my bat mitzvah ROCKED posted:

im the fbi guy who shot a woman holding a baby

walgreenslatino posted:

As Weaver was undoing the latch, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot him in the back from 200 yards. As the trio attempted to run back through the cabin door, Horiuchi fired again. This bullet struck his wife Vicki in the head, as she clutched their 10 month old daughter, and killed her instantly.

walgreenslatino posted:

Lon Horiuchi was indicted for manslaughter for his second shot; the charges were dismissed based of sovereign immunity, as his actions were consistent with the rules of engagement drawn up by agents of the federal government.

Uncle Wemus posted:

Not only do I wish they all died but also all the neo Nazis who came out to support them should also died

Sodomy Non Sapiens posted:

I'm not American so had never heard of this prior till now but have heard of the stuff it might have influenced (WACO, Oklahoma City bombing). It was a really cool read. Thanks OP, good posts, good thread.

maskenfreiheit posted:

to put it in context, the oklahoma city bombing was meant to be retaliation for waco and ruby ridge... and it was the largest terror attack on US soil prior to 9/11

ArmZ posted:

so you're saying... america DESERVED 9/11

VikingSkull posted:

ruby ridge and waco weren't neo nazis though

do people on this site even know what that means

MC Hawking posted:

It'd be really interesting to see some writeups on similar incidents in other countries as well. I'm sure this kind of thing is not an unusual outlier. Great writeup OP! Also amusing to see Alex Jones has been a frothing boil on the taint of humanity since the 90s.

walgreenslatino posted:

Lon Horiuchi was indicted for manslaughter for his second shot; the charges were dismissed based of sovereign immunity, as his actions were consistent with the rules of engagement drawn up by agents of the federal government.

tsa posted:

and both of them are thought to be the key reasons that mcveigh did the Oklahoma city bombing, his alternative plan even being taking out the sniper that killed Vicki.

MeatwadIsGod posted:

I watched that PBS documentary on Netflix this morning. Was kinda surprised it was basically limited to the incident itself with just a brief afterword about the fallout and settlement afterwards. It's kind of baffling to me that the people in charge couldn't have known that Vicki Weaver was dead until days later. I mean, presumably they all would have heard the sniper's gunshot and gotten confirmation of the shots fired from the sniper himself? It's just hard to believe they couldn't have known.

Casimir Radon posted:

Bo Gritz is a loving scam artist who took in who knows how much money to search for missing POWs in Vietnam. He never found anyone, probably never really tried. Nor did he find any evidence. It's going to be a happy day when he finally dies.

VikingSkull posted:

ruby ridge and waco weren't neo nazis though

do people on this site even know what that means

walgreenslatino posted:

VikingSkull posted:

ruby ridge and waco weren't neo nazis though

do people on this site even know what that means

walgreenslatino posted:

There's definitely neo-nazi skinheads who were mad and are still mad about Ruby Ridge.

I know that most flippant people aren't being completely serious when they wish death on the Weavers or whoever. But I think the way the state has co-opted and neutered dissent against explicit state violence, by making two political sides identify respectively either with the Unimpeachable Cops or against the Unforgivable Racists, is one of the scariest lingering effects of the siege.

walgreenslatino posted:

I know that most flippant people aren't being completely serious when they wish death on the Weavers or whoever. But I think the way the state has co-opted and neutered dissent against explicit state violence, by making two political sides identify respectively either with the Unimpeachable Cops or against the Unforgivable Racists, is one of the scariest lingering effects of the siege.

OXBALLS DOT COM posted:

Owned, disenters. You're all racists now.

walgreenslatino posted:

There's definitely neo-nazi skinheads who were mad and are still mad about Ruby Ridge.

I know that most flippant people aren't being completely serious when they wish death on the Weavers or whoever. But I think the way the state has co-opted and neutered dissent against explicit state violence, by making two political sides identify respectively either with the Unimpeachable Cops or against the Unforgivable Racists, is one of the scariest lingering effects of the siege.

WatermelonGun posted:

Super stoked you're back

Uncle Wemus posted:

Former DILF posted:

Thats just the thing though, this kind of response was not developed in the 1990s, you can see acts like this all over the place in the late civil rights era and echoes of Pinkteron response during the labor movement era

walgreenslatino posted:

On August 21st, 1992, United States Marshals began scouting a remote Idaho cabin not far from the Canadian border. The events that would follow would shock the country and give energy to movements both well-intentioned and evil. The shockwaves from Ruby Ridge can be felt everywhere from the defense at Confederate monuments, to the election of Donald Trump, to anti-government protests both Left and Right. It is probably the single most important American political event of the 1990s. It revitalized the right wing, the defense of the second amendment, the fear of government overreach, the militia movement, white nationalists, anti-globalists, and more.



Inside that cabin was the Marshals' target, a paranoid and religious alleged white nationalist named Randy Weaver, as well as his wife, children, a family friend, and their dogs. Weaver and his family had moved into seclusion after his wife Vicki's religious visions urged them to remove themselves from a fallen, corrupted world. Weaver was charged with violation of the National Firearms Act after allegedly purchasing a sawed-off shotgun from a government informant (allegations that he was a bank robber were later revealed to be completely bogus), but had failed to show for trial after it was rescheduled and he was mistakenly sent the wrong date. Attempts over the preceding year to bring Weaver in peacefully had been unsuccessful, and the botched trial and ongoing attempts at surveillance only amplified his family's sense of being unjustly under siege.




As the six Marshals, heavily armed and kitted in camouflage and night vision goggles, approached the cabin and waited to ambush Weaver, one threw a rock to gauge the reaction of the dogs. As they started barking, Weaver's friend Kevin Harris and Weaver's 14 year old son Samuel exited the cabin with rifles to investigate, apparently saying aloud they believed the dogs to be alerting to the presence of an animal they might hunt for food. The Marshals stealthily retreated, and Sam, Kevin, and the dog followed the source of the noise about 500 meters, to a Y-shaped fork in the trails. Here the stories diverge. According to the Marshals, they identified themselves to the pair; Harris then allegedly shot and killed a Marshal, and in the return fire the Marshals killed Sammy and the dog in self defense. Harris' account of the event is different: he alleged that the dog ran up to a Marshal and began bouncing around in a friendly manner, at which point the Marshal shot and killed the dog in front of the 14 year old boy. At this point Sammy yelled "You shot my dog, you son of a bitch" and began shooting at the Marshals. Regardless of whether a man with no warrants opened fire on identified law enforcement officers, or if cops killed a dog for no reason, the firefight ended with Deputy US Marshal Bill Degan mortally wounded and Sammy Weaver dead of a gunshot to the back. Harris fled back to the cabin, with Randy and Vicki Weaver returning to retrieve their son's body after the Marshals retreated.




Following the firefight at the trails, the Idaho governor declared a state of emergency, and state and federal law enforcement mobilized dramatically. The FBI, ATF, and Marshals were determined to avenge the death of Bill Degan and display a strong show of force, both to the Weavers and to anti-government types. The FBI drafted rules of engagement specifying that any armed adult seen on the property was to be taken out with deadly force, which were later famously described as "virtual shoot on sight" orders during the Senate investigation. On August 22nd, with scope of the siege expanding, FBI sniper teams were deployed as Federal law enforcement awaited the arrival of specialized hostage negotiators.

In the early afternoon of the 22nd, Randy Weaver, his 16 year old daughter Sara, and Harris exited the cabin and made his way a small nearby shed, to visit the body of his son Sammy. As Weaver was undoing the latch, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot him in the back from 200 yards. As the trio attempted to run back through the cabin door, Horiuchi fired again. This bullet struck his wife Vicki in the head, as she clutched their 10 month old daughter, and killed her instantly. Several hours later, a police robot approached the cabin and announced the execution of the warrant against Randy Weaver; the family alleged this was the first point at which they learned their assailants were law enforcement.




For 10 more days, Weaver, his daughters, and Harris remained in the cabin with Vicki's body, as 400 Federal law enforcement officers taunted them from afar. Later claiming that they were unaware of her death, the officers exhorted on megaphones for Vicki to come out and have "blueberry pancakes" for breakfast, even informally naming their emplacement "Camp Vicki" after her. As news spread, protestors from around the country appeared, some furious at the Feds actions, some hoping to see what was happening for themselves. On August 31st, Randy Weaver surrendered to civilian anti-government activist Bo Gritz.





In the aftermath, the colossal mismanagement of the operation vindicated Weaver and spurred a massive federal investigation. Charged with a litany of offenses stemming from the incident, he was eventually acquited of all charges except missing his original court date. It was revealed that from the early days of the siege, FBI officials were skeptical of the original charges, the early behavior of Marshals, the rules of engagement, and nearly every aspect of how the operation was run. Lon Horiuchi was indicted for manslaughter for his second shot; the charges were dismissed based of sovereign immunity, as his actions were consistent with the rules of engagement drawn up by agents of the federal government. In a settlement, the federal government awarded over 2 million dollars to Weaver and his daughters. The shame of Ruby Ridge, and the desire to project a strong face in the aftermath of the national dressing-down, was a strong motivator for the later ATF and FBI aggression at Waco, and likely contributed to the tragic outcome of that standoff.

Uncle Wemus posted:

Not only do I wish they all died but also all the neo Nazis who came out to support them should also died