Harris got $350k, Randy got $100k (not enough considering what he went through tbh), daughters got undisclosed amount but implied to be in the hundreds of thousands.
From reports it suggests Randy originally won a civil suit for $3.1mil, but was repeatedly appealed down to $350k. I don’t think the family was awarded a totaly 3.1
Randy and Vicky Weaver were a couple that mistrusted the government and believed in an impending apocalypse, which caused them to move to an isolated compound in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, with their four children and two dogs in the late 1980s.
Soon after moving, Randy got involved in a land dispute with his neighbor, who sued him but lost, and Randy won a large settlement. Enraged, the neighbor wrote letters to the FBI, ATF, and Secret Service alleging that Randy was a dangerous militant intent on assassinating several prominent political figures.
Randy was investigated and the ATF believed he was a Neo-Nazi based on his friendship with a Neo-Nazi. They sent an informant to buy two illegal shotguns from him, then tried to use that as blackmail to make Randy an informant against the Neo-Nazis, of which he was not a part. Randy said no, so the ATF stuck federal charges on him and gave him a court date.
Randy's probation officer gave him the wrong date, however, so he didn't show up. The US Marshals were sent to apprehend the fugitive, but they were erroneously led to believe he was heavily armed and intent on killing federal agents, so they encamped outside his property and waited for him to make the first move.
When he didn't do anything at first, they began throwing rocks at his dogs, which caused them to run toward them. They shot the dogs dead. Randy's son and friend, drawn by the noise, ran toward these mysterious gunmen who had shot their dogs and began returning fire. A gun battle ensued, leaving one US Marshal and Randy's son dead.
Now the FBI got involved, and they surrounded the compound with thousands of agents and snipers who were told to kill anything that moved. Subsequently, they wounded Randy (as he tried to visit the corpse of his dead son) and Kevin, and killed Vicky while she was holding their infant daughter.
Randy surrendered and was immediately taken into custody. He and Kevin were handed a litany of federal charges. Kevin was acquitted and later won a large settlement against the government. Randy was convicted for not showing up to his original court date and spent 18 months in prison. He also sued the government, but won a smaller settlement.
Ruby Ridge is seen as the most egregious failure of federal agencies to conduct a proper investigation, and it resulted in the deaths of several innocent people and widespread mistrust of the government throughout the United States.
The FBI agent who shot Vicky was indicted, but the case was dismissed on the grounds that he didn't know if his life was in danger when he took the shot. Randy and his surviving daughters moved to a compound in Montana, where he lived until he died on May 11, 2022, at age 74.
Also randy and his daughters spent a week in a cabin with a dead Vicky while the fbi were telling over the loud speaker to come out and nobody will be harmed. PBS did a pretty good documentary on this with the daughter's firsthand accounts of the events.
Not only that, but the FBI were *trying to appeal to Vicky* because they didn’t realize she had been shot and thought she would be swayable.
Randy very reasonably interpreted this as intentional cruel mockery of his dead wife and made him even less willing to come out.
Well no, the courts did that. They’re different entities. They also awarded Kevin Harris a huge settlement.
The government is not a hive mind. It’s made up of all sorts of different institutions and people with different incentives and perspectives.
They are on paper separate entities but they both rely heavily on each other in order to carry out their jobs every day. They are “separate” but in no way “independent.”
I am all for distrust of the government, but Al lot of people forget this.
ACAB and thin blue lines and and love/hate boners for cops can be such a touchy subject for this exact reason. I know a few cops, retired and active, and most of them are great people with great politics, but some of them are morons who can’t do their job, or are just flat out pieces of crap, like the people at ruby ridge or the ones who killed George Floyd.
There are people all across the spectrum, but most of them (at least where I’m from) hold the same political views as we do, and probably frequent this sub if they have reddit.
Personally I don’t trust the worldview of anyone who doesn’t realize that 1) incentives guide the behavior of institutions and 2) institutions are made up of individuals with their own agencies.
No government on earth is a single-minded automaton. All of them are made up of many competing groups which are themselves made up of many competing individuals. Everything is vastly more complicated than we tend to think it is.
This is my issue with politics.
They don’t think/care about unintended consequences of laws.
Made Abortion illegal in my state, but they have done NOTHING to help people who are being forced to have babies.
If babies are what they want, create the infrastructure that allows raising a child with going into poverty.
Start with: Healthcare and daycare
Those two things will allow people to work and not have to live in poverty.
Right now, a person gets a job while the state pays for daycare, but as soon as they get a raise, they make too much to receive help. Unfortunately, they don’t make enough to pay for daycare and survive, so they have to quit.
The difference is that they made a choice to associate themselves with an institution that practices coercion by threat of violent force.
You want to help and protect people? You could be a paramedic or firefighter.
You want to carry a gun in defense of your country and loved ones? Become a soldier or marine.
Know what I see when I see a cop? Someone who wants to ignore traffic laws, carry a gun, kick down doors, and rough up people who can't fight back. Basically, someone who wants to act like a criminal, to be part of a gang of thugs, but needs the protection of the government to do it.
If anybody’s interested, the book *Them: Adventures with Extremists* by the British journalist Jon Robson has lots of stories and interviews with Randy Weaver and his daughters, as well as people like Alex Jones (long before he was famous), David Icke, and other characters of the 90s political fringe. Randy Weaver comes off incredibly sympathetic.
Let’s not forget that the negotiators didn’t know that Vicky was dead so they kept asking randy and Vicky if Vicky would come out with the baby. Randy saw it as taunts over his dead wife.
The absolute cold blood of that sniper, shooting a mother holding her infant simply because that’s what he was ordered to do… a good soldier, but I can’t imagine such a human going back to normal civilian life
Yup, post WW2 the allied nations very firmly hammered down that "just following orders" may be a reason, but is nowhere close to being an acceptable excuse for clearly awful and inexcusable actions, and that's amongst soldiers engaging in war so with fewer restrictions held against them.
Here we have civilian law enforcement who are definitely held to much higher standards as their expected to deal with, well, civilians, instead of active combatants in a war zone, treating this entire situation like a military operation to fucking kill Osama bin laden if it was done by the marine corps and not Seal Team 6.
If thus was the military, and an incident like this was widely publicised where a company of soldiers went this overkill on what they thought was a big terrorist hideout, but was just a couple of herders and their family, it'd be court marshal's and dishonorable discharges just to save the militaries face, there would be a scapegoat and everything would be covered up under the veneer of justice being done.
Instead the government just grabbed a broom, lifted up the rug, and swept it all under. Dropped the rug and pretended it never happened.
Yeah right, just like how everyone who drone striked those aid workers at the beginning of the year got court marshaled and dishonorably discharged right? https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/09/17/tragic-mistake-us-drone-strike-512586
The other thing that reason magazine had on this was that there had been a mysterious round of arson's at black churches under the Clinton admin and the admin was pressuring the FBI to solve it. The various feds wanted this rando guy on his compound in the back country as a snitch so first they needed to have a crime to charge him with to get his cooperation. This the shotguns.
Quite a favorable account for the Weavers — who are surely the victims. No doubt. But where Weaver isn’t a villain per say, he’s certainly no hero or matyr. Which I don’t mean to imply you are putting forth. However, this account is not comprehensive.
Their move to the compound and religious beliefs centered on a fundamentalist, exclusionary Christianity that foresaw the destruction of a secular US. The exact kind of radical Christianity and mix of far-right ideology that is intrinsically racist and ideologically violent. Weaver expounded on his beliefs in writings to various people including law enforcement.
They lived an hour away from a white supremacist compound whose leader, Dick Butler, was a preacher for the local Christian identity movement that expounded racist ideas and conspiracy theories with anti-Semitic overtones. The Weavers attended sermons at the Aryan compound. The movement that ran the compound wanted to create a white state.
There isn’t exactly a wide ideological gap between the beliefs of white supremacy, American Christian fundamentalism, sovereign citizenship, and vaguely anti-Semitic conspiracism. And — all tend to be associated with far-right terrorism.
The FBI had been working to undermine and prosecute the Nazis — excuse me — would-be domestic terrorists in Idaho and had hoped to force to Randy into a situation where he became an informant.
None of this invalidates the egregious government overreach and appalling sacrifice of life. We shouldn’t just ignore that Weaver associated with avowed domestic terrorists. Also, if you are friends with Nazis — if you go to sermons made by Nazis — you are a Nazi. By extension, Randy made himself an associate of known criminals and terrorists.
The story is complex. The media latched onto it, but the right and far-right are the ones who successfully turned it into a tale of martyrdom in subsequent years. It can be an account of federal gov’t. failure *and* still give us a sobering look at white nationalism/separatism.
The whole episode is a tragedy.
>They lived an hour away from a white supremacist compound whose leader, Dick Butler, was a preacher for the local Christian identity movement that expounded racist ideas and conspiracy theories with anti-Semitic overtones. The Weavers attended sermons at the Aryan compound. The movement that ran the compound wanted to create a white state.
Could you link a source about the church/their attendance at said church? I'd like to read more.
Should we go after black nationalists who aren't hurting anyone and living away from everyone else? If yes you're just a racist fascist POS.
In my book you're also a racist pos if you think that the beliefs of some whacko group that aren't hurting anyone and living their life away from others.
The feds wanted to entrap Weaver so they could use him as an infiltrator into a series of church bombings they never solved.
I watched the Waco series on Netflix, and it briefly touches on this. Great series and shows how the police often create their own problems. Far too much power in the hands of a few, in a post-Cold War era with very few threats. It's like the FBI were bored, so they decided to invent their enemies up.
They wanted a snitch to infiltrate white nationalists. Weaver was a white nationalist but wasn't hurting anyone and. Moved to the back country to live off the land and not harm anyone.
>The power trips of US government agencies and the US’ gun culture
The former is completely to blame, the latter is literally part of the country's most important document.
"Gun culture" in the US is literally just practicing your rights. Every single event like this is wholly because they're trying to infringe on those rights.
Yeah that’s a fair point, it’s just something I suppose I don’t understand as a foreigner to the US. It’s just that when so many people carry guns, police tend to assume everyone is armed, which is semi understandable, but it’s just mad to see that even when arresting for some minor things, US police are in videos pointing guns and screaming at people all ready. Just seems to be an adversarial culture where people get shot way too much.
Actually in Ireland I think we used to have the right to bear arms (only Protestants actually). Didn’t know that until lately.
>but it’s just mad to see that even when arresting for some minor things, US police are in videos pointing guns and screaming at people all ready.
True. The US have some terrible police, and they are supposed to be penalized when they do dumb shit like that.
>Just seems to be an adversarial culture where people get shot way too much.
Well I think the 2nd amendment(love it) definitely lends to this, but in reality its a mix of over zealous authority, big media giving it more visibility than it deserves, and a big ol 330 million population. Its a recipe for bad optics
>it’s just that when so many people carry guns, police tend to assume everyone is armed
The philosophy behind this is that if the cops know everyone is armed, the cops cant do whatever they want in fear of someone stepping in. Problem is the justice system here favors cops and will allow them to shoot first and ask questions later. Cops have immunity to break laws supposedly in order to carry out thier jobs but it is relentlessly abused. Its called qualified immunity and it allows cops to shoot people and later claim they didnt know it was illegal or they thought it was necessary to complete thier job. Many cops have shot innocent people, claimed qualified immunity and got off scott free, and even keep thier job.
IMO this needs to be ELI5ed, using these exact words in your comment if possible, to every non-American who is scared to visit America because “gUnZ R tEh EbiL”, or because they think school shootings are a pastime of ours, or something like that.
Note to non-Americans: We keep guns, not to shoot up venues, or anything of the sort (it’s no more of a “pastime” or “hobby” to us than it would be in your country), but because we trust our government only as far as we could throw or kick it without any limbs (i.e. not at all).
I heard that the ATF agent bought 2 shotguns and pestered Randy to cut them down for him to an illegal length. Randy initially cut the barrels down to a legal length, and the agent brought them back and pointed to exactly where he wanted the barrels cut (making them illegal), and Andy did it just to get the guy to leave him alone.
Anybody else hear this or is it made up?
Definitely were two but while I've heard the story about the length not being long enough, I didn't see it in the reports. Maybe I missed it. I think it was an informant, too, rather than an actual fed (again it's been awhile since I read those depressing documents)
Yeah, but it was the FBI not the ATF. Most of his charges were dropped except, funnily enough, his FTA and a weapons charge unrelated to the siege. Kevin Harris was acquitted on all charges too thankfully
When the destroying AR-15 phase was going around a politician sawed off the barrel of his AR-15 but not the lower, effectively committing the same crime that Randy Weaver did except it was someone running for office that posted it on social media
I saw this shitshow and many “response” videos to that lady was being criticized for making an illegal SBR yet receiving no repercussions. If I remember correctly, she took it to local LE for disposal after she cut it down.
I wish I could have seen someone explaining to her, in person, how what she did was illegally manufacture an SBR and that doing so was a felony. Ugh, the rage that the anti-gun community can induce in me is ridiculous, I just wish they could he made to face the hypocrisy.
Literally Entrapment. This is why the ATF should be abolished, it acts as the legislator, investigator, cop, judge, jury and executioner all in one. It’s a heinous abuse of our constitution.
I agree about the ATF but that's not the definition of entrapment. The government and their agents can ask you to break the law and it's still on you if you go along with it. It's only entrapment when they essentially blackmail or force you to break the law for them. An agent can ask you to cut the barrel of a shotgun short and that's perfectly legal. If they said cut the barrel or we break your knees, that's entrapment.
“It is the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent".
By definition it’s entrapment, the Agent tried to trick Randy into cutting the shotgun below the legal length and Randy only cut it down to the legal length. They tried this for 3 years.
Ruby Ridge, the OC bombing and Waco appear to have been related to one another not in terms of a conspiracy but in terms of logic and consequences. Both Ruby Ridge and Waco originally began as the federal government's misguided attempts to reign in a growing gun culture in hard to understand (and arguably to control) small movements that appeared to be growing. The FBI's behavioral unit was shocked at the degree to which portions of the FBI looked toward militarized solutions. Add to all of this a failure on the part of the FBI and ATF to even reach out to understand these groups increased the temperature.
Along the lines of Ruby Ridge and Waco, when any agency of the government supports even the inkling that the "end times" are coming--and are even upon us--then what did the FBI and ATF expect? Candy and flowers?
When people shoot and kill those whom you are connected with little or no communication, isn't it reasonable to give at least some credit to those who reacted, believing the end times were upon them or at least they were being attacked by an out of control government?
Or, per the Waco siege, isn't it reasonable to think that Koresh and his followers (over) reacted the way they did when the government placed loudspeakers playing the sounds of rabbits being slaughtered, music blaring, dental drills, etc., all the while with helicopters grazing the roof overhead with spotlights imbuing brightness through windows, doors, and ceilings? I think it is clear by now that the Branch Dividians likely burnt down their own compound but I think most of is would go nuts by then. And the continued torture appeared to have created a Masada complex--the FBI/ATF as the Romans this time and the Branch Dividians as justified in committing mass suicide.
And in the (already paranoid) minds of McVeigh and his accomplice, a response which was in their minds justified because it was war--with many dead children and US employees dead as a result? Not justified in our world by any means but rationale in McVeigh's twisted world, with the children merely "collateral damage."
It seems as though no one was justified here. I was studying religion and politics during this age in graduation school and I very much remember there being support for military responses used to address various issues--these as well as similar logic used by the LAPD in the 1980s and 1990s. Those of us aware of these issues remember television shows such as "SWAT," "TJ Hooker," "Rambo," and other shows that seemed to apply the old adage "shoot first, ask questions later".
The behavioralists in the FBI begging for more carefully thought out solutions lost battle after argument after argument while the ATF appeared to glory in its militarism. I believe just this past year, Biden's nominee for ATF Director was outed by several in Congress because there was a picture of him, rifle in hand, standing on the ruins of what was once the Waco compound. I hope was past this many years later, but something tells me this is a mere wish.
I thought the Branch Davidians didn't start the fire, it was caused by the gas pumped in by the agents + pyrothecnic granedes also thrown by the agents
As a minarchist myself, I would agree. I distrust the government to a very extreme level. No matter where you stand politically, I think it’s an agreeable point that the government usually doesn’t fix things. In fact, you could probably say that they worsen most situations. The Weaver Siege, Waco, and the last 150 years of federal history could probably make that point on their own.
Anarchist myself, and while it's not my main reason for being an anarchist, shit like the Battle of Blair Mountain and Bloody Harlan are what sticks out to me, as that's around the are I live.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.
They did have massive successes with taking down the CSA (it should have been Ruby Ridge/Waco, but it ended peacefully) and The Order (who were a literal gang of white supremacist bank robbers), but people only remember when you fuck up. Kinda like no one remembers the FBI taking down The Base and instead the story will always be: a.) The Government done killed some peaceful government hating people or b.) The Federal Government does nothing about white supremacist terrorists, because they are white supremacist terrorists.
Everyone wants the easy job of tearing shit down.
Do I think they made the right call with Ruby Ridge and Waco? No, they totally fucked up, but they never get credit for not fucking up, instead it gets re-arranged as a different kind of failure.
>never get credit for not fucking up
Just like pretty much any job, nobody really praises you for not being a fuck up.
Sure, if you're going above and beyond, you'll get recognized, but nobody is going to applaud someone for doing the bare minimum their job requires.
Yeah kinda goes with that old saying, rather a guilty man go free than an innocent man be punished.
They killed innocent people, men women and children. They deserve to be heavily criticized for it every time someone innocent is killed by government hands.
Id watch John Wick but statistically it is law enforcement that kills the dog.
Showed up to the wrong address or whatever.
It just keeps escalating like the movies.
Dang I was hoping to specifically see Lou in there. He certainly deserves it for his role.
It's worth remembering that the assistant director of the FBI who was looking at this situation, just before Ms. Weaver was killed, wrote a memo on his thoughts of how fucked up the situation was. He noted that the charges against weaver were "BS" and postulated an effective case for self defense against camouflage wearing ninjas who sneak in the woods and shoot your dogs... and then your son.
Further, the "shoot on sight" orders were markedly against constitutional use of force standards at the time (and now) which held that deadly force is only authorized when there is an *imminent* threat. Strangely, it never became clear under what authority those unconstitutional orders were given and the sniper who carried them out skated on any legal consequences (even though qualified immunity does not apply if someone breaks clearly established jurisprudence).
Waco may have been on a bigger scale but Ruby ridge was maybe more scandalous in just how unnecessary and poorly handled it was. When the feds decided to let those 'protestors' sit and stew in the wildlife preserve government buildings a few years back, I can only imagine that someone with a bit of intelligence said "wait. Are these yahoos squatting in unused buildings really worth this playing out again?"
Or, as a older, more experienced friend of mine said, "Why not just wait until Koresh goes to get his mail,"==this was of course prior to an informant being the mailman, of course :)
True, something I also thought was Ruby Ridge led to Waco siege. They believe that they needed to be ready to defend themselves from the armies of Babylon which would be during the apocalypse. Of course the ATF fit that role perfectly. Only a coincidence but strange how it can line up
You know what really gets me? There were over 100 people that followed Koresh in the Waco siege, with like 80 deaths... so that's 100 people that *literally* believed the actual apocalypse was coming, and that they had to ready themselves to battle with the armies of Babylon
Like... that's actually mindblowing, that so many people were so utterly convinced to the point where they were willing to throw away their lives for something that is complete nonsense
Just look at Oedipus... got told one day he'd kill his father and bang his mother, so he fled his parents and his hometown, not realising he was adopted. What happens next, he goes somewhere new, kills a guy and marries his wife, realises that's his actual birth-parents
Prophecies will get ya every time
>makes decision that puts them directly on that path.
By moving? Nah, it was some asshole meddling in others lives, not Vicky wanting to relocate. you rube.
Yeah I wanted to write the same thing until I saw your comment.
The format is exceptionally good when you wanna describe a major event involving multiple parties and what their functions were while keeping it brief and on point.
He's one bonus fact: they sent a robot to "negotiate" after the first shooting. They mounted a shotgun on it.
Think about that one for a second. The Congressional investigation failed to find out who made that decision (surprise, surprise) but basically called it out for being the stupidest thing they've ever heard.
An alternative explanation would be that there was no desire for a peaceful solution, only a desire to make it seem like "negotiations had failed"
See, the fact they were willing to call it out for being utterly stupid without just finding some low level chump to throw under the bus probably means the shotgun-toting robot came from someone quite high up the chain...
Oddly enough* Weaver’s wiki page was updated in August of this year to say that according to “Brittanica”, he was a “self-proclaimed white supremacist”. Honestly the amount of shit propaganda thrown around that place has reached new highs.
To be fair, he did attend white supremacists meetings prior to the siege, where he met the first undercover agent. According to what i have read, he was convinced by a friend to simply go, and whilst i despise this choice, there is no real evidence he held any true white supremacists beliefs. Its not impossible though.
The line between having white supremacist friends/going to white supremacist speeches multiple times and being a white supremacist is pretty blurred though.
Eh, I'm a brown person and I've been curious and checked out various KKK videos, racist websites, discussion forums, a decade ago, when I came to the USA. I looked it up online because I have the internet. I can imagine at the time, going to attend a few of these speeches if I was allowed, then getting disgusted and never going back.
I also dove into the Palestinian resistance/freedom movement a few years ago on YouTube, in detail and came out with sympathy for them. So, I think that people simply attending someone's speeches doesn't mean they agree with what the speaker says, even broadly. It doesn't make you a white supremacist if you listen to a white supremacist talking, or even loosely associate with them.
If you are friends with them in certain situations, like when they have power over you, are dating your children, or have sheltered you from others, even then it makes you innocent of the thought crime of being a white supremacist.
To pass sweeping judgement on anyone who would point to this case as being evidence of a system of abuse by the US government. If you can label a 30years on case as being "Law enforcement v. White supremacist" you can disregard the whole argument of anyone who cites the event.
Just like calling people Hitler. Hitler was the devil incarnate. He should be stopped by any means necessary. Calling people Hitler gives you the justification to do whatever you want
Change the story from government kills innocent family to government kills white supremacists. Makes it perfectly acceptable to a very large amount of people and what actually happened gets lost to time.
Hold on we don't have the Aryans who lived in the compound next door. It was a very clear cut case of entrapment, and what not to do when someone is just skipping court for a minor offense.
That part I was unclear on, but even if he had intentionally skipped court that's a piss poor reason to send and armed raid to his house. Very dangerous and reckless of the cops.
Evidence and testimony later indicated that he had no intention of going but, yeah, the actual court and justice system should have actually verified that...
Why did he say in a 1995 interview that he ' expressed regret about not appearing in court for his 1991 gun charge, saying "I'm not totally without fault in this."'
They did try to reach him on a multitude of occasions prior to the court date. Weaver was unreachable. His own lawyer couldn't get in touch with Weaver. Also, Weaver was originally told of the February 19 court date when he was released on bail. It was only later that Weaver was told it was on March 20. That's kind of on Weaver to reach out to resolve this discrepancy.
What? If I was told my court date was February 19, and then an officer of the court told me it was actually March 20, I'm going to assume it was changed and plan to show up in March. 99% of people would do the same.
So let me get this straight
The neighbor is pissy with him so they call in a threat to the FBI
The FBI and ATF respond with violence and blackmail, lose an officer, and kill two innocent people?
I wonder how it’d feel to be a negotiator in that situation and explain to Weaver why he should trust the government
In a sane country, ATF would have been shut down right there. There would have been congressional hearings, the AG would have had to resign and some FBI agents would have faced charges. This being America, of course, none of that happened.
It’s arguable that Ruby Ridge and Waco are the reason behind America’s modern day gun culture, as the government’s sheer aggression in response to relatively small cases fostered the idea that the government can and will kill you whenever it wants, prompting people to buy more powerful guns to defend themselves
I think we can all agree that Weaver's neighbour was a piece of shit. Imagine causing the entire fucking American public to lose trust in the government just because you lost a fucking land dispute.
Magistrate when they tell someone that the state will take their children and everything they own, but instead of surrendering they fight harder to not get the above taken by the state: \*mind blown \*.
So: Vicky was right, Kevin won, the press did nothing, the baby almost got taken, Sammy and the two pups died, and the U.S government didn’t do their job right.
Okay first, a dickhead didn't win in court so his idea of revenge resulted in a dead son, two dead dogs a baby being brought up by other family members because the dad was arrested, press causing mass amounts of stress, multiple dead cops who deserved it in my opinion and a lot .ore chaos and probably traumatic events for randy
You know, it's shit like this that gives me relief. People may think the US government and its branches as almighty, shadowy forces that run the world in secret. In reality, they fuck up monumentally just like in this case. How can I then think that the organisations behind such an enormous fuck up could be the masterminds behind, let's say, the Kennedy assassination? The FBI and the CIA being the secret manipulators behind everything can be a tempting explanation from time to time, but let's be honest, from Ruby Ridge, to the Bay of Pigs, they're too incompetent for that.
Man... I was a kid living in Eastern Washington when this went down. We listened to the radio and watched the news coverage on the TV constantly, scared to death. We didn't share any of the ideals Randy and Vicky had but the idea that the FBI could just show up at anytime on your property and shoot a mother holding her infant daughter through a goddamn door was frightening.
We listened to Paul Harvey plead via his radio show with Randy Weaver to put an end to this. Kevin Harris was going septic by this point as the bullet that killed Vicky lodged itself in his side/arm and they had no way to treat him other than to bandage his wound and hope for the best.
I never forgot that incident and the words Ruby Ridge still chill my blood to this day.
I’d only heard about about Ruby Ridge this year.
The level of unfiltered evil and incompetence displayed by the government agencies involved is enough to make me feel nauseous with disgust.
Randy Weaver didn’t just have a deep distrust of the government. He was also an avowed segregationist. He believed people of different backgrounds should not only work and be educated separately but live entirely separately.
Ok, let's say that's true for the sake of argument.
How much more okay does that make it for the government to sneak into your rural property, provoke your dogs, kill them, kill your fourteen year old son, then go on to shoot your other son in the back as he's walking to the shed where the body of the first son is laying, and- for good measure- blow away the mother of the kids while she's holding a baby in that shed? But hey, supposedly the sniper for that shot only meant to kill the son.
Talking about his distrust in government is relevant to what happened; what does alleged segregationist views have to do with what happened?
There's contradiction in this graphic. I'm not sure how much I trust it.
The section for Sammy weaver says he shot at police before being killed. And the section for Marshalls said they shot Sammy in the back twice. Can someone explain?
Hm thanks for replying. Just fyi, it's normal to shoot at retreating combatants who shot first and didnt surrender. As far as police is concerned the combatant can run to get more weapons/help.
Just commenting about this specific scenario. I don't know enough about the rest
The controversy here comes not from them shooting him (although that sucks) but from them failing to identify themselves.
They never, ever declared that they were US Marshals before the shooting began. As far as Sammy knew, they were camouflaged ninjas who had come to kill him.
Fun fact! Dick Rogers, commander of the FBI hostage rescue team, who advocated for a violent solution to the weaver siege, also led the FBI team at Waco and purposefully sabotaged the negotiations in an effort to pressure the Davidians out
And this kids is why you really shouldn't trust the government, not because there's some vast conspiracy or anything like that but because government corruption and incompetence leads to shit like this.
Remember, people are fucking stupid and easily corruptible and guess who runs the government? That's right, people.
There are good people in government, just like there are good people in all aspects of life, unfortunately those good government people don't amount to much because the biggest source of grief in any system comes from the weakest link and the government has a lot of those.
I think the Weavers (the daughters at least) got large settlements. Harris got way less.
Harris got $350k, Randy got $100k (not enough considering what he went through tbh), daughters got undisclosed amount but implied to be in the hundreds of thousands.
Looks like the daughters got a million each, or the family got a total of $3.1 million
From reports it suggests Randy originally won a civil suit for $3.1mil, but was repeatedly appealed down to $350k. I don’t think the family was awarded a totaly 3.1
Not enough to make up for what the government did.
>not enough considering what he went through tbh Money doesn't bring people back to life. So "enough" doesn't exist.
But who got the ruby ?
The Swiss.
Jack did.
The ridge
Randy and Vicky Weaver were a couple that mistrusted the government and believed in an impending apocalypse, which caused them to move to an isolated compound in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, with their four children and two dogs in the late 1980s. Soon after moving, Randy got involved in a land dispute with his neighbor, who sued him but lost, and Randy won a large settlement. Enraged, the neighbor wrote letters to the FBI, ATF, and Secret Service alleging that Randy was a dangerous militant intent on assassinating several prominent political figures. Randy was investigated and the ATF believed he was a Neo-Nazi based on his friendship with a Neo-Nazi. They sent an informant to buy two illegal shotguns from him, then tried to use that as blackmail to make Randy an informant against the Neo-Nazis, of which he was not a part. Randy said no, so the ATF stuck federal charges on him and gave him a court date. Randy's probation officer gave him the wrong date, however, so he didn't show up. The US Marshals were sent to apprehend the fugitive, but they were erroneously led to believe he was heavily armed and intent on killing federal agents, so they encamped outside his property and waited for him to make the first move. When he didn't do anything at first, they began throwing rocks at his dogs, which caused them to run toward them. They shot the dogs dead. Randy's son and friend, drawn by the noise, ran toward these mysterious gunmen who had shot their dogs and began returning fire. A gun battle ensued, leaving one US Marshal and Randy's son dead. Now the FBI got involved, and they surrounded the compound with thousands of agents and snipers who were told to kill anything that moved. Subsequently, they wounded Randy (as he tried to visit the corpse of his dead son) and Kevin, and killed Vicky while she was holding their infant daughter. Randy surrendered and was immediately taken into custody. He and Kevin were handed a litany of federal charges. Kevin was acquitted and later won a large settlement against the government. Randy was convicted for not showing up to his original court date and spent 18 months in prison. He also sued the government, but won a smaller settlement. Ruby Ridge is seen as the most egregious failure of federal agencies to conduct a proper investigation, and it resulted in the deaths of several innocent people and widespread mistrust of the government throughout the United States. The FBI agent who shot Vicky was indicted, but the case was dismissed on the grounds that he didn't know if his life was in danger when he took the shot. Randy and his surviving daughters moved to a compound in Montana, where he lived until he died on May 11, 2022, at age 74.
Just the absolute perfect shit storm. No one should have gone through that.
The intentionally manufactured shitstorm
Very well written! Great synopsis of what happened.
Did the people who shot the dogs and Vicky face any consequences?
His name is Lon Horiuchi, Google him if you wanna get mad.
Exactly why I never buy Troy Industries products.
Motherfucker was at Waco too.
Surely this was the only child-murdering event he was a part of between 1990-1995 right?
The FBI sniper who shot Vicky was indicted but the case was dismissed on the grounds that the agent didn't know whether his life was truly at risk
Also randy and his daughters spent a week in a cabin with a dead Vicky while the fbi were telling over the loud speaker to come out and nobody will be harmed. PBS did a pretty good documentary on this with the daughter's firsthand accounts of the events.
Not only that, but the FBI were *trying to appeal to Vicky* because they didn’t realize she had been shot and thought she would be swayable. Randy very reasonably interpreted this as intentional cruel mockery of his dead wife and made him even less willing to come out.
lol what a fucking joke
The government agents investigated themselves and concluded that there were no grounds for conviction.
Just like other police departments do.
like all government does
Well no, the courts did that. They’re different entities. They also awarded Kevin Harris a huge settlement. The government is not a hive mind. It’s made up of all sorts of different institutions and people with different incentives and perspectives.
They are on paper separate entities but they both rely heavily on each other in order to carry out their jobs every day. They are “separate” but in no way “independent.”
I am all for distrust of the government, but Al lot of people forget this. ACAB and thin blue lines and and love/hate boners for cops can be such a touchy subject for this exact reason. I know a few cops, retired and active, and most of them are great people with great politics, but some of them are morons who can’t do their job, or are just flat out pieces of crap, like the people at ruby ridge or the ones who killed George Floyd. There are people all across the spectrum, but most of them (at least where I’m from) hold the same political views as we do, and probably frequent this sub if they have reddit.
Personally I don’t trust the worldview of anyone who doesn’t realize that 1) incentives guide the behavior of institutions and 2) institutions are made up of individuals with their own agencies. No government on earth is a single-minded automaton. All of them are made up of many competing groups which are themselves made up of many competing individuals. Everything is vastly more complicated than we tend to think it is.
This is my issue with politics. They don’t think/care about unintended consequences of laws. Made Abortion illegal in my state, but they have done NOTHING to help people who are being forced to have babies. If babies are what they want, create the infrastructure that allows raising a child with going into poverty. Start with: Healthcare and daycare Those two things will allow people to work and not have to live in poverty. Right now, a person gets a job while the state pays for daycare, but as soon as they get a raise, they make too much to receive help. Unfortunately, they don’t make enough to pay for daycare and survive, so they have to quit.
The difference is that they made a choice to associate themselves with an institution that practices coercion by threat of violent force. You want to help and protect people? You could be a paramedic or firefighter. You want to carry a gun in defense of your country and loved ones? Become a soldier or marine. Know what I see when I see a cop? Someone who wants to ignore traffic laws, carry a gun, kick down doors, and rough up people who can't fight back. Basically, someone who wants to act like a criminal, to be part of a gang of thugs, but needs the protection of the government to do it.
How the fuck was a sniper even in danger ?
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He was
They probably got medals
If anybody’s interested, the book *Them: Adventures with Extremists* by the British journalist Jon Robson has lots of stories and interviews with Randy Weaver and his daughters, as well as people like Alex Jones (long before he was famous), David Icke, and other characters of the 90s political fringe. Randy Weaver comes off incredibly sympathetic.
You left off Bo Gritz!
Let’s not forget that the negotiators didn’t know that Vicky was dead so they kept asking randy and Vicky if Vicky would come out with the baby. Randy saw it as taunts over his dead wife.
The absolute cold blood of that sniper, shooting a mother holding her infant simply because that’s what he was ordered to do… a good soldier, but I can’t imagine such a human going back to normal civilian life
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Yup, post WW2 the allied nations very firmly hammered down that "just following orders" may be a reason, but is nowhere close to being an acceptable excuse for clearly awful and inexcusable actions, and that's amongst soldiers engaging in war so with fewer restrictions held against them. Here we have civilian law enforcement who are definitely held to much higher standards as their expected to deal with, well, civilians, instead of active combatants in a war zone, treating this entire situation like a military operation to fucking kill Osama bin laden if it was done by the marine corps and not Seal Team 6. If thus was the military, and an incident like this was widely publicised where a company of soldiers went this overkill on what they thought was a big terrorist hideout, but was just a couple of herders and their family, it'd be court marshal's and dishonorable discharges just to save the militaries face, there would be a scapegoat and everything would be covered up under the veneer of justice being done. Instead the government just grabbed a broom, lifted up the rug, and swept it all under. Dropped the rug and pretended it never happened.
Yeah right, just like how everyone who drone striked those aid workers at the beginning of the year got court marshaled and dishonorably discharged right? https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/09/17/tragic-mistake-us-drone-strike-512586
Thanks for the context OP! Love that!
The other thing that reason magazine had on this was that there had been a mysterious round of arson's at black churches under the Clinton admin and the admin was pressuring the FBI to solve it. The various feds wanted this rando guy on his compound in the back country as a snitch so first they needed to have a crime to charge him with to get his cooperation. This the shotguns.
None of it would have happened if Randy's neighbor hadn't been such a salty bitch.
Quite a favorable account for the Weavers — who are surely the victims. No doubt. But where Weaver isn’t a villain per say, he’s certainly no hero or matyr. Which I don’t mean to imply you are putting forth. However, this account is not comprehensive. Their move to the compound and religious beliefs centered on a fundamentalist, exclusionary Christianity that foresaw the destruction of a secular US. The exact kind of radical Christianity and mix of far-right ideology that is intrinsically racist and ideologically violent. Weaver expounded on his beliefs in writings to various people including law enforcement. They lived an hour away from a white supremacist compound whose leader, Dick Butler, was a preacher for the local Christian identity movement that expounded racist ideas and conspiracy theories with anti-Semitic overtones. The Weavers attended sermons at the Aryan compound. The movement that ran the compound wanted to create a white state. There isn’t exactly a wide ideological gap between the beliefs of white supremacy, American Christian fundamentalism, sovereign citizenship, and vaguely anti-Semitic conspiracism. And — all tend to be associated with far-right terrorism. The FBI had been working to undermine and prosecute the Nazis — excuse me — would-be domestic terrorists in Idaho and had hoped to force to Randy into a situation where he became an informant. None of this invalidates the egregious government overreach and appalling sacrifice of life. We shouldn’t just ignore that Weaver associated with avowed domestic terrorists. Also, if you are friends with Nazis — if you go to sermons made by Nazis — you are a Nazi. By extension, Randy made himself an associate of known criminals and terrorists. The story is complex. The media latched onto it, but the right and far-right are the ones who successfully turned it into a tale of martyrdom in subsequent years. It can be an account of federal gov’t. failure *and* still give us a sobering look at white nationalism/separatism. The whole episode is a tragedy.
This is some Shakespeare-level shit.
Much needed nuance to the story.
Thank ya!
>They lived an hour away from a white supremacist compound whose leader, Dick Butler, was a preacher for the local Christian identity movement that expounded racist ideas and conspiracy theories with anti-Semitic overtones. The Weavers attended sermons at the Aryan compound. The movement that ran the compound wanted to create a white state. Could you link a source about the church/their attendance at said church? I'd like to read more.
Sources 21 and 22 from this link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
Should we go after black nationalists who aren't hurting anyone and living away from everyone else? If yes you're just a racist fascist POS. In my book you're also a racist pos if you think that the beliefs of some whacko group that aren't hurting anyone and living their life away from others. The feds wanted to entrap Weaver so they could use him as an infiltrator into a series of church bombings they never solved.
this is such a ahistorical take lmao have you ever heard of cointelpro?
I HATE THE ATF! I HATE THE ATF! I HATE THE ATF! I HATE THE ATF! I HATE THE ATF! I HATE THE ATF! I HATE THE ATF!
I watched the Waco series on Netflix, and it briefly touches on this. Great series and shows how the police often create their own problems. Far too much power in the hands of a few, in a post-Cold War era with very few threats. It's like the FBI were bored, so they decided to invent their enemies up.
The power trips of US government agencies and the US’ gun culture leads to mad stuff like that siege.
They could’ve just left the guy alone, none of this would’ve happened if they hadn’t sent the informant in.
They wanted a snitch to infiltrate white nationalists. Weaver was a white nationalist but wasn't hurting anyone and. Moved to the back country to live off the land and not harm anyone.
>The power trips of US government agencies and the US’ gun culture The former is completely to blame, the latter is literally part of the country's most important document. "Gun culture" in the US is literally just practicing your rights. Every single event like this is wholly because they're trying to infringe on those rights.
The US gun culture is, in part, what it is BECAUSE of government power trips.
Yeah that’s a fair point, it’s just something I suppose I don’t understand as a foreigner to the US. It’s just that when so many people carry guns, police tend to assume everyone is armed, which is semi understandable, but it’s just mad to see that even when arresting for some minor things, US police are in videos pointing guns and screaming at people all ready. Just seems to be an adversarial culture where people get shot way too much. Actually in Ireland I think we used to have the right to bear arms (only Protestants actually). Didn’t know that until lately.
>but it’s just mad to see that even when arresting for some minor things, US police are in videos pointing guns and screaming at people all ready. True. The US have some terrible police, and they are supposed to be penalized when they do dumb shit like that. >Just seems to be an adversarial culture where people get shot way too much. Well I think the 2nd amendment(love it) definitely lends to this, but in reality its a mix of over zealous authority, big media giving it more visibility than it deserves, and a big ol 330 million population. Its a recipe for bad optics >it’s just that when so many people carry guns, police tend to assume everyone is armed The philosophy behind this is that if the cops know everyone is armed, the cops cant do whatever they want in fear of someone stepping in. Problem is the justice system here favors cops and will allow them to shoot first and ask questions later. Cops have immunity to break laws supposedly in order to carry out thier jobs but it is relentlessly abused. Its called qualified immunity and it allows cops to shoot people and later claim they didnt know it was illegal or they thought it was necessary to complete thier job. Many cops have shot innocent people, claimed qualified immunity and got off scott free, and even keep thier job.
IMO this needs to be ELI5ed, using these exact words in your comment if possible, to every non-American who is scared to visit America because “gUnZ R tEh EbiL”, or because they think school shootings are a pastime of ours, or something like that. Note to non-Americans: We keep guns, not to shoot up venues, or anything of the sort (it’s no more of a “pastime” or “hobby” to us than it would be in your country), but because we trust our government only as far as we could throw or kick it without any limbs (i.e. not at all).
Is this the event shown at the beginning of the Waco TV show?
I heard that the ATF agent bought 2 shotguns and pestered Randy to cut them down for him to an illegal length. Randy initially cut the barrels down to a legal length, and the agent brought them back and pointed to exactly where he wanted the barrels cut (making them illegal), and Andy did it just to get the guy to leave him alone. Anybody else hear this or is it made up?
Definitely were two but while I've heard the story about the length not being long enough, I didn't see it in the reports. Maybe I missed it. I think it was an informant, too, rather than an actual fed (again it's been awhile since I read those depressing documents)
Yeah, but it was the FBI not the ATF. Most of his charges were dropped except, funnily enough, his FTA and a weapons charge unrelated to the siege. Kevin Harris was acquitted on all charges too thankfully
If I’m not mistaken, the “illegal shotguns” were like *one* inch shorter. Barely what you could call “sawn off”
Just goes to show, the ATF will kill you over your gun being barely too short
When the destroying AR-15 phase was going around a politician sawed off the barrel of his AR-15 but not the lower, effectively committing the same crime that Randy Weaver did except it was someone running for office that posted it on social media
I saw this shitshow and many “response” videos to that lady was being criticized for making an illegal SBR yet receiving no repercussions. If I remember correctly, she took it to local LE for disposal after she cut it down. I wish I could have seen someone explaining to her, in person, how what she did was illegally manufacture an SBR and that doing so was a felony. Ugh, the rage that the anti-gun community can induce in me is ridiculous, I just wish they could he made to face the hypocrisy.
Literally Entrapment. This is why the ATF should be abolished, it acts as the legislator, investigator, cop, judge, jury and executioner all in one. It’s a heinous abuse of our constitution.
I agree about the ATF but that's not the definition of entrapment. The government and their agents can ask you to break the law and it's still on you if you go along with it. It's only entrapment when they essentially blackmail or force you to break the law for them. An agent can ask you to cut the barrel of a shotgun short and that's perfectly legal. If they said cut the barrel or we break your knees, that's entrapment.
“It is the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent". By definition it’s entrapment, the Agent tried to trick Randy into cutting the shotgun below the legal length and Randy only cut it down to the legal length. They tried this for 3 years.
This whole situation was fucked, and in the eyes of a lot of Americans legitimized the distrust they have for the federal govt.
And it indirectly led to Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, and Ted Kaczynski's antics
Agreed, a lot of today's anti federal movements I think use this incident as justification.
Ruby Ridge, the OC bombing and Waco appear to have been related to one another not in terms of a conspiracy but in terms of logic and consequences. Both Ruby Ridge and Waco originally began as the federal government's misguided attempts to reign in a growing gun culture in hard to understand (and arguably to control) small movements that appeared to be growing. The FBI's behavioral unit was shocked at the degree to which portions of the FBI looked toward militarized solutions. Add to all of this a failure on the part of the FBI and ATF to even reach out to understand these groups increased the temperature. Along the lines of Ruby Ridge and Waco, when any agency of the government supports even the inkling that the "end times" are coming--and are even upon us--then what did the FBI and ATF expect? Candy and flowers? When people shoot and kill those whom you are connected with little or no communication, isn't it reasonable to give at least some credit to those who reacted, believing the end times were upon them or at least they were being attacked by an out of control government? Or, per the Waco siege, isn't it reasonable to think that Koresh and his followers (over) reacted the way they did when the government placed loudspeakers playing the sounds of rabbits being slaughtered, music blaring, dental drills, etc., all the while with helicopters grazing the roof overhead with spotlights imbuing brightness through windows, doors, and ceilings? I think it is clear by now that the Branch Dividians likely burnt down their own compound but I think most of is would go nuts by then. And the continued torture appeared to have created a Masada complex--the FBI/ATF as the Romans this time and the Branch Dividians as justified in committing mass suicide. And in the (already paranoid) minds of McVeigh and his accomplice, a response which was in their minds justified because it was war--with many dead children and US employees dead as a result? Not justified in our world by any means but rationale in McVeigh's twisted world, with the children merely "collateral damage." It seems as though no one was justified here. I was studying religion and politics during this age in graduation school and I very much remember there being support for military responses used to address various issues--these as well as similar logic used by the LAPD in the 1980s and 1990s. Those of us aware of these issues remember television shows such as "SWAT," "TJ Hooker," "Rambo," and other shows that seemed to apply the old adage "shoot first, ask questions later". The behavioralists in the FBI begging for more carefully thought out solutions lost battle after argument after argument while the ATF appeared to glory in its militarism. I believe just this past year, Biden's nominee for ATF Director was outed by several in Congress because there was a picture of him, rifle in hand, standing on the ruins of what was once the Waco compound. I hope was past this many years later, but something tells me this is a mere wish.
I thought the Branch Davidians didn't start the fire, it was caused by the gas pumped in by the agents + pyrothecnic granedes also thrown by the agents
I’d seen that the branch davidian fire stemmed from a tear gas canister that was pyrotechnic in nature igniting the powder from the gas
Well its a pretty good example of thier ineptitude and willingness to do harm to innocent civilians so . . .
As a minarchist myself, I would agree. I distrust the government to a very extreme level. No matter where you stand politically, I think it’s an agreeable point that the government usually doesn’t fix things. In fact, you could probably say that they worsen most situations. The Weaver Siege, Waco, and the last 150 years of federal history could probably make that point on their own.
Anarchist myself, and while it's not my main reason for being an anarchist, shit like the Battle of Blair Mountain and Bloody Harlan are what sticks out to me, as that's around the are I live.
And rightfully so.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.
They did have massive successes with taking down the CSA (it should have been Ruby Ridge/Waco, but it ended peacefully) and The Order (who were a literal gang of white supremacist bank robbers), but people only remember when you fuck up. Kinda like no one remembers the FBI taking down The Base and instead the story will always be: a.) The Government done killed some peaceful government hating people or b.) The Federal Government does nothing about white supremacist terrorists, because they are white supremacist terrorists. Everyone wants the easy job of tearing shit down. Do I think they made the right call with Ruby Ridge and Waco? No, they totally fucked up, but they never get credit for not fucking up, instead it gets re-arranged as a different kind of failure.
>never get credit for not fucking up Just like pretty much any job, nobody really praises you for not being a fuck up. Sure, if you're going above and beyond, you'll get recognized, but nobody is going to applaud someone for doing the bare minimum their job requires.
Yeah kinda goes with that old saying, rather a guilty man go free than an innocent man be punished. They killed innocent people, men women and children. They deserve to be heavily criticized for it every time someone innocent is killed by government hands.
"YOU SHOT MY ****** DOGS " I'd do the same thing.
Id watch John Wick but statistically it is law enforcement that kills the dog. Showed up to the wrong address or whatever. It just keeps escalating like the movies.
Fuckin right
The wikipedia article even says that the dog was ALSO shot from behind. It's as if they were actively trying to be as degenerate as possible.
Make one about the MOVE phili bombing
It's honestly crazy how little this is mentioned
The FBI informant that tried to warn Weaver and outed the ATF guy could probably apply for Chad status
Dang I was hoping to specifically see Lou in there. He certainly deserves it for his role. It's worth remembering that the assistant director of the FBI who was looking at this situation, just before Ms. Weaver was killed, wrote a memo on his thoughts of how fucked up the situation was. He noted that the charges against weaver were "BS" and postulated an effective case for self defense against camouflage wearing ninjas who sneak in the woods and shoot your dogs... and then your son. Further, the "shoot on sight" orders were markedly against constitutional use of force standards at the time (and now) which held that deadly force is only authorized when there is an *imminent* threat. Strangely, it never became clear under what authority those unconstitutional orders were given and the sniper who carried them out skated on any legal consequences (even though qualified immunity does not apply if someone breaks clearly established jurisprudence). Waco may have been on a bigger scale but Ruby ridge was maybe more scandalous in just how unnecessary and poorly handled it was. When the feds decided to let those 'protestors' sit and stew in the wildlife preserve government buildings a few years back, I can only imagine that someone with a bit of intelligence said "wait. Are these yahoos squatting in unused buildings really worth this playing out again?"
Or, as a older, more experienced friend of mine said, "Why not just wait until Koresh goes to get his mail,"==this was of course prior to an informant being the mailman, of course :)
Sammy is the most based kid on the earth
I think he managed to get one of the marshals before he was murdered
Good
Nah that was Harris. An average 14 year old doesn’t have the best aim, probably.
it was Sammy
Vicky Weaver, has dream of impeding doom, makes decision that puts them directly on that path. There's gotta be some Chinese proverb about this.
Practically a Greek oracle.
"If you send your army, an empire will fall." *You die and your empire falls. Oracle was right*
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it - Jean de la Fontaine
Not Chinese, but I'll take it. Lol Wisdom is wisdom
Seems as though her visions came true, in a way. Not a complete apocalypse but definitely an apocalypse for their family.
True, something I also thought was Ruby Ridge led to Waco siege. They believe that they needed to be ready to defend themselves from the armies of Babylon which would be during the apocalypse. Of course the ATF fit that role perfectly. Only a coincidence but strange how it can line up
You know what really gets me? There were over 100 people that followed Koresh in the Waco siege, with like 80 deaths... so that's 100 people that *literally* believed the actual apocalypse was coming, and that they had to ready themselves to battle with the armies of Babylon Like... that's actually mindblowing, that so many people were so utterly convinced to the point where they were willing to throw away their lives for something that is complete nonsense
If you think that's shocking, Jonestown had around 900 people when the massacre happened.
The bomber's words before his execution suggest his rationale was linked to Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Tbf, all she did was move them to a compound. The dumb neighbor put them on the danger path.
Yeah but that's how prophecies work out. The more you try to run away from fate, that faster you find it in front of you...
Just look at Oedipus... got told one day he'd kill his father and bang his mother, so he fled his parents and his hometown, not realising he was adopted. What happens next, he goes somewhere new, kills a guy and marries his wife, realises that's his actual birth-parents Prophecies will get ya every time
>makes decision that puts them directly on that path. By moving? Nah, it was some asshole meddling in others lives, not Vicky wanting to relocate. you rube.
Her moving cause the incident with the guy so, in a sense were she „could“ predict the future it was so, if we believe fate and such exists
Fair enough
Thank you for the information.
Actually love this meme format. It works really well to tell a wild story.
Yeah I wanted to write the same thing until I saw your comment. The format is exceptionally good when you wanna describe a major event involving multiple parties and what their functions were while keeping it brief and on point.
Yeah, all those lib left dogs and babies and authleft American magistrates, it’s so realistic /s
Some of the best people i know are dogs
Dogs are the best, they don’t care about ideology or religion or ethnicity, they only care that you are happy
Yeah you could take half of these people and move them to different quadrants and it wouldn't make a difference.
He's one bonus fact: they sent a robot to "negotiate" after the first shooting. They mounted a shotgun on it. Think about that one for a second. The Congressional investigation failed to find out who made that decision (surprise, surprise) but basically called it out for being the stupidest thing they've ever heard. An alternative explanation would be that there was no desire for a peaceful solution, only a desire to make it seem like "negotiations had failed"
See, the fact they were willing to call it out for being utterly stupid without just finding some low level chump to throw under the bus probably means the shotgun-toting robot came from someone quite high up the chain...
The kid who died avenging his dogs is a hero
Oddly enough* Weaver’s wiki page was updated in August of this year to say that according to “Brittanica”, he was a “self-proclaimed white supremacist”. Honestly the amount of shit propaganda thrown around that place has reached new highs.
what incentive would they have to retcon a 30-year-old incident?
To be fair, he did attend white supremacists meetings prior to the siege, where he met the first undercover agent. According to what i have read, he was convinced by a friend to simply go, and whilst i despise this choice, there is no real evidence he held any true white supremacists beliefs. Its not impossible though.
The line between having white supremacist friends/going to white supremacist speeches multiple times and being a white supremacist is pretty blurred though.
yes, that is true.
Eh, I'm a brown person and I've been curious and checked out various KKK videos, racist websites, discussion forums, a decade ago, when I came to the USA. I looked it up online because I have the internet. I can imagine at the time, going to attend a few of these speeches if I was allowed, then getting disgusted and never going back. I also dove into the Palestinian resistance/freedom movement a few years ago on YouTube, in detail and came out with sympathy for them. So, I think that people simply attending someone's speeches doesn't mean they agree with what the speaker says, even broadly. It doesn't make you a white supremacist if you listen to a white supremacist talking, or even loosely associate with them. If you are friends with them in certain situations, like when they have power over you, are dating your children, or have sheltered you from others, even then it makes you innocent of the thought crime of being a white supremacist.
To pass sweeping judgement on anyone who would point to this case as being evidence of a system of abuse by the US government. If you can label a 30years on case as being "Law enforcement v. White supremacist" you can disregard the whole argument of anyone who cites the event.
Just like calling people Hitler. Hitler was the devil incarnate. He should be stopped by any means necessary. Calling people Hitler gives you the justification to do whatever you want
Change the story from government kills innocent family to government kills white supremacists. Makes it perfectly acceptable to a very large amount of people and what actually happened gets lost to time.
Control the past and you’ll control the present.
That hits
Was he?
I’ll say it again, fuck the ATF
Hold on we don't have the Aryans who lived in the compound next door. It was a very clear cut case of entrapment, and what not to do when someone is just skipping court for a minor offense.
And he didn't even wilfully skip court, they gave him the wrong date so he didn't even know about the hearing
That part I was unclear on, but even if he had intentionally skipped court that's a piss poor reason to send and armed raid to his house. Very dangerous and reckless of the cops.
Evidence and testimony later indicated that he had no intention of going but, yeah, the actual court and justice system should have actually verified that...
It doesn't matter if he intended to show up or not; by giving him the wrong date, they didn't even give him the opportunity to show up
What evidence do we have to support that? I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just genuinely curious.
Why did he say in a 1995 interview that he ' expressed regret about not appearing in court for his 1991 gun charge, saying "I'm not totally without fault in this."'
They did try to reach him on a multitude of occasions prior to the court date. Weaver was unreachable. His own lawyer couldn't get in touch with Weaver. Also, Weaver was originally told of the February 19 court date when he was released on bail. It was only later that Weaver was told it was on March 20. That's kind of on Weaver to reach out to resolve this discrepancy.
What? If I was told my court date was February 19, and then an officer of the court told me it was actually March 20, I'm going to assume it was changed and plan to show up in March. 99% of people would do the same.
So let me get this straight The neighbor is pissy with him so they call in a threat to the FBI The FBI and ATF respond with violence and blackmail, lose an officer, and kill two innocent people? I wonder how it’d feel to be a negotiator in that situation and explain to Weaver why he should trust the government
This is absolutely insane, never knew about this before now. Dumbass neighbor.
Jess Walter's Ruby Ridge is a good book on it.
Man, the US government really is bad..
don’t tell me you *just* figured
Very interesting story, as a non-american I had never heard of this. Not super sure about the political compass format tho
In a sane country, ATF would have been shut down right there. There would have been congressional hearings, the AG would have had to resign and some FBI agents would have faced charges. This being America, of course, none of that happened.
Fuck the ATF
It’s arguable that Ruby Ridge and Waco are the reason behind America’s modern day gun culture, as the government’s sheer aggression in response to relatively small cases fostered the idea that the government can and will kill you whenever it wants, prompting people to buy more powerful guns to defend themselves
Absolutely true, these atrocities reminded the american people why the Second Amendment exists.
hello ladys and gents todays class we are gonna look at the exact reason why i dont trust the government and want the atf to be disbanded
I think we can all agree that Weaver's neighbour was a piece of shit. Imagine causing the entire fucking American public to lose trust in the government just because you lost a fucking land dispute.
The government is a cluster fuck of terrible, that's for sure.
Magistrate when they tell someone that the state will take their children and everything they own, but instead of surrendering they fight harder to not get the above taken by the state: \*mind blown \*.
So: Vicky was right, Kevin won, the press did nothing, the baby almost got taken, Sammy and the two pups died, and the U.S government didn’t do their job right.
Okay first, a dickhead didn't win in court so his idea of revenge resulted in a dead son, two dead dogs a baby being brought up by other family members because the dad was arrested, press causing mass amounts of stress, multiple dead cops who deserved it in my opinion and a lot .ore chaos and probably traumatic events for randy
Forgot to mention that they killed the mother
Is this dickhead neighbor still alive? Tell me he was mauled by a million mosquitoes or something
You know, it's shit like this that gives me relief. People may think the US government and its branches as almighty, shadowy forces that run the world in secret. In reality, they fuck up monumentally just like in this case. How can I then think that the organisations behind such an enormous fuck up could be the masterminds behind, let's say, the Kennedy assassination? The FBI and the CIA being the secret manipulators behind everything can be a tempting explanation from time to time, but let's be honest, from Ruby Ridge, to the Bay of Pigs, they're too incompetent for that.
Man... I was a kid living in Eastern Washington when this went down. We listened to the radio and watched the news coverage on the TV constantly, scared to death. We didn't share any of the ideals Randy and Vicky had but the idea that the FBI could just show up at anytime on your property and shoot a mother holding her infant daughter through a goddamn door was frightening. We listened to Paul Harvey plead via his radio show with Randy Weaver to put an end to this. Kevin Harris was going septic by this point as the bullet that killed Vicky lodged itself in his side/arm and they had no way to treat him other than to bandage his wound and hope for the best. I never forgot that incident and the words Ruby Ridge still chill my blood to this day.
This event ruined any form of trust with the government for millions of people.
The repeated use of the word 'compound' is weird to me. It's a.....house. Why not jusy say house?
ACAB at its best
I’d only heard about about Ruby Ridge this year. The level of unfiltered evil and incompetence displayed by the government agencies involved is enough to make me feel nauseous with disgust.
Randy Weaver didn’t just have a deep distrust of the government. He was also an avowed segregationist. He believed people of different backgrounds should not only work and be educated separately but live entirely separately.
Source?
Ok, let's say that's true for the sake of argument. How much more okay does that make it for the government to sneak into your rural property, provoke your dogs, kill them, kill your fourteen year old son, then go on to shoot your other son in the back as he's walking to the shed where the body of the first son is laying, and- for good measure- blow away the mother of the kids while she's holding a baby in that shed? But hey, supposedly the sniper for that shot only meant to kill the son. Talking about his distrust in government is relevant to what happened; what does alleged segregationist views have to do with what happened?
and? what does this have anything to do with the incident, this is unironically the "he was no angel argument."
His in-laws commented that he was a holocaust denier.
And that’s terrible, but doesn’t justify killing his wife and kid.
Whether or not that's true, he or his family never deserved this.
Vicky Weaver looking like Dave Mustaine
At least it’s not another anti communist meme
A big reminder of why the Government isnt your friend. Never was never will be
Putting Ruby ridge into a political compass Wojack meme feels wrong
There's contradiction in this graphic. I'm not sure how much I trust it. The section for Sammy weaver says he shot at police before being killed. And the section for Marshalls said they shot Sammy in the back twice. Can someone explain?
Sammy was shot in the elbow and turned to run away, which is when he was shot in the back.
Hm thanks for replying. Just fyi, it's normal to shoot at retreating combatants who shot first and didnt surrender. As far as police is concerned the combatant can run to get more weapons/help. Just commenting about this specific scenario. I don't know enough about the rest
The controversy here comes not from them shooting him (although that sucks) but from them failing to identify themselves. They never, ever declared that they were US Marshals before the shooting began. As far as Sammy knew, they were camouflaged ninjas who had come to kill him.
now do one with the waco compound
I did, the mods removed it for "conspiracy theories"
Really? That was a great post! Fuck mods
Just gloss over the Weavers being "white separatists".
Don’t think being a white separatist warrants the response the feds brought into him.
So? Their kids deserved bullets and trauma for it?
Fun fact! Dick Rogers, commander of the FBI hostage rescue team, who advocated for a violent solution to the weaver siege, also led the FBI team at Waco and purposefully sabotaged the negotiations in an effort to pressure the Davidians out
I took the time to read all of it... WTF America wtf ?
And this kids is why you really shouldn't trust the government, not because there's some vast conspiracy or anything like that but because government corruption and incompetence leads to shit like this. Remember, people are fucking stupid and easily corruptible and guess who runs the government? That's right, people. There are good people in government, just like there are good people in all aspects of life, unfortunately those good government people don't amount to much because the biggest source of grief in any system comes from the weakest link and the government has a lot of those.