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Ruby Ridge

Never Forget What The US Government Did At Ruby Ridge!

Recalled by John of AllFaith 02.28.2009

In harmony with accepted internet Fair use Policies

A lot of people seem to have forgotten about the Ruby Ridge Ambush!

But we NEED to remember what the U.S. government did at Ruby Ridge as we prepare for what they are planning to do to us all soon.

The following is an extract from a very long and good piece explaining the whole affair. I strongly recommend reading it all!

Ambush at Ruby Ridge

How government agents set Randy Weaver up and took his family down

Alan W. Bock | October 1993 Print Edition

Perhaps it was inevitable that the longest federal trial in Idaho history would be followed by the longest jury deliberation in such a trial–a 20-daymarathon that had news people joking about whether the jury planned to put in for retirement benefits. The eight-week trial of Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris grew out of such a bizarre set of circumstances that it’s not surprising it took a while for the jurors to sort things out. It probably also took them a while to come to grips with the idea that government agencies could so blatantly engage in entrapment, lying, cover-ups, and the killing of innocent people. As one alternate juror, excused before deliberations were completed, put it: "I felt like a little kid that finds out there is no Santa Claus"

...... The story behind the Weaver/Harris verdict began with government entrapment and continued through 16 months of armed surveillance of Weaver’s cabin in the steep, heavily wooded Selkirk Mountains near Naples, about 40 miles south of the Canadian border in the rural "panhandle" region of northern Idaho. It climaxed in a bloody shootout that left three people dead, including Weaver’s wife, Vicki, killed by an FBI sniper as she stood in the door of the cabin holding her 10- month-old baby. In the wake of the shootout, federal agents offered shifting and contradictory accounts of the events....

There are several eerie similarities between the Randy Weaver episode and the federal government’s deadly confrontation with Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, last spring. Both involved the use of massive force against people with fringe religious beliefs. Both standoffs were initiated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms based on technical weapons charges. In both cases the FBI eventually became involved. There are two main differences: Fewer lives were lost in Idaho, and the government may actually be held accountable for what it did there.

..... In January 1984, the Weavers bought 20 acres pretty far back in the woods and up in the mountains, on what was called Ruby Ridge. To get to the property, you have to drive about three miles on a decent dirt road off the main drag, then another couple of miles on a much steeper and heavily rutted dirt road.....

... At Ruby Ridge, Randy and Vicki built a cabin on a small, rocky bluff, planted extensive gardens, built a couple of storage sheds, and lived, schooling their children at home. Randy would take occasional odd jobs to pay for things that required cash, but you can make it on relatively little money in the area if you garden and hunt....

.... In December 1990, Randy Weaver was indicted for manufacturing, possessing, and selling illegal firearms. The difference between legal and illegal in this case was about a quarter inch of barrel per gun and a $200 tax stamp. On January 17, l991,two BATF agents, posing as a couple having engine trouble with a pickup truck hauling a camper, stopped on the one-lane bridge leading to the Weaver property. Randy and Vicki stopped to help. When Randy looked under the hood, the male agent stuck a .45-caliber pistol the back of his neck and announced he was under arrest. Other law-enforcement agents piled out of the camper. Vicki Weaver was thrown face down into the snow and mud. Randy was taken into custody and later released on a $ 10,000 bond. Vicki was not arrested....

.... The trial was originally set for February 19, 1991, then changed to February 20 for the convenience of the BATF. But Probation Officer Karl Richins sent Weaver a letter, dated February 7, instructing him to appear on March 20. Although Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Howen, who later acted as prosecutor, knew Weaver had been sent an erroneous notification, he appeared before the grand jury on March 14 (six days before the date Richins gave Weaver) and got an indictment for failure to appear on February 20. That set the stage.

There’s some question about whether Randy Weaver ever received a notification, even the one giving the wrong trial date. In any case, he apparently decided not to appear, fearing he would be railroaded into prison without an opportunity to defend himself properly, on the basis of false testimony. He spent the next 18 months on his mountain, hardly even venturing outside the cabin. Friends brought food and other supplies for the family, which by August 1992 included Sara, 16, Sammy, 14, Rachel, I0, and a 10-month-old baby, Elisheba.

Meanwhile, the feds began an elaborate 16-month surveillance of the cabin and surrounding area. Federal agents testified in court that they never seriously considered simply knocking on the door and serving the arrest warrant, because they feared an armed confrontation. Instead, they paid a neighbor (a relative term in this terrain but the house was on the only road to the Weaver property) to record the comings and goings of visitors and take down license numbers. They paid for a phone line to be installed at the neighbor’s house. They placed agents of the BATF and the U.S. Marshals Service on and around the property, usually in full camouflage gear. Agents went to the cabin in the guise of people interested in an adjacent piece of prop erty that had no source of water and hadn’t had a serious prospective buyer in years.’

Two concealed video cameras, one solar powered, were set up to monitor the family’s activities and visitors. Sniper positions were scouted The feds discussed various plans, including the the use of stun guns and tear gas, cutting the water supply and kidnapping Sara, who slept in the "birthing house" (a shed several yards from the main cabin) during her menstrual period. About 160 hours of videotape were recorded. Agents rented a whole condominium building in Spokane as a base of operations. Neighbors and friends were questioned. Planes and helicopters were rented for aerial reconnaissance and photography. The habits of the family dogs were studied. Phone taps were ordered for several residences and for the phones at the general store.

Your tax dollars at work. All to capture a man accused of a minor gun offense, a charge that might well have been rejected had it come to trial. Even if Weaver had been found guilty on the weapons charge, he would probably have gotten a shorter sentence than the one he imposed on himself by holing up in his cabin.

The Weavers were aware of being watched, although they may not have known how extensive the operation was. They saw lowflying aircraft, and Vicki even invited a couple of obviously nervous "real estate prospects" into the cabin for coffee one day. Some friends report the family believed they would all be killed eventually, while others say the Weavers expected the feds to get tired of the game. Perhaps their attitude shifted back and forth.

Finally, on August 21, 1992, the ultimate tragedy began. A six-man team from the Special Operations Group of the U.S. Marshals Service came onto the Weavers’ property at 4:30 a.m., dressed in full camouflage and ski masks, carrying night vision goggles and silenced 9-mm M-16 machine guns with laser scopes. Three deputy marshals, Lawrence Cooper, William Degan, and Art Roderick, poked around close to the cabin, while the other three, in radio contact, were placed at observation points. The agents testified that they were doing surveillance for a possible future operation. A medical team was on alert at the bottom of the hill...

... After poking around the property for a while, the three deputy marshals stood behind the rock near the driveway, well below the cabin, and started throwing little stones up toward the cabin, to "see if they could get the dogs’ attention." Soon Striker, the family’s yellow labrador, began following the agents, who circled the property along the logging road to the "Y," where there’s a thick stand of trees.

Sammy Weaver and Kevin Harris, apparently believing the dog had sniffed out a deer or some other game (the family was out of meat), followed the dog along the logging road. Randy Weaver went down the straighter, easier trail. It’s a fairly standard hunting practice to get a deer surrounded and trapped.

Cooper testified that before the deputy marshals could take cover (he said they feared being shot in the back), they saw Randy coming down the trail and ordered him to stop. Randy yelled at Kevin and Sammy to head back for the cabin, that it was an ambush. He fired a couple of shots in the air and ran toward the cabin.

Cooper and Degan took cover in the stand of trees. The dog and the two boys came to the "Y" and turned up the trail toward th cabin. What happened next is still in dispute.

Cooper told the jury that as the boys passed their concealed spot, Degan crouched on one knee and yelled, "Stop, U.S. Marshal!"–whereupon Kevin fired his .30-06 rifle from the hip and shot Degan in the chest. But Idaho State Police Capt. David Neale testified that shortly after the battle, Roderick told him that he, Roderick, had fired first, wounding and then killing Sammy’s dog, Striker. And although the government initially claimed that Degan was killed by the first shot of the battle, seven shells from his gun were found near the deputy marshals’ hiding place.

What is certain is that the dog was shot in the rear end (suggesting that he was running away) and then killed by a second shot. Sammy Weaver, who was running toward the cabin, wheeled around, yelled something like "you shot my dog, you son of a bitch," fired a couple of rounds, and started running again. He was shot twice–first wounded in the elbow and then killed by a bullet in the back. Kevin fired his .30-06 at the marshals and believed he had hit Degan, though he insists the marshals started shooting first and he was firing in self-defense after Sammy was hit....

..... Toward evening, Randy and Kevin retrieved Sammy’s body, wrapped it as best they could, and put it in the birthing shed near the main cabin. A siege that was to last 11 days was under way.

What happened the next day may have been determined on an airplane taking Richard Rogers, commander of the FBl’s Hostage Rescue Team, from Washington, D.C., to Idaho. The law ordinarily permits the use of deadly force by law-enforcement officers only when the officers or others are in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury. But in writing the "rules of engagement" for the siege to follow, Rogers, who had not yet spoken to anyone who had actually been at the cabin, didn’t know aboutthe 14 shots fired by the deputy marshals. He seemed to be under the impression that a fierce two-way gun battle was going on even as he wrote. So he decided that any armed adult outside the Weaver cabin should be subject to "shoot-to-kill" sniping, whether or not that person was menacing anyone.

..... The family owned 14 weapons–all legal until a couple of shotguns were sawed off at a government snitch’s behest. That may seem like a lot of guns to some, especially city dwellers, but it isn’t very unusual in rural areas.

The arrival of the hostage team marked the beginning of buildup. At least 400 people equipped with sophisticated militar hardware, including "humvees," armored personnel carriers, an. various aircraft, were eventually deployed in the woods around Randy Weaver’s plywood cabin.

The rules of engagement supposedly required a warning before any shots were fired, but that didn’t happen. On August 22, the day after the shootout, Randy Weaver left the cabin for the little outbuilding that held his son’s body. As he raised his arm to unlatch the door to the shed, he was shot by a sniper posted on the mountainside. The bullet entered his right shoulder area and exited near his armpit. He and Kevin Harris, who was also outside, ran for the cabin. Vicki Weaver stood in the doorway, yelling for the two to hurry, cradling baby Elisheba in her arms. She was unarmed.

As Kevin Harris tumbled into the house, another shot from the sniper went through the glass window and entered Vicki Weaver’s temple, killing her instantly. The bullet and fragments of Vicki’s skull went on to injure Kevin Harris’s arm and torso, breaking a rib and puncturing one of his lungs.

The sniper, Lon Horiuchi, was a West Point graduate armed with state-of-the--art sniping equipment and trained to be accurate to within a quarter inch at 200 yards. He claims he missed Kevin and hit Vicki by accident. But Bo Gritz, the former Green Beret commander who eventually negotiated Randy Weaver’s surrender, said that after he became a negotiator the FBI showed him a psychological profile of the family prepared for the Marshals Service before the siege that described Vicki as the "dominant member" of the family. "Vicki was the maternal head of the family," Gritz told the Spokane Spokesmar-Review. "I believe Vicki was shot purposely by the sniper as a priority target.... The profile said, if you get a chance, take Vicki Weaver out."

In any case, Vicki Weaver was dead. Her body remained in the kitchen, covered with a sheet, for a week....

..... If the holocaust in Waco hadn’t happened even as the Weaver trial was under way, all this might be an essentially regional story of government bungling with tragic results. But Waco did happen. The lead agency was the BATF, determined to make an arrest of dubious public-safety importance with an overwhelming show of force. The FBI got involved when the confrontation became a siege (Dick Rogers was on the scene at Waco too), and massive amounts of military and paramilitary equipment were deployed against American citizens. The option of a simple arrest was rejected in favor of a military-style attack. Innocent people were killed.

And then a year the Federal government bombed the OK City Federal Building blaming it on the Militias.... And the tragedies continue to mount as the Federal Government of the United States continues its war on the American people in preparation for martial law and the implementation of the North American Union.

The following videos offer a fairly balanced view of the US Government Murders. Some of the information is a bit off. I obviously do not support the Antisemitism of the Aryan Nations nor did the Weavers even though they did have such associates. In any case, this assault on this American family was completely unjustified:

Ruby Ridge Massacre 1 of 5