Monday

Musings and History

Quote of the day:

                                     “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

                                          Stephen King

                           (quoted in Shawshank Redemption)

We all need to read this occasionally. It tells you what your federal government is capable of. It is a little long but it will be worth your while.

                        Ruby Ridge

This is the story of Randy Weaver and his family who lived in a very remote area of the Idaho Panhandle. This event took place in the summer of 1992 and there is a lot more detail to this story than I am going to tell you, but you will have a good picture of what happened.

Randy and Vicki Weaver was an outspoken couple trying to survive in the backwoods of Idaho. After several lost jobs and a failed Amway franchise, they became convinced that a group called the Zionist Occupation Government was about to launch an all-out war on its own citizens. So they gathered up $5,000 and bought a 20 acre plot of land in the hinterland of Idaho to escape the expected turmoil that they saw on the horizon. They built a small cabin out of scrap lumber on Caribou Ridge, near Ruby Creek. The closest town of Bonners Ferry was eight miles away. It was the news media that named it Ruby Ridge.

There was a white supremacist outfit in the area called the Aryan Nation. Randy and Vicki were not members but they shared many of the beliefs with this group and attended the Aryan Nation Church on occasion. They home schooled their kids and had signs on their property saying “White Power is Supreme” and “Bow down to Yahweh”. To those of you who do not know who Yahweh is, it is the early Hebrew term for God as stated in the Old Testament.

In 1986 Randy attended the World Congress of Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho, their headquarters. In all Randy attended three different functions at Hayden Lake. Later on Randy said “I am not a white supremacist but I am a white separatist. I was born white, I can’t help that. If I had been born black I probably be affiliated with Louis Farrakhan’s group, but as it is, I don’t belong to anything. I do not believe I am superior to anyone but I do believe I have the right to be with the people of my choice.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had been really anxious to get some eyes and ears in on the Aryan Nation and they saw Randy Weaver as the perfect mole. At the 1986 World Congress Randy befriended a 245 pound biker named Gus Magisono. Only Gus wasn’t a biker, he was an undercover ATF informant named Kenneth Faderley. Three years later “Gus” asked Randy to sell him two sawed off shotguns and Randy agreed. The deal was consummated but the barrels of the shotguns were within the legal length but the stock was 3/8” shorter than the legal limit making Randy a violator of federal law. Later there was a point of dispute as to who shortened the stocks 3/8” shorter than the law allowed. As you might suspect it was a set-up by the ATF. In June of 1990 the AFT confronted Randy with the shotgun violations and said if he would become a mole in the Aryan Nation he could avoid hard time in a federal prison. This was nothing but extortion and entrapment. Randy refused and immediately went to the buddies at the Aryan Nation and told them what happened. This really teed off the ATF because it put the Nation on alert for any new people and blew the cover for good old “Gus” thereby destroying three years of surveillance by the ATF. The ATF and the FBI decided that they would make an example of Randy for refusing to do their bidding and the harassment began.

In January of 1991 Randy and Vicki stopped to help a stranded motorist that just happened to be an ATF agent and Randy was arrested on the sawed off shotgun charge and jailed. The next morning he was brought before a federal judge. During the hearing the judge said that the only thing that would probably happen to Randy was that he would have to pay the government’s court costs. Randy had no money and realized he would probably end up losing his beloved cabin on 20 acres on Caribou Ridge. A trial date was set.

Rather than hire an attorney, Randy and Vicki began a letter writing campaign against the FBI and the ATF. In one letter to the U.S. Attorneys Office in Boise, Vicki wrote in part “A man cannot have two masters, Yahweh is our lawgiver and we will obey Him and no others.” She sent another letter to yet another U.S. Attorney saying in part …”The stench of your lawless government has reached Heaven, the abode of Yahweh. Whether we live or whether we die, we will not bend to your evil commandments.” I don’t know about all of that, but I really like Vicki’s phrasing.

Randy failed to appear in court on February 20, 1991 because the summons the Weavers received in January said the court date was March 30, not February. Federal judge Ryan declared this a “typo” and non-the-less declared Randy a fugitive from justice and issued a warrant for his arrest in spite of the Probation Officers testimony that the summons he sent to Randy had the wrong appearance date on it. Are you mad yet? This was clearly the Federal Government sending a signal that they were going to get their revenge for Randy blowing their surveillance of the Aryan Nation and intended it to be a warning to others to not buck the FBI/ATF. When the Weaver family found out that Randy was now a fugitive from justice, they had to assume that the ATF meant to assassinate him. After this, Randy never left the cabin and his family was rarely seen.

On March 18, 1991, Deputy Ronald Evans asked the help of the US Marshal’s service Special Operations Group, a voluntary

organization that primarily dealt with dangerous situations and hostage rescue. The collective group determined that it would take many days and nights of surveillance to determine Randy’s action and determine if he ever left the cabin if only for short while so they could serve the warrant. The Justice Department under the tutelage of Attorney General Janet Reno put the heat on to get this thing over so the SOG called in a psychiatrist to make a determination about what the Weaver family do if pressed. This yahoo, without interviewing any member of the Weavers, determined that every member of the family would fight to the death to protect Randy. Somehow, it was determined that the Weavers were heavily armed and the property was heavily fortified to repel an assault. All of this was bull crap, of course, all the Weavers had was a few hunting rifles and handguns but it gave the ATF/FBI an excuse to use deadly force if they felt like it.

On September 28, 1991 a seven man team from the SOG was sent to assist in the arrest of Randy. However upon arrival, the team determined that the information they had received that the SOG moved on was inaccurate and they believed the warrant could not be served without the danger of personal injury. They also determined that Vicki was pregnant and in her final months. Previously, Deputy US Marshal Cluff and Everett Hofmeister, Weaver’s appointed council, told Randy’s friend Rodney Willey that if Randy surrendered the failure to appear charge might be dismissed they also said that the sentence on the weapons charge would be minimal because he did not have a criminal record. Willey came back from a visit with the Weavers and said that Randy said he would not surrender because it was HIS rights being violated.

A series of surrender demands went back and forth between ATF and Randy for several months all of which were refused. The final refusal coming from Randy when he wrote, in part “Why should I believe you now when this all started when you lied to me in the past and sent an informant (Gus) to entrap me and then extort me?” And finally he said “I don’t have to prove my innocence as you indicate.” Then yet another US Attorney named Howen showed up and demanded that all surrender demands must go through the court appointed attorney not to Weaver directly and in addition there would be no negotiations before his surrender, only afterward. Well, I don’t know who this jackass thought he was but it put Randy into a corner with no way out. A severe winter and heavy snows stopped any further communications for a while.

The Department of Justice (Janet Reno) called and told the law enforcement people to bring this fiasco to a conclusion that they had spent way too much money for such a minor infraction. So, knowing that Randy Weaver was an ex-Green Beret, they planned for a military type assault. That’s right folks; Randy had served his country in Nam as an elite soldier. Two agents in camouflage bearing automatic weapons began to sneak up the hill toward the cabin. They didn’t count on Striker, Randy’s dog who began raising hell way before they got near the cabin. Randy’s friend Kevin Harris and Randy’s 14 year old son Sam left the cabin, rifles in hand, to see what was happening with Striker. The two agents began a retreat into the woods and set up a defensive position with Striker hot on their tail, Kevin and Sam not far behind. Then one of the agents shot and killed Striker and when Sam saw it he yelled “You shot Striker, you son-of-a bitch” and opened fire. The agents returned fire killing Sam. Then Kevin, who was in the lead, retreated toward the cabin and he found Sam’s body then Harris turned and shot and killed Marshal William Degan. At no time did the agents identify themselves as law enforcement officers. The next day an ATF sniper shot and wounded Randy while he and Kevin were outside trying the retrieve Sam’s body. Randy and Kevin ran back toward the cabin with Vicki holding the door open for them. Vicki had her 10 month old child in her arms also. The sniper, Lon Horiuchi, fired at Kevin and missed hitting Vicki in the head, killing her and the fetus instantly.

Eventually swarms of agents surrounded the cabin and a 10 day siege ensued. Not only that, hundreds of protesters surrounded the entire area raising almighty hell. The ATF called upon Randy’s commanding officer in Nam to come and talk with him. So James “Bo” Gritz had a long talk with Randy and persuaded him to surrender and allow the judicial system to do its work. Randy was charged with an array of charges including murder even though he had not fired a shot. Randy had as his attorney the famous defense attorney Gerry “Cowboy” Spence. Spence was able to get all the charges dropped except for the “failure to appear” charge, if you can believe that, and he was sentenced to 18 months minus time already served and fined $10,000 meaning he went to jail for three months. His buddy Kevin Harris, who had actually killed marshal Degan, was not charged.

By the way, the day the trial started there was a huge fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas killing 78 men, woman and children attended by members of the ATF and FBI, Janet Reno commanding. The surviving members of the Weaver family filed a wrongful death law suit and were awarded $3.1 million. Think on this. Three people and one fetus dead, millions of tax payer’s dollars spent because Randy had refused to neither be a mole nor be extorted. I do not think anything like this could happen today. But perhaps I am being naïve...maybe it could.

                               Justice is fragile…protect it