toward becoming an FBI Agent.
However, he dropped out because the tuition was too expensive. He ended
up working in a
John Deere plant while his wife worked as a secretary before becoming a homemaker.
Both of the Weavers increasingly became apocalyptic in their view of
the world. This, combined with an increasing emphasis on Old
Testament-based Christianity, led them to seek a life away from
mainstream America, a life of self-reliance. Vicki, in particular, had
strong visions of her family surviving the apocalypse through life far
away from what they viewed as a corrupt world. To that end, Randy
purchased a 20-acre farm in Ruby Ridge, ID, and built a cabin there.
The land was purchased for $5,000 in cash and the trade of the truck they used to move there. Vicki
homeschooled the children.
The Weavers Move to Ruby Ridge
After moving to Ruby Ridge, Weaver became acquainted with members of the
Aryan Nations
in nearby Hayden Lake. He even attended some rallies. The FBI believed
his involvement in the church was much deeper than it actually was –
they thought he was a regular congregant of the Aryan Nations and had
attended the Aryan Nations World Congress.
Both Randy and Vicki were interviewed by the FBI in 1985, with Randy
denying membership in the group, citing profound theological
differences. Indeed, the Weavers (who had some points of agreement with
the Aryan Nations, primarily about the importance of the Old Testament)
mostly saw their affiliation with the Aryan Nations as a social outlet.
Living off-grid, the nearby members of the Aryan Nations were neighbors
in remote northern
Idaho.
Later, in 1986, Randy was approached at a rally by undercover
ATF informant Kenneth Faderley,
who used a biker alter ego of Gus Magisono and was currently monitoring
and investigating Weaver’s friend Frank Kumnick. Faderley introduced
himself as an illegal firearms dealer from
New Jersey.
Randy later encountered Faderley at the World Congress of 1987. He
skipped the next year’s Congress to run for county sheriff, an election
that he lost.
The ATF claims that in 1989, Faderley purchased two illegally
shortened shotguns from Randy Weaver. However, Weaver disputes this,
saying that the shotguns he sold Faderley were entirely legal and were
shortened after the fact. The notes from the case show that Faderley
purchased the guns and showed Weaver where to shorten them, which would
constitute illegal entrapment. What’s more, the government preyed on the
destitute nature of the Weavers, who lived in a small cabin in the
woods with no electricity or running water.
The real purpose of the investigation was not to grab Weaver, but to use him to infiltrate a group in
Montana
being organized by Charles Howarth. In November 1989, Weaver refused to
introduce Faderley to Howarth, and Faderley was ordered by his handlers
to have no further contact with Weaver.
Randy Weaver Refuses to Turn Snitch
In June 1990, Faderley’s cover was blown. It was then that the ATF
reached out to Weaver, stating that they had evidence he was dealing
illegal firearms. They told him they would drop all charges if he would
agree to become their new informant regarding the investigation of the
Aryan Nations groups in the area. Weaver refused.
To coerce him into changing his mind, the Feds staged a stunt where a
broken down couple were at the side of the road. Weaver stopped to help
them and was handcuffed, thrown face down in the snow and arrested. He
had to post his home as bond. Still he refused to become a federal
informant.
The irony of the federal government’s desire to obtain informants
within the Aryan Nations is that different branches of federal law
enforcement and intelligence gathering occupied five of the six key
positions in the organization. This means that the Aryan Nations were
effectively a government-run shop, with agents spying on each other to
ensure the integrity of an investigation – into an organization almost
entirely run by the federal government.
The government had an obsession with the Aryan Nations due to
Robert Jay Matthews, who was a member of
The Order,
a terrorist organization including members of the Aryan Nations. The
FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team burned Matthews alive inside his own home.
Due to his ongoing refusal to snitch, Weaver was then arrested in
January 1991, on illegal firearms sales charges. These charges stemmed
from Weaver’s earlier “sale” of two shortened shotguns to Faderley, the
undercover ATF agent – a sale which the feds later admitted constituted
illegal entrapment.
Weaver’s court date was set for February 19, 1991, then changed to
the next day. Weaver, however, received notice that his court date was
not until March 20. He missed his February court appearance and a bench
warrant was issued for his arrest. The
United States Marshals Service wanted to allow Weaver the chance to appear for what he thought was his court date, however, the
United States Attorney’s Office sought a grand jury indictment on March 14th – six days before his notice said he was due in court.
Already skeptical of the Feds after their repeated strongarm tactics,
both Randy and Vicki saw this as further evidence that Weaver would not
receive a fair trial. They increasingly isolated themselves on their
Ruby Ridge farm, vowing to fight rather than surrender peacefully.
During the standoff, a voluntary surrender date was negotiated with
the Marshals Service for October 1991, but the United States Attorney’s
Office refused the settlement. The
Deputy Director of the Special Operations Group of the Marshals Service,
using evidence obtained through surveillance, believed that the best
course of action was to drop the indictment, issue a new one under seal,
and use undercover agents to arrest Weaver, who presumably would have
dropped his guard. This recommendation was again rejected.
Shooting the Weavers’ Dog: The Siege of Ruby Ridge Begins
On August 21, 1992, six heavily armed, camouflaged U.S. Marshals went
to the Weaver property with the purpose of reconnaissance. The Weavers’
dogs gave away the position of the Marshals, alerting their 14-year-old
son Sammy and a 24-year-old friend of the family named Kevin Harris,
who investigated what the dogs were barking at while armed.
Unsurprisingly, there are several accounts of how the shooting began.
The Weavers claim that the camouflaged Marshals fired first and
refused to identify themselves. The Marshals claim that when they rose
to identify themselves, they were fired on by Sammy Weaver and Kevin
Harris. In yet another version of events, Marshals shot the Weavers’ dog
Striker as he exposed their position and were fired upon by Sammy in
retaliation.
Once the shooting began, Randy Weaver’s son, Sammy, was shot in the
back by Marshals immediately after yelling, “I’m coming, dad!” as he ran
back to the house. That is to say, he was fleeing the scene, not
regrouping for another attack.
After this initial exchange, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team – sometimes disparagingly called the “Hostage Roasting Team,”
due to their proclivity to burn down buildings – was called in to assess the situation.
Sniper and observer teams were deployed by the Hostage Rescue Team. A
sniper aimed for an instant kill shot on Randy, but Randy moved at the
last minute and the shot entered his shoulder, exiting through his
armpit. He then fled back to the house from the shed where he had been
viewing the body of his dead son.
A second shot missed Kevin Harris and hit Vicki in the head, who was
holding their 10-month-old daughter at the time in her arms, a powerful
image
often invoked in the telling of the story.
This same second shot hit Harris after exiting Vicki. An internal
investigation found that the second shot was out of policy and that the
failure to request surrender was “inexcusable.”
FBI Sniper Lon Horiuchi fired through a door without seeing who was
on the other side of it – at people who were fleeing and posed no
threat. He was later charged with manslaughter in these deaths, but the
charges were dropped.
Horiuchi was also involved in the
Waco siege, and
Timothy McVeigh
printed up cards for gun shows encouraging people to target him.
Indeed, McVeigh considered targeting Horiuchi and his family rather than
the federal building. In 1995, he pleaded the Fifth when questioned
about the matter by the United States Senate. His whereabouts are
currently unknown.
The rules of engagement were changed on the fly to effectively
encourage shooting anyone on sight. This included the remaining Weaver
children, who were known to carry weapons 81 percent of the time. Once
the siege began, none of the Weavers fired a shot.
The standoff lasted ten days, and involved between 350 and 400 agents
who cruelly named their camp, “Camp Vicki.” They would routinely call
out “Vicki, we have blueberry pancakes,” but claimed to not know that
she was dead. Supporters of the Weavers and opponents of the ATF and FBI
formed a vigil.
Weaver’s commanding officer from Vietnam,
James “Bo” Gritz (who was currently running for President on the
Populist Party ticket) acted as a mediator between the family and government agents. Radio broadcaster
Paul Harvey
intervened, offering to pay for a robust defense for Weaver if he
surrendered. This was what led Weaver to abandon the standoff and
surrender himself to federal authorities.
The Aftermath of the Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge
Weaver was charged with ten counts, including the original charges, of illegal firearms sales. His attorney,
Gerry Spence,
successfully defended Weaver against a host of charges, including
murder, by using a self-defense argument. Weaver was ultimately only
convicted of the charge of failure to appear, for which he was sentenced
to
18 months in prison and a fine of $10,000.
He was credited with time served plus three months. Kevin Harris was
acquitted of all charges. These were the longest deliberations in Idaho
criminal history.
Weaver sued the federal government, which avoided a civil trial by
awarding damages of $1,000,000 each to the three surviving Weaver
children and $100,000 to Randy. Harris eventually received a settlement
of $380,000 after several years of appeals against a government who
claimed they would never issue any payment to someone who had killed a
federal marshal.
It is worth noting that the federal government took active steps to
cover their tracks after the Siege of Ruby Ridge. The chief of the
bureau's Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Section pled guilty to
attempting to destroy all copies of the FBI’s internal report on the
siege. Federal Judge Edward Lodge penned a lengthy list of misdeeds,
including fabrication of evidence and refusing to comply with court
orders.
Deval Patrick, then-Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and
later Governor of Massachusetts, later found that federal agents had not
used excessive force.
One of the biggest changes after the Siege of Ruby Ridge was a change in the rules of engagement. In October 1995, the
Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information
ordered all federal agencies to standardize their rules of engagement,
particularly as pertained to deadly force. Randy and his daughter Sara
wrote a book about the events in 1998 entitled
The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge. The family now live in
Kalispell, Montana. Sara became a Born Again Christian in 2012, and forgave the federal agents.
There was, predictably, very little meaningful blowback on the United
States Marshals Service or any other parts of the federal government.
The Ruby Ridge Task Force delivered a highly redacted 542-page report.
And the six marshals involved in the initial shootout were given the
highest commendations awarded by the United States Marshal Service.
In 1997, the Justice Department declined to prosecute senior FBI
officials for covering up the details of the case. Two FBI agents were
prosecuted, one served 18 months in prison for
destruction of evidence and the other had the charges dismissed. The second-in-command of the FBI was demoted and three other agents were suspended.
In 1996, Weaver offered his services to defuse tensions between the FBI and the
Montana Freeman,
however, this offer was declined. In 2000, Weaver visited the former
site of the Branch Davidian Church that had been destroyed in another
high-profile siege. He later offered support to
Edward and Elaine Brown, who were resisting federal taxes at the time.
How It Could Have Gone: John Joe Gray
While it might be easy to take the cynical route and say that Ruby
Ridge changed nothing (particularly in the wake of the Waco Siege, which
took place a mere year after the Siege of Ruby Ridge), we have at least
one example of the federal government admitting that it tread lightly
to avoid another Ruby Ridge-like situation.
John Joe Gray is a sovereign citizen living on a 50-acre wooded ranch in Trinidad,
Texas.
During a traffic stop, he became involved in an altercation with Texas
Trooper Jim Cleland. Cleland reached for a .357 in Gray’s car. His car
was filled with anti-government literature, including pamphlets
referencing bombing a bridge. After the altercation with the Trooper, he
was charged with two felonies: taking a police officer’s weapon and
assault on a public servant.
Gray promised to have no weapons while he was awaiting trial and
posted bond. After the fact, a judge declared that his bond was
insufficient. He then ordered Gray arrested. Henderson County Sheriff
Ray Nutt stated that
"This kook is not worth it. Ten of him is not worth going up there and getting one of my young deputies killed."
So how long did local, state and federal authorities allow Gray to
hole up on his ranch without any kind of armed confrontation? Just a few
days shy of 15 years, in what was the longest law enforcement standoff
in American history.
The charges were eventually dropped,
under the premise that Gray had essentially served a 15-year house
arrest term and that a militant confrontation in the style of Ruby Ridge
didn’t benefit anyone.
While Randy Weaver’s stand might have made the Feds think twice about
coming in guns blazing the next time they can’t strongarm someone –
with an eccentric lifestyle and unusual beliefs – into turning
informant, this is likely cold comfort for Weaver who lost his
14-year-old son and wife.
This is why those in the freedom, patriot, Constitutional, survival
and Second Amendment movements remember this day. It is a chilling
reminder of the predatory and aggressive nature of federal law
enforcement.
