This episode provides a stark, necessary look at how institutional paranoia and tactical failures can transform a minor dispute into a state-sponsored tragedy. It serves as a powerful cautionary tale about the lethal consequences of unchecked government overreach.
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The Siege of Ruby Ridge | That Chapter Podcast本站添加:
All right. Hey you and welcome. My name is Mike and uh you know what? Uh this is another episode of the That Chapter podcast. Uh coming straight from uh my beautiful voice and your beautiful ears.
>> Uh I'm joined by my junior associate, my uh secretary, you might even say. Uh dirty key.
>> Sexy secretary.
>> Yo, you added that part. I might strike that for the record. But uh yeah. Hey folks and welcome to another edition of the That Chapter podcasts. If you can believe such a thing exists, you know what it does. We've been doing this for aboutund coming up I think we're coming up on 150ish episodes.
>> Are we jeez >> something like that? Who [ __ ] knows?
And who cares? Honestly, >> you know, fair play to us. Well, >> we've been doing this for a while. I mean, one episode per week. Listen, it ain't easy, bro. We have to sit down and stare at each other for an hour every week, >> right? Talk about our favorite movies and every now and again have a couple of cans. Yeah. And then Keith tells stories about weird lights he's seen and I have to listen to him talk about these things. Folks, it's really not easy, you know. Uh I say, "Poor me.
>> Poor me. Pour me another drink."
>> Hey, that was a good story, by the way.
I I sound like three episodes ago or two, I don't know, however many episodes ago, and I still I'm still mad at you for even just, you know, bringing it up.
I'm I'm actually less mad at you wasting the listener's time. I'm more mad at you wasting my time.
>> Okay.
Alrighty, folks. You know, today we kind of got a bit of a ser more serious topic today.
>> It is serious. It's a good It's a really good story.
>> It's a great story. It's one I personally have wanted to cover for a long long time because it's absolutely wild.
>> Um, and it's the story of kind of I don't know, [ __ ] just went down. It's kind of like it's got controversy.
>> It's got a siege, long ass siege. It's got bloodshed. M. It's got the government, the feds, the federalist looking uh sort of hilarious in a tree stooges type of way that would have some horrifying consequences. In 1992, in the remote woods of northern Idaho, something very, very strange was happening. And I mean, a little bit more strange than um usual shite like whatever Bigfoot big feet. What's his name? Oh man, I forgot. From Port Lock, Alaska. What's the name? What did they >> Nantino? That's the word I was looking for. Whatever Nantuck was up to, to set the scene for your dirty little minds, it was a Friday and a beautiful one at that, right in the dog days of summer. A family living in the remotest of the remote areas had seen their dog striker bolt into the treeine surrounding their home. Thinking that their dog had just caught sight of a deer and you know the dense surrounding woods or some other type of game animal, the treemen who were watching the dog at the cabin, they all grabbed their rifles and went after.
Two followed directly through the woods while another circled around hoping to cut off whatever it was their dog Striker was following. The family at this point were extremely low on food supplies. So they couldn't pass up the chance to bag themselves a deer's worth of meat for the freezer for, you know, the coming fall. However, what they didn't know was that they were far from alone. They were surrounded by six, count them, six.
>> Six US marshals in the woods. They were there to arrest the patriarch of the family, a man named Randy Weaver. It was part of an operation called Northern Exposure. And as you may have guessed, it wasn't an animal that the dog was following. But Striker had sniffed out the US Marshals covert like in the woods.
>> Not so covert.
>> Not so covert cuz a dog had gotten him as was their intention. Keith, the marshals had actually taunted all striker by throwing rocks at the side of the family's shed. What followed has been called a siege. And there were demands for a surrender. Only the demands came with the old bang bang shoot first policy as in hey I'm here to surrender I got your dick and then just open up on them >> and basically it has the weaver family saying mull on [ __ ] lobby >> and it ended in a lot of bloodshed and it still remains today one of the most controversial standoffs in history. So let's lock and load and give it a go.
This my friends is the siege of Ruby Ridge. Let's go.
>> I feel like I said that scene very well.
>> That was very good.
I am locked in.
>> Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. So, this story it takes place in in the remotest of the remote. We got one family versus US marshalss who are very true or happy.
Should they have been? Shouldn't they have been? Folks, this story is absolutely [ __ ] bananas.
>> It's wild. Yeah, >> we're going to get into it.
>> I feel like like I've been going through it and like, oh, they were like they were so wrong for that. Like, well, something it's really controversial.
>> It is very controversial. I don't know.
Was some people landed on some side, some people land and you know what? You know, we're here. We're not afraid of of delving in, folks. But we're also the ultimate fence sitters.
>> And so whatever you think, honestly, we agree with you.
>> We agree with you.
>> We're playing both sides.
>> Yeah. That way we always come out on top.
>> All right, folks. The story of Randy Weaver, it began when he was born. and Randall Randy Claude Weaver was born into an extremely Christian family on January 3rd, 1948 in Velisa, Iowa.
Location uh pasts of uh that chapter a great that was a good story. We should just talk about that one.
>> Okay, that was fun.
>> So Ry's parents, Clarence and Wilma, would often move Randy and his three siblings between churches of various flavors of Christianity. Sort of like a Jesus buffet. You know, they they were going around with their plate of religion and they were having a little bit of this type of Christianity, a little bit of this type of Christianity, and they were just going to try them all, >> see which stuck. But fortunately, or rather unfortunately for the Weavers, they were a little bit more of the extreme flavor of uh Christianity. They were much more Old Testaments >> when it came to their beliefs. uh you know the Old Testament when God is just very angry and sort of pissed off all the time rather than the kind of new >> loving God >> loving in Jesus's jail.
>> So they they were more into that kind of God and they and so the couple they struggled to fit into one particular denomination. Now Randy he graduated from high school in 1966 and he tried community college for a couple of years but dropped out to enlist in the military instead. you know, despite the Vietnam War raging at the time, Randy, so he was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and never actually stepped foot out of the country really.
>> So, funny enough, later in life, Randy would claim to be the best of the best, the Green Berets.
>> Hell yeah.
>> I mean, like, he most certainly wasn't.
Like, not literally, but I guess like anyone could be a Green Beret if you believe hard enough.
>> I tr I agree with that. It's like me and my Korean uh South Korean Marines t-shirt that I have which I am fully using for stolen valor and I have gotten absolutely nothing yet but I will try my look in South Korea.
>> Do you think I'll be believable? They they look at me and like >> I think you'll fit right in.
>> I think Yeah, they'll be like they'll totally buy me.
>> Maybe Randy just owned the Green Beret and just let everyone else make up their own mind.
>> Yeah, he didn't need to say. He just wore the braid and just winked all the time. Exactly. You see what I'm wearing?
Hey, I didn't say you said it. So Randy, he met his future wife Vicki who was Victoria Jordansson in those days, a couple of years into his service in 1970 while he was visiting home on leave.
Randy was honorably discharged in 1971 with the rank of sergeant. Now the couple they got married soon after and Randy got to work at the John Deere factory. Vicki took work as a secretary but quit to become a homemaker and raise their incoming children full-time. Now, following the birth of their son in 1978, Randy Weaver and his family began making the necessary preparations to leave their life behind and move to Caribou Ridge in Idaho in order to build their own cabin home and live quote off the grid. I mean, today they'd be, you know, van life Instagrammers, but back then, well, there was no Instagram.
That's true. But, you know, they'd be real homeschooling. They don't drink pasteurized milk. They homeschool their kids. into that that whole sort of deal.
Yo, they just wanted to get away from it all.
>> They would hunt, grow their own food, and all their children, as I said, would be homeschooled. The weavers, they paid $5,000 cash for the land at $500 an acre. They did do their research. The couple they visited an Amish community to better learn how to live uh without Maine's electricity, though they did have a generator.
>> Who better to learn from?
>> I mean, they they're the kings of it.
>> They've got it down locked and loaded.
They moved to Caribou Ridge in 1983 in the remotest of remote Iowa. And and now you're probably asking where did this come from? Uh well, it was very, and I mean capital V, strong religious beliefs. Now you're probably thinking the Weavers, weren't they very like into the whole Old Testament God type of thing? Vicki was like on another level.
>> According to Randy and several of her former friends, Vicki had told them she had had recurring dreams of the incoming apocalypse. Ooh, >> you got to be [ __ ] me. [ __ ] no.
>> But yeah, she truly believed that uh >> four horsemen left.
>> Yeah, the world is going to end. We got to get off grid. We got to get away and stay safe away from basically everybody else. That was one of their main motives for moving to the remotest of the remote.
>> These dreams, they cranked up Vickiy's already fiery fate. Like she was convinced that they they weren't just dreams, but they were visions showing her family surviving the apocalypse. To her, that meant one thing. pack up and head to the mountains. This really reminds me so much of Do you ever see the show Doomsday Preppers?
>> I have not.
>> It's amazing. So, basically each episode it follows uh different people or families in the US and they're prepping for what they believe will be a doomsday event. Anything from like economic collapse to natural catastrophes or pandemics or civil war or anything that every episode is completely different, but every episode also forum has the same format which it's so funny. So, basically the person always starts off explaining what they are prepping for.
See, by the way, I'm locked in. This sounds great. I want to watch this show.
>> Amazing. It's so good. So, after they tell us what they're prepping for, the next thing they do is tell us that they're not crazy. This is going to happen.
>> And then proceeding to show us that they are in fact crazy people. It's fantastic. It's an amazing show. And I definitely feel if the show was around or if the Tommy was around now, they were 100% on that show.
>> For sure. I mean, it's like, hey, you know, the broken clock, it's right twice a day.
>> The apocalypse is going to come. It may be 10,000 years or millions of years from now when the sun swells the earth, but it will come. So, the Weaver family in the year 1992, it was made up of patriarch Randy, mama Vicki, and their children. You got 16-year-old Sarah, 10-year-old Rachel, 14-year-old Samuel, 10mon-old infant Alicia, and last but not least, Striker the dog, a golden Labrador. And as you're about to learn, Randy, you know, you can sort of be like, "Okay, this is sort of interesting. maybe a quirky little family, but nothing too weird. He will become far from the sympathetic character in this story. And honestly, the Weavers, although [ __ ] happens to them, they're not a particularly likable family. No.
>> But I still think that they're I mean, doesn't mean that he wasn't a victim.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> From what happened for sure. [ __ ] slip on bananas, too. You know what I'm saying?
>> Exactly.
>> But he was for sure the Lee Harvey Oswald of having a good time. You know, he would take that [ __ ] out at 100 yards. He seen anybody having fun. He was Oh yeah, >> making hamburger meat that good time.
>> You see, the Amish weren't the only alternative community that the Weavers found themselves involved in. And and the Weaver's reasons for hanging out with the Amish was purely, you know, uh pretty innocent. Just how do you live off the land? Yeah, that kind of [ __ ] After making the move to Idaho, former soldier Randy and quote former Green Beret, Randy and his family, they began attending various community events at uh let me just double check my notes here.
uh at the Aryan Nations.
>> Now, um don't think I need to go into a whole lot of what the Aryan Nations were about. Uh and by the way, northern Idaho, so Idaho is kind of like a rectangle and then there's like a little square that sticks out at the top of the state full of white nationalists.
Absolutely chalk full. It's like really remote. And all the neo-Nazis we little square.
>> Yeah, just that we little square of Idaho.
>> Yeah, literally. Uh it's chalk full of them. They have the little summer camps and the little sleepovers there and then they do various activities and they they tell spooky ghost stories while sitting around a campfire. So they were all living in this area where he was and the whole thing of sleepovers and these little family events, you know, family.
They're very family oriented. It's very much like a just a recruiting thing.
It's like, oh, hey, how's the wife and kids? And by the way, what do you think of the other races? You know, let's get into that.
Randy and his daughter Rachel say they would they'd later claim that it wasn't about hating other groups. Oh, no, no, no.
>> Oh, of course not. No, >> no, no, no, no. They said what pulled them towards the Aryan nations was their shared distrust of the government. The old, you know, we're not racist. We just like hanging out with them. They've got some interesting ideas, >> but we don't believe in their their ideas, but they're worth listening to.
>> I was just there for the camps and the s'mores, you know.
>> Exactly. You know what? Hey, listen. I'm not a fan of Hitler. I just watch his videos all day cuz he's great public speaking.
>> It's literally that excuse. It's like a lot.
>> So, by the way, uh you might have noticed I said that the Weavers, they moved to Caribou Ridge, not the titular Ruby Ridge. That's because the Weaver Cabin was on Caribou Ridge, which ran into Ruby Creek. It only became known as Ruby Ridge when the media got a hold of the story and apparently thought that, well, Ruby Ridge sounds way better than Cara Ridge. It's much more sexy, which to be fair, Ruby Ridge gives me a Ruby Tuesday. Gives me a chub. So, it's pretty cool name.
>> I thought you were sitting funny.
>> So, in 1984, while still new to the area and still hanging out with people who have interesting ideas, >> the Weaver family, they became embroiled in a feud over a disputed land deal with Harry Kenisonson. Now, the feud actually treaded to get quite nasty, requiring litigation to try and resolve it, but basically it's about you buying land and he thought the land was his and it's something that shouldn't have been a big deal. But ultimately, the weavers, they came out on top. And Terry Kinison was naturally not very happy about that. But he took not very happy about the ruling to like next level retaliation. Rather than just being their kind of permanently pissed off neighbor who maybe blar music really loudly on his speakers and has parties all the time, he instead decided to write several letters to the FBI claiming that Randy Weaver and his family had plans to assassinate then President Ronald Reagan and had made threats against Pope John Paul II and the governor of Idaho, John Evans. So there you go down.
>> Instead of just being pissed off, you're calling your neighbor a terrorist >> who's going to murder prominent people.
>> The Pope.
>> Yeah. It's like what happened?
>> You know, maybe those threats, they would have been brushed off if Randy didn't already look like a major walking red flag. So between his trips to the area nations and all the rest, it was enough to get the FBI and the Secret Service sniffing around, snooping around. So on February 12th, 1985, agents from both the FBI and the Secret Service along with the local deputies, they showed up to the Weaver Place to sit Randy and Vicki down for, you know, just a bit of a chat, see what's going on.
>> Yeah, exactly. And in fairness now, there was a bit of um in the culture in the 80s, you know, the mid80s around this time, a lot of times there wasn't smoke without fire because this had kind of been happening a lot in the United States at this time. So despite, you know, the FBI, they investigated the Weavers and there was no charges yielded. It seemed like there was [ __ ] here, but they were like, you know, let's just keep an eye on them because their neighbors are sort of interesting.
>> See, Ry's association with a man named Frank Kumnik was of particular interest to the feds. Now, Kumnik was one of those high up guys in the Aryan Nations who just had some good ideas that Randy liked listening to, and he was a pretty well-known figure in the local white supremacist movement. More importantly though, Kumnik was suspected of being a member of a terror group who called themselves the Covenant, the sword, and the arm of the Lord. Okay, that name is too [ __ ] long. That's your first problem right there, buddy.
>> Right, I give you something more catchy.
Something like uh my swordy for the lordy.
>> Hey, that is good. I love that. You just like whip your whip your balls out. Hey, >> in 1983, the covenant, the sword, and the armor of the Lord, again, change your name. They published a manifesto declaring war on the government. They performed mock assassinations and in 1985 they would have a siege of their very own. Everybody's getting a siege at this point. Uh they had a siege in the mountains of Missouri, Arkansas.
>> I love the idea of these mock assassinations. It was just like one guy in this white supremacist group that was just like really passionate about theater. I think we should put on a play, lads.
>> Yeah, >> it's cool. It's cool. It's about assassinations. You'll love it.
So that kind of company uh pretty big yikes there was leading to more attention towards Randy Weaver. And so that was a lot of the reason why they decided to keep an eye on him.
>> Y >> now later in February of 1985, Randy and Vicki, they signed an affidavit in which they claimed that several people who disliked them were conspiring to have the FBI raid their cabin in the hope of provoking a fatal interaction. So they even believe that people are setting us up and saying we're part of a group that we're not a part of. literally what their neighbor was doing. Yeah. Wink. I mean, they were sort of, you know, it's it's a bit murky last year about what the weavers were really into.
>> And the weavers, they were libertarians big time. So, really, they also felt that some of their neighbors were just not too keen on having them around and so would set them up. Now, funnily enough, and I mean, you know, not half funny, but in one of the many ironies in the Ruby Ridge story, it wasn't any of the believers at the Aryan Nations that would truly push Randy on the fateful path that would end in a bloody siege.
Rather, it was an undercover informant working with the ATF, who Randy had first met around July 1986. Now, in the early 1990s, the long fuse of government distrust that had been lit back in the 70s with the Watergates scandal was close to running out. But, as it turns out, that sense of distrust spiraling into paranoia ran both ways. It was equally as rampant within the ranks of the government. So, nobody was trusting each other. But wonder what they would think of today's age. So, the government and the people, they just did not trust each other. People didn't trust the government. The government didn't trust the people. And the ATF in particular were heavily involved. thanks to concerns that militia groups were stockpiling weapons. And it was the ATF whose informant Randy ran into. Now, according to Randy, he he had been approached on more than one occasion to become an informant himself, but he made a a whole song and dance about it about rejecting the offer. He clearly irritated someone high up because Randy, he found himself right at the top of the ATF's watch list.
>> Watch list. Randy was uh kind of just pissed off everybody. He was a good man at making enemies. He just ruled everyone the wrong way.
>> Yeah, >> Randy like he was he was terrible at making friends unless you of course you count Nazis. Honestly, he wasn't much better at looking out for his own family either. But it wasn't for lack of trying. So in 1988, he ran for county sheriff on the slogan get out of jail free. No joke. He actually printed Monopoly style cards he planned to hand out if he had won. Luckily, he didn't win. Uh now the cards they were intended for citizens to use for nonviolent crimes. Uh, and I like I love the idea of just being pulled over like for speeding and handing the officer your get out of jail free card only for him to give you the uno reverse card. Get off to jail with you.
>> No, Sheriff Weaver said I could.
>> That's not fun games. But uh yeah, the idea of the cards obviously it's laughable, but I think that might have been the point. Randy, like he had no time for the federal government. To him it like it wasn't even real. It was all a it was a fugazi. Like sure, even the president of the time, Ronald Reagan, they he wasn't real as far as Randy was concerned. He was he was just an actor.
>> He's an actor.
>> He was an actor. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I knew he wasn't real.
>> It would have been pretty interesting if Randy had become sheriff. I mean, he he was running in the platform of law enforcement while blankly saying that he would enforce no laws. But, uh, you know, it would have been a bit of crack at least.
>> It would have been very interesting to say, I'm going to be sheriff and I'm going to enforce absolutely [ __ ] nothing.
So after that runin with, you know, ATF informants trying to get him and the feds trying to turn Randy into an informant, another ATF informant who was also working undercover in the Aryan nations asked Randy if he could get him some guns under the table.
>> So literally the feds were trying to screw Randy every which way they at first they investigated him for all threats. Then they tried to turn him into an informant. Then when that didn't work, they got another informant to try and force Randy to break the law.
>> Yeah.
>> Like it was wild.
>> They were going to get him.
>> They major hard on for Randy Weaver at this point. See, originally they asked uh this informant asked Randy to get him some machine guns. Wink wink. I mean, this is isn't this like entrapment? You know, it's like they're trying to force him to do something that's illegal. And that was out of Ry's reach, right? He he couldn't get this informant machine guns. He did, however, have ready access to a hacksaw, if you can believe such a thing. So when the informed asked him if he could get him a couple of sawoff shotguns, Randy got to saw and soon turned over a pair of illegally sawoff shotguns to an undercover ATF informant.
Now this was unknown to Randy, but the mistake was uh still his. Then if you're going to sell a firearm of any kind, the responsibility is on the seller to make sure they are complying with the law.
And the law says that shotgun barrels must be a certain length, which the ones Randy were selling was not. Interesting fact about this deal. It was actually even more of a setup than you would believe. It wasn't just the government undercover agent asking for something he knew was illegal and then Randy did it.
They gave Randy the shotguns and he marked off where they need to be hacked off.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Randy knew the law, so he marked it and was like, "Okay, I'm going to cut off here. It's still going to be legal."
>> Yeah. He informed then took the guns back, changed the marking so it would be illegal, then gave it back to Randy who's like, "Okay, that's where Mark is." They literally tricked him into breaking the law. He didn't even intentionally sell them like illegal sawoff shotguns.
>> It was wild. So, the illegal gun deal was the foot in the door the ATF needed.
An attempt to arrest Randy in January of 1991 was carefully thought out as the ATF decided it would be far too risky to try and pick up Randy from his property.
Instead, they had agents act as though they were broken down on the side of the road not far from Ry's house. And when Randy and Vicki stopped to help, being nice, like a nice thing to do, they were immediately like, "Nope, you're arrested." Again, Randy probably has some shitty ideas. not a cool guy, but they're literally like doing the shittiest thing possible to him.
>> So, Randy was taken away. Vicki was released without charge, but Randy was then he was released on bail. And this is where the story gets even crazier.
So, Randy was released on bail and he was given a court date of February 19th, 1991 to attend. However, the date was pushed back by a day to February 20th.
The court did not contact Weaver directly, but left it to his defense council, Everett Hoffmeister, to let Randy know, oh, the the date's been pushed back. Now, the office did try and contact Randy in the leadup, but couldn't contact him. And basically, one of the biggest fups in this effed up story was somebody giving somebody the wrong date. This story is just all about like little small things adding up into one giant [ __ ] pie. And it turned out that Ry's probation officer had mistakenly given Randy the incorrect date of March 20th, not February 20th, causing him to miss the date of his trial completely. That's crazy.
>> Yeah, it's wild. Now, considering what the feds did next, it's very likely that the ATF agents in charge of the case, they were still hoping to turn Randy with their newfound leverage, but that is far from what happened. So despite the courts having a copy of the probation officer's letter that gave the incorrect date, the judge in charge, he refused to withdraw the bench warrant for Ry's arrest. So thanks to Ry's failure to appear, he had breached his probation conditions and he had gained newfound status as a fugitive. Wow.
Which meant his case was in the purview of other federal law enforcement agencies, the United States Marshall Service.
>> Yeah. And they were just like the tongue was hanging out to nail Randy Weaver to the wall. It's It's like It's crazy. So, a severe failure of clear and open communications followed. Randy Weaver, knowing that there was a warrant out for his arrest, he simply stayed put in the cabin and made it clear he would not be going quietly. And in fairness now, all the mess ups were not him. So, you can sort of like, yeah, I can see where he's coming from.
>> Considering how distressful of the government Randy already was. He was like a lifelong religious libertarian.
So, he already didn't like the government. And then coupled up with them tricking him and screwing up dates.
It's unsurprising he didn't trust the man anymore. Now he kind of You do feel a bit bad for him at this point. Yeah, they were out to get him.
>> They were kind of just enforcing his already horrible beliefs, I guess.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Now, the marshals, they did try to get Randy to come in peacefully. But, uh, Ry's existing concerns, I've said like they were already they were multiplied massively when he was told by his defense council that if he lost the federal arms case, he could lose his land and his home. that was not true, which was another mess up and frankly just an outright lie. So, it's really the more you read into this, the more I say I agree with him.
>> I I wouldn't say I agree with him, but I see where he's coming from with uh his kind of like locked and loaded.
>> He got the shitty end of stick.
>> He definitely did. Yeah. So out of patience, in October 1991, Assistant US District Attorney Ron Howen made the ill- fated decision to have the marshals cease direct negotiations and instead send communication through Weaver's lawyer, who he was no longer talking to.
Over the next several months, deputy US marshals began surveillance operations in preparation to bring Weaver in, ranging from agents posing as civilians to scope out his cabin in the woods, all the way to creeping around the property and installing cameras to watch the family. Despite a relatively heavy investment into watching Randy and the Weavers, the intelligence gathered was seriously flawed. One of the biggest misconceptions that caused a lot of undue fear amongst the federal ranks was that Randy had been, "Holy [ __ ] he's a freaking Green Beret."
>> That's his fault now.
>> Yeah. Uh he was in fact people believe that.
>> Yeah. Yeah. But he loved people believing that. So that actually was turned out to be a bad thing because they were very heavy-handed with taking him down because again they believed him to be a Green Beret, which this is the government. They could have literally scanned through his military records and seen he clearly wasn't. He was never in a special force. They didn't even bother to check. They just believed the rumors that he was.
>> So the rumors, you know, of him being a commando had caught fire and led to the marshall's threat assessment of Randy being filled with all sorts of wild speculation about the property on Ruby Ridge, that it was mined, that he had tunnels, that he had booby traps, trip wires, and that he was basically Rambo and Rambo part one, where he goes around, you know, slitting next cash and checks. So these failures in intelligence and numerous communication errors all combined to set the scene for a tragic interaction. And so all that led to the morning of August 21st, 1992.
And so you've got Randy Weaver, his wife, uh Vicki, and their children, 16-year-old Sarah, 10-year-old Rachel, 14-year-old Samuel, 10-month-old Alicia, and Striker the dog. That morning, Randy, Samuel, and a family friend, Kevin Harris, all watched as Striker ran into the treeine. They all thought that the dog had caught sight of a deer. So, the three of them, Randy, Sammy, and Kevin, they all grabbed their rifles.
Kevin Harris, and Samuel, followed directly through the woods after the dog striker. But Randy circled around, hoping to cut off whatever it was that striker was following. Less than 15 ft from them were three deputy marshals, Art Rodrik, Larry Cooper, and William Degan Jr. They were being watched over from a observation post by three more deputy marshals, David Hunt, Joseph Thomas, and Frank Norris. This six-man team of marshals, they were there ostensibly to arrest Randy Weaver on the warrant for failure to appear as part of what was now being called Operation Northern Exposure. The surveillance operation came with its own very unique rules of engagement, but uh we'll we'll come back to them because they were pretty damn unique. The marshals, they had taunted the animal by throwing rocks at the side of the weaver's shed, hoping to lure out Randy where they could nab him in the woods.
>> The agents, they later claimed that they'd only done so in order to see the dog's reaction, only for the dog to begin following them, which in turn had alerted the weaver. It's like, that's not my fault. I didn't know the dog would act that way.
>> Yeah. What do you think a dog is going to do if you're throwing rocks like near it and making a rockus? So the final trigger for the torrent of violence that followed was the moment deputy martial art Roderric shot the Weaver family dog striker in the spine. This was witnessed by both 14-year-old Samuel Weaver and Kevin Harris. Having seen the dog he had raised from uh from being a puppy shot in the back at close range. Teenage Samuel was obviously u pretty pissed off. Wasn't a fan of that one. Just wasn't just wasn't cool with it. So Sammy yelled out, "You killed my dog, you son of a bitch." and used his Ruger rifle to return fire in the direction of the US Marshalss. Very important to note that not only had Sammy just seen his dog gunned down, but the deputies who had done it were also not in regular uniforms.
>> Oh, rather they were in military style camouflaged fatigues complete with like full face paint, M16 A1s, and night vision goggles.
>> So that's just like scary bastards in the woods. Like yeah, like I'm sure he didn't know it was the Marshalls. Have you seen that? you just murdered your dog in front of you. And so at that point, the marshals, they had their old famous Julius Caesar line in the head, which is, "I could kill you faster than I could threaten to kill you." So they just skipped the threats. The Marshalss then returned with gunfire of their own, forcing teenage Samuel and neighbor Kevin Harris to seek cover behind trees.
And as all hell broke loose, Samuel was hit in the elbow by a shot fired, which caused him to panic and try and run back to the main house. At which point, teenage Samuel was fatally shot in the back. Kevin Harris, he returned fire in the marshall's direction. And in the brief but chaotic exchange, Kevin Harris fatally shot Deputy Marshall William Degan Jr. with two rounds. Now, the accounts of the shooting vary depending on, I guess, who's telling the story, so we'll try and give it a, you know, as straightforward a retelling as we can.
Now, at some point, Kevin Harris was also hit and wounded, but exactly when it wasn't certain. Marshall Cooper later testified that he shot Kevin Harris and he saw Harris go down. This was before Teenage Samuel was killed as the two sought for cover. It was only after Sam and Degan were both dead that Kevin Harris finally heard Marshall Cooper identify himself as being a deputy US marshal. So, a lot of gunshots have going up. And then he's like, "Oh, by the way, uh, we're government. We're actually we we didn't even want to kill you."
>> What the [ __ ] >> So, when the chance came and after a quick check to confirm if Samuel was indeed dead, Kevin Harris, he managed to get back to the cabin and he told the weavers what had happened. Meanwhile, the surviving marshals on the Weaver property pulled back and were joined by Deputy Marshall Norris from the Overwatch team. The remaining deputies on the observation post, Thomas Anhunt, immediately went to a neighboring property to request assistance.
Eventually, the tree deputy marshals on the ridge were able to get to US Marshall Degan's body where they waited till it could be evacuated later. The mama, papa, you know, weavers, Randy and Vicki, were also able to retrieve their son's body. With some help from Kevin Harris, who had been wounded in the gunfight, Randy and Vicki took their teenage son's body back to a shed where they locked him away before falling back into the main house. Everything that had happened so far, including the death of a child and a law enforcement agent, it had happened in minutes and was completely avoidable. And yet, the worst was still to come as the siege began. M this whole story is just a like a snowball effect of just small decisions just snowball into bigger and bigger until eventually like a child shot now.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and there's going to be a couple of more deaths, folks, so look forward to that.
>> Hang in there. Now, as you might have guessed, the response to the dead federal agent and deputy US marshal was as instant as it was overwhelming. They didn't seem to care quite so much about the dead teenager, though. So, the anger was on full display, which meant the Weavers now had the full force of pretty much every federal and state law enforcement agency bearing down on their little 20 acre ridge top slice of Idaho.
That's a lot of itchy trigger fingers.
>> Oh, everybody was like, "Let me add them. Let me >> Yeah. Now, what should have been a time to call for calm instead was anything but." The marshals, they dispatched their SOG or special operations group.
They were backed by deputies from the from the Boundary County Office along with state police. Even the National Guard opened up the doors uh to their armory after Idaho's governor declared a state of emergency. The ATF, they sent agents and the FBI did their part, too, sending the HRT or hostage response team to try and end the siege. So, they were all like it was everyone.
>> Yeah, they sent the [ __ ] dogs, too.
And it's like the family didn't even do anything wrong, you know? It's like it's it's wild. So, the man overseeing all of this was special agent in charge Eugene Glenn of the Salt Lake City FBI office.
During the rest of Friday, August 21st, 1992, hundreds of agents moved into positions around the Weaver cabin as the Weavers themselves spent the day grieving and patching up Kevin Harris.
More importantly, though, was what was happening away from Ruby Ridge. The Weavers, it had been decided, deserved their own special rules of engagement.
By the morning of the 22nd, the Saturday, the rules of engagement for agents on Ruby Ridge had been signed off by both the FBI and the US Marshalss.
Now, normally law enforcement officers, they operate on a standardized policy when it comes to using deadly force.
Basically, unless their life or the life of another person is under imminent threat, deadly force should be avoided.
You shouldn't killing somebody should be the last possible option.
>> That makes sense.
>> Ruby Ridge, they're like, "Let's make it the first possible option." And basically the rules of engagement put in place at Ruby Ridge on August 22nd during the first few days of the siege were one, if any adult in the area around the cabin is observed with a weapon after the surrender announcement has been made, deadly force could and should be used to neutralize the individual. So you see anybody with a gun, kill them.
>> Yeah. Two, if any adult, and this was later changed to adult male sexist, is observed with a weapon prior to the announcement, deadly force can and should be employed if the shot could be taken without endangering any children.
So, it's like if we ask them to surrender and they don't and you see him with a gun, shoot him.
>> Before we even get there, if you see him with a gun, shoot.
>> It's basically just if you see him, shoot him before we even bring in the hostage negotiators or anything like that.
>> Tree was if compromised by any dog, the dog can be taken out. Mhm.
>> There was only one dog. That was the first option they did. They killed the dog before they could do anything else.
>> And then four, any subjects other than Randy Weaver, Vicky Weaver, Kevin Harris, uh presenting threat of death or grievous bodily harm. The FBI rules of deadly force apply. Deadly force can be utilized to prevent the death or grievous bodily injury to oneself or another. So basically, if any of the children in the house because and they've already killed one of the kids.
Yeah.
>> But if any of the other kids do anything, kill them too.
>> Jesus, this is Yeah, this is truly like shoot first, ask questions later.
>> We're going to go and kill them all.
That was the plan >> to again a family who hadn't really done anything wrong.
>> I know. Crazy. So the new rules, they they were quickly dispersed amongst the on-site agents who now including the FBI's HRT team, which were complete with snipers.
>> Oh yeah. And they were like locked in.
find you my chance.
>> Yeah, it's like Jarhead.
>> So, when the when the FBI's on-site negotiator uh Fred Lansley was later asked about the Oroe or rules of engagement, he said that he had been shocked by their severity. His opinion was echoed throughout the Leos and law enforcement agents who were they were on site and they were also observing.
Almost everyone thought that they were extreme and a step too far. I mean, yeah, it's spacey as you said. It's just kill on site. So, most people thought maybe take a chibble, let no one else die. But there was one guy who thought he was a hero and that was sniper Lon Horuchi or itchy figure Lon I like to call him. Yeah. He was only Matt to shoot somebody dead. He he was licking his chops >> to pull the trigger with somebody's head in his crosshairs. Truly. Truly.
>> This guy is he's such a prick.
>> He is. Yeah. Yeah. So despite there being no attempt to reach out to the Weavers uh or Harris, Kevin Harris or you know their friend who was still there, Agent Horuchi of the FBI, he fired multiple shots at Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris. Lon Horuchi was on a ridge more than 200 yards away. This was to the north of the Weaver's cabin when he spotted Randy, Kevin, and 16-year-old Sarah. Randy was going to the shed where his son's body was lying when Horuchi saw the chance to take him out. As Randy was about to unlock the door, Horuchi claimed to have the crosshairs resting on Ry's spine, only for Randy to move as he pulled the trigger. Now, the shot went true and true. It did hit Randy in the back and it exited out from near his armpit, but didn't get him in the spine.
as Randy, Sarah, and Harris, they then booked it back to the cabin because there's a sniper with them in the crosshairs. Horuchi caught sight of Kevin Harris as he was about to, you know, it was going through the front door of the cabin and he fired again.
Again, this time the round it went straight through its target. However, it also went through the door and through a second target. Also, what Horuchi didn't know was where the other members of the Weaver family were, which uh I think any experienced shooter will be like, you know, this is like, isn't this like shooting 101? Is like one, trigger discipline. Two, make sure you know what's on the other side of what you're going to shoot so you don't kill somebody behind it. Because they have to cover great distances, beat the wind, and often need to defeat body armor, snipers tend to employ midsize, fast moving rounds. That means there's always a threat of hitting whatever is behind your target. And that's exactly what Horuchi did. On the other side of the cabin door was Vicky Weaver. Vicki was struck and killed by the shot meant for Kevin Harris. Had the round been mere inches lower, the tragedy would have been even greater as she was holding her 10-month-old daughter in her arms at the time. Harris himself was badly wounded but alive, having now been shot [ __ ] twice. M Randy 2 was shot in and out.
Now his wife has been shot dead, his baby in her arms. So for a man who started out with uh talk about freaking Randy Weaver's bad day. Uh he had less than zero confidence in the government and now they're literally trying to murder him, have shot him, have shot his friend twice, >> have killed his dog, have killed his wife, have killed his son, and now and they're still surrounding his >> I know. Yeah. And they're still encroaching like >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> It's wild. So Randy Harris and the Weaver Girls, so they they remained locked down in the cabin for another nine days.
>> Jeez. Nine days.
>> Yeah. After the second shooting, but still nine days. So it was 11 days in total. So 11 days with little food, locked up with the bodies of their brother and mother just feet away and under constant threat of a sniper's bullet.
>> Man, you'd be like, Yeah. You'd be scared of the windows around your place and you l your mom's dead body like right there.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> O >> horrendous. And like those original rules of engagement, they would remain in place for 2 days until they were finally suspended on the 24th.
>> Meanwhile, the feds, they did sort of realize uh this isn't good. Uh they basically had a oh what the [ __ ] are we doing sort of moment. Um the deputy assistant director of the FBI, he wrote a memo to his colleagues while this was all going on in which he succinctly summed up his opinion of what was going on. And in his memo, he noted that the original gun charge against Weaver was [ __ ] because it was. And um that despite being the target of the huge operation, Operation Northern Exposure, Randy hadn't actually engaged the marshals at all. He never fired a single like shot at him. His son did and Kevin did, but Randy didn't. Vicki, by the way, who had been murdered, uh she had zero charges. She was under like nothing to answer for. She should have been allowed to walk free without threat of arrest at any time, you know. And uh he also the deputy assistant director he also specifically noted that Randy Weaver was in a quote very strong legal position basically that the feds were [ __ ] because of what they were doing and he didn't even know that Vicki was dead when he wrote that memo when he was like we're already screwed.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. This was just a [ __ ] show all around for everybody. Initially, negotiators from the FBI had they tried to contact Randy using a bullhorn on the 23rd, but they'd received no response, probably because he was like riding on the ground with bullet holes in him.
>> Yeah. It would ultimately fall to civilian volunteer negotiators acting as intermediaries between the feds and the weavers to resolve things. Like it's real like I'm not going up there. Send the civilians up.
>> We really don't care if they get killed.
apparently. So, officials on the scene, they were still uh treating the situation as though Weaver was the aggressor and as though he was holding his children hostage. Meanwhile, as word was spreading of Vickiy's death and the story was becoming an international news headline, authorities, they knew they needed to bring things to an end as peacefully and as quickly as possible.
So, now you got to meet James Gordon Gritz, known as Bo, who was a Vietnam vet and a former special forces member turned protester and wannabe politician.
He even tried to run for president under the slogan gods, guns, and grits, which is pretty cool, honestly. I probably would vote for him. He had some uh unusual uh beliefs to to say the least, but he did genuinely want a peaceful end to the standoff at Ruby Ridge. After volunteering himself as a negotiator, and after being accepted by Randy, Grits acted as a go-between, slowly progressing things until a breakthrough finally came on Sunday, August 30th, which allowed for Kevin Harris, who has been shot twice, to be evacuated by helicopter, and he was in seriously bad shape, but he would eventually make a full recovery. And yeah, by the way, remember they were there for 9 days. And at one point, yeah, Kevin Harris uh begged Randy to finish him off at one point during the siege, but yeah, he ultimately would make a full recovery.
So Kevin Harris was held in isolation at the hospital and not allowed to talk to anyone for several days. Randy also allowed Vickiy's body to be taken away.
As the commander of the FBI's HR team prepared to assault the cabin and take Randy by force, Grits made a last ditch attempt to get Randy to surrender, promising that he would be safe.
Thankfully, Randy finally complied after his friend Kevin Harris was, you know, evacuated, his wife was taken away, and he himself was finally taken into custody the day after, August 31st. His girls, they were sent to live with relatives, and Randy was arraigned before a federal judge on September 1st.
Now, Randy Weaver, he was held in custody until the case came to trial in front of the Boise District Court, April 1993. And if you can believe it, folks, Randy Weaver's case was pretty strong. M but that didn't mean the cards weren't still stacked against him.
>> Was lucky they gave him the right date this time.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully. Yeah.
Fortunately, he had a pretty decent attorney, Gary Spence. And Gary Spence faced off against US attorney Kim Lindquist acting for the prosecution.
And he truly backed himself when he failed to call on any of his own witnesses. Instead, he put all his chips on the truth prevailing by cross-examining the prosecution's own witnesses in order to paint a picture of exactly what had happened. After all, there were many people in the various agencies responsible for Ruby Ridge that also believed the handling of the situation was completely wrong and the loss of life unnecessary. Defense attorney Spence used the trial and his questions to highlight the alleged serious and severe wrongdoing on behalf of the FBI, the US Marshalss, and other law enforcement agencies. Evidence and witnesses lasted 41 days before the jury of seven men and five women retired to consider their verdict. Weaver's trial ended in July with Randy Weaver being acquitted of all the charges related to the siege at Ruby Ridge on the grounds of selfdefense. He was found guilty of the bloated gun charges and probation violation, though that had sparked the entire thing. And technically, he had been guilty of those offenses, but he had sort of been forced to be guilty of those offenses, too. And for that, though, Randy received a $10,000 fine and 18 months in prison, but was credited with time served. Thanks to the year he'd already spent in jail, he was he was basically out and home free soon after. Kevin Harris, he faced his own troll. His attorney, he took a very similar attack to Weavers in which he also focused on the serious issues in the marshall's operation. Now, unlike Weaver, though, matters, they were complicated by the fact that Kevin Harris had actually shot and killed a deputy US marshal. In the end though, it was decided that there was enough doubt around exactly when the marshals had identified themselves as such for Harris to also be acquitted of all charges, including the shooting of Deputy Marshall Degan Jr. to say the Weaver's lives were changed irrevocably by what happened to them in August 1992, it's a bit of an understatement. Randy and his eldest daughter Sarah, who had the clearest recollections of the siege, they later wrote a book, The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge. They wrote that together in 1998 and it's a pretty fascinating if sad read and it's I pretty recommend it to any of you guys who want to learn more about this story.
Like I said at the very beginning, Randy is far from a sympathetic character. But regardless, uh a great injustice was committed against him and whether people agree with it or not and or whether we agree with him or not, it's it is pretty messed up. Basically did the entire government just go they were going to nail him one way or the other. and Randy and his daughters. They had little legal recourse in criminal court, but they did attempt to bring a civil suit against the federal government. They sought $200 million in damages for the unlawful and unconstitutional killings of Samuel and Vicki. And ultimately though, Randy would walk away with just $100,000, his daughters $1 million each. Had they persisted in their suit and not accepted the settlements, there's a very good chance though that they would have won the full amount due to the high level of wrongdoing found during the federal operation. The fact that 6 months later, the very same agencies and even some of the same highlevel officials were involved in yet another siege in Waco, Texas, shows that nobody learned anything from Ruby Ridge. And um well, it was a [ __ ] show all around. An independent government inquest was formed to look into the siege at Ruby Ridge and found major issues with the FBI and US Marshall's response, especially the second shot taken by Horyuchi, which they considered to be unconstitutional and the extreme rules of engagement which laid the foundation for it to be taken. The committee called the rules a virtual shoot on site order, which it was. I mean, there we open up on them, boys.
>> Yeah, go for it.
>> Harris, he also went on to seek damages.
Uh if anything he he should have had a a stronger case having been shot twice and nearly killed. Only Harris he also faced the hindrance of having as we mentioned killed a deputy US marshal whether it was justified or not. It took decades and in the end Harris he only received 380,000.
>> Yeah. Uh in 1997 by the way uh Lon Horuchi the sniper >> he was charged with manslaughter for his shooting of of Vicky Weaver. Uh that was dismissed then reversed then dismissed again. So it sort of kind of like he ended up getting nothing. Funnily enough, uh he actually makes another cameo. He later appeared at the Waco siege where it was rumored but not verified, but it was rumored that he did open up fire on on the branch devidians.
So uh he was just >> they let him back in the force.
>> Yeah. And they gave him the gun. They were like go to town. And he said hell yeah. Uh and later, uh a littleknown fella named Timothy McVey, he would hand out cards to people at gun shows. And written on these cards he'd give out was Lon Horuchi's name and address, >> which is uh well, you know, speaking of what uh Timothy McVey would later do. I don't think he was messing around there.
Um what happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco didn't only have major political ramifications, it had some very real world ramifications, too. In 1995, the same year as these settlements with the Weavers, on April 19th of that year, two men, Timothy McVey and Terry Nichols parked a truck filled with the explosive equivalent of 5,000 lb of TNT outside the Alfred Pura Federal Building in Oklahoma. They then detonated the device, killing 168 people, including 19 children, some of whom were literal babies, and maming hundreds more people.
The blast devastated the building with a large amount of the damage being absorbed by the crash for the employees children. In their manifesto, McVey and Nicholls would claim it was the sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco that motivated them to do what they did. Now, the reality is that they just needed an excuse to do what they wanted to do.
They were sick monsters, but it becomes a part of Ruby Ridg's deadly legacy.
McVey. He had in fact been considering targeting old Lonnie, the guy who would literally killed people.
>> Yeah.
>> We decided, you know what? I'm not going to kill the sniper with the itchy trigger figure. I'm gonna murder 19 children instead. That's a much better idea.
>> Yeah, that'll work for me better. Yeah.
My god, that's like horrific.
>> I know. Uh Randy Weaver, by the way, just as a little postcript or the epilogue to the story, he uh after the siege, he continued to be politically active and he made a living from his paid appearances at gun shows around the United States. He also spent most of his time protesting the number one issue in the country that he believed, >> taxes, >> of course, >> which I Hey, listen. I don't agree with Randy on everything. I can agree with him on that one.
>> Randy remarried in 1999, and he passed away aged 74, May 11th, 2022, having been ill for some time. The cabin at Ruby Ridge, it still stands today, though over the years and the weather only the uh foundation really remains.
And that folks is a siege of Ruby Ridge.
It's pretty crazy to think the entire incident started because a neighbor was pissed off about a land deal. And so he wrote a fake letter to the government saying his neighbor was a terrorist.
>> He he should have got done.
>> All righty, folks. That is the story of Ruby Ridge. Uh it's a wild story.
>> It is. Yeah, it's crazy. It's Yeah, it's definitely one of those stories where like I definitely don't agree with Ry's beliefs, but uh he didn't like no one deserves that.
>> Yeah, absolutely. No, nobody deserves I think what happened to him and his family, which it's it's crazy. Um, but yeah, there you go. It's it's it's such an insane story. It should be up there.
Well, like I feel like it's not up there like Waco and it really should be.
>> Yeah, it should be. Yeah.
>> Where's the Netflix documentaries on this one? Huh?
>> Right. Get on Netflix. We can narrate it.
>> Yeah, we we could be there.
>> I You can play Vicky Weaver. I'll be I'll be the dog.
>> All right, folks. Thanks for listening.
Uh, as always, uh, please check out all the stuff. You know, you know the stuff.
You know the drill, folks. Check it out or else. Uh, as we always say. And, uh, we'll see you next week.
>> Yep. And I'll see you.
>> All right. Thanks, guys. Bye.
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