The Ruby Ridge Standoff - NWCZ Radio's Down The Rabbit Hole

What happened on Ruby Ridge? Why was Randy Weaver and his family in a standoff with the federal government for 11 days? Was the government out to get Randy Weaver or was he just being paranoid? These were all questions that Brandon had, so go down the rabbit hole with him and find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
the Fringe Radio Network. I know I was gonna tell him, Hey,
do you have the app? It's the best way to
listen to the fringe radio network. It's safe and you
don't have to log in to use it, and it
doesn't track you or trace you, and it sounds beautiful.

(00:27):
I know I was gonna tell him, how do you
get the app? Just go to fringeradionetwork dot com right
at the top of the page. I know, slippers, we
gotta keep cleaning these chimneys.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
You have a standoff between a man who is wanted
by the FBI and a large number of federal agents
surrounding a cabin for a fugitive named Randy Weaver is
hold up with his family.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
The eleven day siege at a place called Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
It happened before wake up, and for many it's an
even bigger rallying cry.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I want that true.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
You've got the OK Corral. You've got certain moments in
the history of American law enforcement where society says, wait
a minute, we got to take a look at this
in a different way. Ruby Ridge began a paradigm shift
inadequate performance. Ruby Ridge shook the highest ranks of the FBI,
and it remains a watchword wherever law enforcement stands off

(01:24):
against barricaded suspects.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Today, this story is used as what not to do
that gives me hope.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Maybe we won't make the same mistakes. Maybe we won't
rush into things when it's a matter of life or death. Hello, Hello, Hello,

(02:15):
and welcome to another episode of Down the Rabbit Hole.
It's the midweek and you have me Brandon obviously as
usual because you can hear me. Yeah, as always, Thank
you all for coming back every week. Thank you for listening.
Thank you for telling your friends if you are doing that,
hopefully you are. Yeah, and thank you to Fringe Radio

(02:38):
Network for putting us on air and sharing us with
more people. Which again, if you've never gone over to
Fringe Radio Network, go check them out. They got an app,
they got all sorts stuff in a lot of shows.
If you like our show, you should like most of
the ones that they have also all the other ones. Yeah,
So thank you again, as I said, for listening. If

(03:02):
you want to hear anything, email us down to the
rh at ProtonMail dot com or like we mentioned occasionally.
I do still use Instagram, and my Instagram is mister
Underscore b Underscore six six six. Yeah, So send me
a message, send an email, whatever, let us know what

(03:24):
you want to hear. We have a couple episodes coming
up soon that have been suggested by our listeners. Now,
this one here is one that I'm honestly surprised we've
gone this long without doing. It's one that I've researched
a little bit before in the past, but it's been
a while and I forgot how how horrible this one is.

(03:48):
This is one that really kind of starts, in a
sense some of the others and kind of gets overshadowed
by some of the others. Waco happened pretty much right
after this and kind of overshadowed this one because everyone
kind of forgot about it. We mentioned it when we
talk about Timothy McVay and the Oklahoma City bombings, because

(04:11):
this he attributed this as one of the things that
he was he was doing. He did the bombing for
was in you know, retribution for Ruby Ridge, which if
beyond figured it out, that's what we're talking about. We're
gonna be talking about Ruby Ridge, which one thing I
did want to mention right off the bat that I
thought was quite interesting from a couple sources that I saw,

(04:35):
I couldn't verify completely, but I saw it in a
couple of different sources said that the ridge that it
happened on actually wasn't Ruby Ridge. It was Caribou Ridge,
but Ruby Ridge was a ridge that was close by,
so and that's the one everyone focused on for some reason.
I don't know. Like I said, I couldn't verify or
not verify that for sure, but I did see it

(04:57):
in a couple different location where they said that it
was actually they lived on Caribou Rich, not ruy Rich.
Very interesting. This is definitely one that I know. There's
been a documentary and stuff, and I didn't watch the
documentary because I have found that sometimes watching the documentary,
especially right before we record, they don't always have all

(05:18):
the information. And I do like to look at a
bunch of different resources. I listened to multiple podcasts, watch
some YouTube channel stuff, read multiple articles which I'll be
bouncing back and forth between because it's always one sided everything.
No matter how impartial you try to be, a lot

(05:40):
of times you lean certain ways. And I'm gonna try
and be as impartial as possible as we always do,
but you know, our beliefs and our thoughts can come
out while we're you know, while we're talking about this stuff.
So we're gonna go into this really kind of break

(06:02):
it down. A couple of articles that I use is
one is from History and another one that I'm gonna
go quite a bit is all that's interesting, mainly because
I like articles like that a lot of times too.
I've mentioned the past that I'll use Wikipedia for an
outline because it outlines exactly what we're talking about really good.

(06:23):
But from doing all the research, I can throw in
all the other stuff as we're going. I'm not fully
relying on the articles because there's a lot of other stuff. Now.
One of the things that I always find funny is
this is on the history dot com. We're gonna We're
gonna start off talking about Randy Weaver, who is the
main focus of this this story, and what cracks me

(06:44):
out The first sentence in this article on history Randy
Weaver was a college dropout and former Green Beret. Wrong
he was not. There's a lot of stuff that talks
about him being a former Green Bay Beret and we'll
talk later that that comes from another person that kind
of pops up later in the story. A lot of
people think that they knew each other from serving together

(07:06):
in that person was a former Green Beret. He was
in the military, but he was not a Green Beret
like most people think. That is a misnomer that a
lot of people got. So he and his wife were
Vicky were religious fundament Others who distrusted the government and

(07:26):
believe the end of the world was imminent, started holding
guns and made plans moved to a secluded area and
live off the grid. So that's kind of the start
of it. In nineteen eighty four, Randy, Vicky and their
children moved into a cabin they built themselves overlooking Ruby
Creek and Idaho by choice. They had no electricity or
running water, so that's a big key there too. There's

(07:47):
no electricity, no running water, no phone, no nothing. So
I know, all you kids that you grew up, you
know with all of those things everywhere, I mean, could
you imagine, I mean there was nothing, I mean no internet.
So there's because there's no power, nothing like that. They
lived off the land and just with what they had,

(08:08):
which will come later into the story too. We'll talk
about the fact that they lived what they could catch, fishing,
what they could shoot, pretty much all that stuff. They
lived with what they could catch, what they can make themselves.
They truly lived off the land. I mean, they did
do a few other things to get money, stuff like that,

(08:28):
which again that will come up more later. So, so
what kind of led up to Ruby Ridge, which I
think a lot of you probably know are have a
pretty good idea of what happened at Ruby Ridge. We're
gonna break down kind of how they got to where
they got and then kind of what happened, and then
at the end I'll kind of give you my thoughts

(08:49):
on you know, everything. So, when Randy and Vicki we
retraded their flat planes of their home state of Iowa
and went for the hill was in forests of Idaho
in eighty three. There's several reasons for doing so. The
deeply religious Weavers wanted to homeschool their children, which was
illegal in Iowa, put to protect them from secular humanism,

(09:15):
and Randy and Vicki had come to believe in movements
that warned against government overreach and encourage arm resistance. And
they also believe that the world would soon end. So
these are some beliefs that they had some things. And
the hard part of a lot of this, a lot
of this becomes speculation because this is coming from their
family kind of what they thought they believed a little

(09:35):
bit from them, well, the ones that survived this. But yeah,
So they had left Iowa for Idaho and one of
the things they want to do was homeschool their kids.
And at that time, homeschooling was illegal in Iowa. And
so see, people, the idea of homeschooling your kids isn't

(09:56):
a new thing. It's they were doing it in the
eighties because of the fact at that time they felt
that the schools were indoctrinary, indoctrinating the children, which I
think is even worse now. It's happening more and more now.
And in all reality, you can go back and listen
to I came in what episode we were talking about
it on, But there is an episode where we talked

(10:16):
about the fact that the school is what was designed
to indoctrinate kids to be what the government wants them
to be. Forward. Basically, Chose helped start the public school
system with the idea that to get people used to
being out of the house for eight to nine hours

(10:37):
a day, if not longer, with random breaks in the middle,
just like a job. So that's what they wanted to
get used to up until you know, the early nineteen hundreds.
And I don't know the exact dates because it's not
something we I'm researching at the moment. But kids did
learn at home. You learned what your parents taught you. You

(10:57):
learned from your parents. You didn't go to his school.
You see it in a lot of the old movies
where they have a little schoolhouse and all that stuff.
That did happen from time to time, but for the
most part, most kids just learned what they did at home.
So yeah, so homeschooling isn't a whole new, crazy right
wing thing that we just made up in the last

(11:18):
couple of fifteen to twenty years. So it's been around
for a while. So. Having studied sermons by Jerry Falwell
and read books like Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth,
which suggested that the rapture could take place as early
as the nineteen eighties, the Weavers decided to take fate
into their own hands. PBS reported that Vicky Weaver started

(11:39):
having visitors in the bathtub in which God told her sorry,
not visitors, visions in the bathtub in which God told
her to take her family to the west. There is
and that's another one of those things that keeps popping
up in multiple sources. Some mention it, some don't that
Vicky was having visions. There's also many that Randy was

(12:03):
also having visions, so that they were both having visions
that said that they needed a head west, that they
need to get out of Iowa and go somewhere else.
They started looking in Montana, a few other places and
eventually settled on Idaho. So in nineteen ninety five, The
Washington Post stated that Randy believed that the scriptures guided

(12:23):
his family to Ruby Ridge and isolated twenty acre property
just south of the Canadian border. The family, Randy Vicki,
their children Sarah, Samuel, and Rachel, and a young man
named Kevin Harris who they'd taken in as a teenager
lived in a small two story cabin and they built this.
This wasn't one of those things like they bought property

(12:44):
that had a place, they built the house. They did
all of it. Yeah, away from society. They followed religious
credos that Vicky enforced. The entrance to the property was
marked by a large sign which read, every knee shall
bow to Yashua Messiah. Some believe that Yashua or Yeshua
was Jesus's real name, so, which I think we've talked

(13:05):
about before. And VICKI forbade the family from eating unclean food.
She and her eldest daughter Sarah also lived apart from
the men of the house and a small shed nearby
whenever they were on their periods. Very interesting, which I mean,
if you're okay with that whatever where, Yeah, we're not

(13:27):
going to go deep into the whole stuff there tucked
away on Ruby Ridge that we were was mostly kept
to themselves. But in the late nineteen eighties, Randy we
were attracted the tension of the government. Now he started
having some clashes with the law. So there was he

(13:48):
had a neighbor who and this is the part that
this isn't mentioned. It is, but it isn't in some things.
And most of what I could find is this really
did happen. He had a neighbor, they had a property dispute,
they went to court, Randy won, and then they end
up having to pay you know, his lawyer, fees, and

(14:10):
a whole bunch of damages, a bunch of issues, their
whole thing. You know, they had a war basically going
between them, and many speculate that that neighbor is the
one who called the FBI, because there was a call
to the FBI. They were tipped off that Randy Weaver
was planning on harming or killing President Reagan. So of

(14:37):
course once they heard that, everything kind of went awry.
So they brought him in and VICKI. They investigated, they
they talked to them, did everything else, interviewed them, and
afterwards they decided that nope, he wasn't trying to do that,

(14:58):
but in some of the things that he said made
them put him basically on the list. So Randy and
Vicky infamously saw themselves as white separatists because of this.
Randy attended the annual Riyan Nations Congress in Idaho a
number of times, and during those times he met a

(15:21):
beer of alcoholics back on firearms and informant named Kenneth
Fatealae in nineteen eighty six, So during those meetings he
met an informant. So this is the other part that
gets interesting. Depending on which story you're listening to and
everything else kind of depends on how he got on
the FBI's radar, which is kind of one of those

(15:43):
things that's a big question in this whole thing is
why the FBI was even deep working after this guy.
So one, like I said, mentioned a minute ago someone
called in the reports, which that is documented. There was
reports called in and he was interviewed. Some say that
that's when they got there. They're kind of like, we
need to watch to this guy. Others think it was
more just he randomly ran into this Kenneth Validay in

(16:07):
at the Tobacco and Firearms sorry not tobacco of wares
at the Area Nations Congress. I think it's a little both.
I think they probably got there, you know, you know,
noticed him and he got on their radar during that
initial meeting, and then the Kenneth Falladay approached him at

(16:32):
the the Arian Nations Congress. So I think it's somewhere
in the middle there. I think. I don't think it
was an accident that Falladay and Weaver met. At the time,
the photogramhmer was actually looking for ways to infiltrate the
white supremacist groups. So when we were told Falladay in
nineteen eighty nine that he knew the head of the

(16:53):
Area Nation splinter group based in Montana. He got Faladay's attention.
We were also told them that he was hard up
for cat and believing at that time that Validay fat yeah, Fatalet,
Validay whatever was a weapons dealer, offered his assistance. Now,
this is where it all starts getting a little murky

(17:14):
as well too. Randy Weaver says that Faladay approached him.
Falliday and the ATF say Randy approached them, so and
it's a big distinction there. And we'll talk about that
a little bit more as we get farther into charges

(17:35):
and all that fun stuff. But hoping to pressure Weaver
into becoming an informant, fatal At asked Weaver to procure
two sot Off shotguns, which we were sold to Fatalet
for three hundred dollars. Months later, in June nineteen ninety,
and ATF agent confronted Weaver and implied that he could
avoid prosecution if he helped with an investigation. Now, the

(17:57):
way that he approached Weaver was quite interesting. What he
did is he parked his car at the bottom basically
the bottom of the hill, to Ruby Ridge near the
gate basaying there was car problems, so out of the
hood up and because Randy was that kind of person,
he stopped to help to see what he could do.
And they said, by the way, we're atf agents. You
need to come with us. So and they said, okay,

(18:20):
if you snitch on you know you will you'll avoid prosecution.
And there's a lot of things too where they base
say that he was, you know, told that if he
didn't do this there was a chance he could lose
his property and they could take everything. And that's where
things start getting a little crazy too. So but Randy

(18:42):
we refused to be a snitch because we all know
snitches get stitches or what's the other one. Snitches end
up in ditches either way. But so he was later
raigned in nineteen ninety one and he was told to
return to court for his trial. But due to a
court officials error, Randy Wever was told that his trial
they would be in March. It actually happened in February. Now,

(19:05):
this is another one of those ones that's a contention
of error who made the error. Mainly from everything I
could find, it actually sounds like it might have been
his legal team, but because of everything that had happened,
he didn't trust the government. Now he doesn't trust him
even more because, you know, because it's a coureter pointed
lawyer from everything I could find. So now he doesn't

(19:28):
trust him even more. So he didn't have a phone,
didn't have nothing, didn't want them on his property, so
he just said, send me a letter. Well, they sent
him a letter said it was in March. His somebody
noticed the error, said another letter saying, oops are bad,
it's in February. But by the time he checked his
post off his box and everything else that dated past.

(19:48):
So now he's got a failure to appear. And like
they say, it's possible that he wouldn't have showed up anyway,
but his failure to attend his trial. It was also
did in a warrant for his arrest, so you could
see there's a lot of crazy just happenstance and coincidence
happening here. So yeah, so that's pretty much how it started,

(20:15):
was just a little basically miss up mistake on the
you know, the dates and getting information to him, and
then it starts to escalate into what what we're gonna
see here? So yeah, after that, he's got a bench
worn out for his arrest because he's you know, failed

(20:37):
to appear so for over a year. Federal agents puzzles
are the best way to arrest Randy Weaver. Situation was
made complicated by the presence of children on Ruby Ridge,
the fourteen guns at the family owned, and the agent
certainty that Randy and Vicky would have violently resist arrest.
Vicky had written a number of inflammatory letters after the

(20:58):
ATF had first confrons her husband in June nineteen ninety
In one letter, she wrote, we cannot make deals with
the enemy, and another Vicky warned, whether we live or
whether we die, we will not bow to your evil commandments.
And then entire family signed a letter that sated they
would not leave their mountain, so the ATF washed and waited.
By August nineteen ninety two, the eight Engins had conducted

(21:21):
some two dozen surveillance missions of the Weaver family, which
had expanded with the birth of baby Elizabeth Elsheba Elishaba.
I can't say the bricking word e l I s
h Eba Elishaba, so in October nineteen ninety one. Meanwhile,

(21:42):
even though we were children, could sense that something was different.
They'd stayed on Ruby Ridge for eighteen months. Helicopters, however,
it overhead and PBS reports that one day Harrison Sammy
stumbled upon our camera in the woods. So this is
the one thing that pretty much the government's admit to
in a lot of ways, they surveyed and surveiled the Weavers.

(22:05):
They would would sneak onto their property, put up cameras,
do all sorts of stuff. So they've been surveilling them
for eighteen months. So basically the whole idea that Weaver
had that he was being launched and everything else by
the government. He was right. So just because you're paramornoid

(22:26):
doesn't mean you're wrong. So yeah, so they'd found a camera.
Then in late August, the Federal Agent decided to conduct
a final reconnaissance mission at Ruby Ridge before they finally
arrested Randy Weaver. Yeah. Supposedly, on the morning of August

(22:47):
twenty first, Deputy US Marshall William F. Degan, Deputy US
Marshal Larry Cooper, and Deputy US Marshal Arthur Roderick set
out for Ruby Ridge at around ten fifteen am. They
drew so close to the Weaver's cabin that they through
the tension of the family's dogs, who started to bark.
Two of the dogs were chained up and thus couldn't

(23:08):
chase the marshals, but the third yellow, name Nat the
yellow lab named Striker, gave chase. He was followed into
the woods by fourteen year old Sammy Weaver, Kevin Harris,
and Randy Weaver. So, and this is kind of the
thing that there's a debate on how it happened and
all that stuff. So this is where the story starts
to get interesting because there's multiple different versions of what

(23:32):
happened at this point. Pretty much the only thing that
everybody agrees on the dog went after the agents and
chased them. Then it all goes to hell from there.
So Striker went after him so. Randy later claimed that

(23:52):
he'd hoped the dog was reacting to deer since their
food supplies were running low, But at a spot in
the woods called the Y, Randy came upon the three
US marshals instead. One of them reportedly shouted freeze Randy,
to which Randy responded with an expletive and shouted at
Sammy to go home. Sammy responded, I'm coming down, but
instead Sammy, Harris Strike could all come up upon the marshals.

(24:17):
So this is where it gets interesting because the story,
really this is one version. The story that I've seen
the most is that there was another that Randy came
upon the marshals, but then they got separated somehow or
came across one of them. So, like I said, there's

(24:38):
a lot of different stories on how this happened. So yeah,
so this is where everything came about. The government would
later claim that Harris fired first, murdering Degan. That's what
they claim, but jurors and Harris and Randy Weavers t

(25:00):
eventually concluded that US Marshall Roderick had fired the first
shot which killed Striker. He killed the dog, bastards, he
never killed dog. So Sammy then reportedly shouted, you shot Striker,
you son of a bitch, and the chaos that followed,
both Sammy Weaver and Kevin Harris open fire on the agents.

(25:21):
The gunfight led to the death of Sammy and Deputy
US Marshall William F. Degan. That way be read incident
had begun. So this is kind of one of those
things that the story goes a bunch of different ways.
A bunch of different you know. Some say that Randy
wasn't there at the why Randy was in a different spot,

(25:42):
that they had split up, which they admitted to splitting up,
but that somehow the agents had split up ards in
some way. But whatever. So, but what it comes down
to is that there was basically a shootout. The story
that most people agree upon, the evidence shows the best
is that in the shooting anyway, the agent shot the dog.

(26:07):
The kid Sammy freaked out, took a shot and then
was shot in the arm, turned to run, and while
he was running, he was shot in the back and
that was the fatal shot. Now Kevin fired back, you know,
and killed the agent. But at this point, and this

(26:29):
is the part that a lot of people like really
point to, they still have not said who they were.
They still have not said, hey, federal agents, put your
guns down, freeze nothing. The only thing they said was

(26:49):
freeze Randy. They actually, from every report I've read, they
never claimed who they were. It could be assumed. But
point you got to figure with the fourteen year old boy,
he as far as he knows, some you know, whack
job and a dressed in camo just shot his dog.

(27:10):
So he doesn't know what's going on. So yeah, yeah,
but in the cas said, like I said, Sammy Weaver
and Kevin opened fire and Sammy died in Deputy US
Marshall William of Degan died. So the day after that,

(27:34):
the siege at Ruby Ridge began. In Earnest, Believing that
they were about to enter a firefight with a powerful
anti government group, the FBI sent in a hostage rescue
team of dozens of snipers and assault commandos. The valley
near Ruby Ridge began to look like a military and
camp encampment as hundreds of federal agents and state police
officers joined a mada of tents, helicopters, and humbies. Now,

(27:56):
seeing this is the one thing you got to remember too,
because if you think about it, when this first started,
this was atf But as soon as they basically have
set him to court, he jumped bail or didn't show up,
failure to appear. It suddenly stopped being atf and the
US Marshals took over. So now it's already switched government
agencies once, So that's one switch. Now that the gunfight

(28:20):
had started, now the FBI is rolling in, So now
you have the FBI and I think this is where
we're going to start seeing some of the breakdown and
communication from what the ATF the information they had on
Randy Weaver that was passed to the marshals, and then
what the marshals passed on to the FBI that I
think this communication is what escalated this so quickly. Now,

(28:44):
while this is happening and the FBI is doing all
this stuff, a group of anti government demonstrators have now
gathered near the base of Ruby Ridge to protest the
presence of the authorities and everything that's going on. So
the Weaver family didn't know about the growing storm at
the base of their mountain, recovered Sammy from the woods
round the same time that federal agents had recovered Deagan's
body and were mourning their loss. Then his FBI stipers

(29:07):
took their place up the mountain with orders to shoot
any armed adults on site. Randy Weaver came out of
the cabin. Now this is the thing to remember too.
Normal rules of engagement basically say you're supposed to shoot
armed combatants that are threatening you or somebody else. You

(29:28):
might be given the okay to take them out. Because
of everything that as they come back to that communication earlier.
Everything that the FBI has been told by the ATF
and by the marshals about Randy Weaver and his family

(29:49):
has basically made them feel like again that there's an
anti government militant group up here in this mountain. So
they basically have given their snipers full rain to say,
if you see a grown man with an adult or
sorry crown man with a gun, shoot him, shoots kil

(30:14):
So they've been given carte blanche to take him out. Yes, So,
cording to a couple of different articles that I read
and a couple different things I saw, Randy wanted to
see Sammy, who the family had placed and is nearby shed.
Wonder for it was the bleeding shed. Wonder is the
menopause shed? Could have been not menopause but the period shed.

(30:35):
Who knows, But they'd put him in a different shed.
They put him out there. So so Harris and Sarah
walked near him. But as they approached the shed, a
gun shot suddenly cracked out of the woods. Randy dropped
into a crouch and he had been shot, and he
was wounded. He'd been hitting the hand. I heard the
hand and I heard the arm. So either way, as

(30:56):
the three of them ran back towards the cabin. And
this is where it gets bad. Vicky came to the
door holding baby al Shaba and al Shiba, Alishibia, Alishiba whatever.
Once she realized what had happened, Vicky started screaming for
them to get back to the house as Harris, Sarah
and Randy hurried back into the home. And now the
gunshot sounded, and this time it was Vicky who was

(31:19):
hit while holding her baby, the ten month old baby.
Now this is again different things, different stuff I've heard.
There was two shots. One hit Kevin, the second one
hit Vicky who was behind the door. One thing I'd
heard that they used a bungee cord on the door

(31:40):
so the door would automatically close, so that way they
didn't let out heat and they didn't let any animals
in to make sure the door closed. So the reason
she was standing there, she was holding the door so
that they could run in. Vicky Weaver was dead and
both Randy Weaver and Kevin were wounded, and the Nation watches.

(32:04):
Ruby would stand up entered for nine injured for nine days,
nine days, nine days. Now this is where it gets
really really messed up. Nine days they went for nine
days up there. Once again go back to what I
said earlier. No water, no running water, they had to

(32:26):
go to a well. They can't leave the cabin and
go to the well. No food because they hunt them
for themselves. He admitted that they were hoping the dog
was going after a deer because they were low on meat.
So the low on food, they have no water, then
they're going to be stuck with multiple injured up here. Insane.

(32:54):
It's insane that this happened and it gets It's just
the whole thing is just insane. And there's so many
pictures that you can find before the standoff and everything
else because they had all these cameras everywhere everywhere. It

(33:16):
was one of the things that I've always questioned a
little bit of They had these cameras everywhere. How is
it that it happens where the whole incident and shoot
off shootout happened where camera couldn't see it. Because one thing,
as I mentioned earlier, that there's different stories on what
happened that day in the first shootout. So one of
the other articles and stuff I've read said that instead

(33:36):
of just the three marshals that we mentioned, there was six,
and that's how they got split up. That Randy Weaver
ran into one set of three marshals and that the
other ones ran into the other set. So when everything happened,
Randy Weaver saw the first three, they said freeze Randy,

(33:59):
and he turned and just ran basically, didn't reach for
his rifle, nothing, just ran back to the cabin as
quick as he could. And then the other two ran
into the other three, the three that we mentioned earlier,
and that's when the shootout happened. So Randy wasn't at
the initial shootout, because that's one that's always you know,
some of the articles to talk about that there was
only the three is why wouldn't Randy been shooting? Then?

(34:21):
Why was he not part of the shootout? He was there,
he wasn't, so he was already back at the cabin.
So so that's kind of the thing there. So a
little bit, like I said, it's a he said, she said,
quite a bit on what happened that day. Depending on
which article or which video or which podcast or whatever,
you know, whatever you're watching, PBS special, whatever, there's a

(34:44):
little bit different spin on what happened that day because
of the fact that it's just the surviving witnesses that
can say what happened, and they all have different different
stories on what happened. So they originally they said they

(35:05):
didn't shoot the dog, but later ballistics reports showed that
nineteen rounds were fired during the fight. Roderick fired one
shot from an M sixteen A one which killed Striker
the dog by Intrigo's body two inches from the dog's
anis and exiting the chest. Then Samuel fired three from
a two two three M fourteen at Roderick. Deagan fired
seven from an M sixteen at Harris and Weaver while

(35:27):
moving at least twenty one feet, and Cooper fired six
from a nine milimeters Colt sub sub machine gun at
Harris and Weaver. Harris then fired two from a thirty
odd six M nineteen seventeen and filled rifle, striking and
killing Degan. After federal agents began firing, Samuel was killed
by shot to the back while retreating. Harris had fired

(35:49):
the shot which killed Degan, so the words of the
shot that killed Samuel was a critical concern in all
investigations at the time the writing of the ruby Ridge Report.
In AD ninety six, the Senate sub committed on Terrorism,
Technology and Government Information, chaired by Alan Arlen Specter, observed
that the government's position at trial was that Cooper had
fired the shot. The subcommittee engaged additional experts and ultimately

(36:12):
declined to draw a final conclusion. The Justice Department's Ruby
Ridge Task Force, reported at the Office of Professional Responsibility, states,
the evidence suggests that but does not establish that the
shot that killed Samuel Weaver was fired by Deputy US
Marshall Cooper. So, yeah, so that's kind of thing there is. Basically,

(36:37):
you know, I think they were trying to not lay blame,
but it was from every evidence it was Cooper who
fired that shot. So and as we said, Harris and
the federal agents accounts differs who fired first. In the
nineteen ninety three trial of chargers in Degan's death, prosecutes
alleged that Harris had fired the first shot. Harris asserted

(36:58):
self defense and was acquitted on cross examination by the defense.
Ballistics experts called by the prosecution testify that the physical
evidence contradicted neither prosecutors prosecutions nor the defense's theories of
the gunfight. Martin Factler testified that Roderick fired the shot
or shots that killed Striker, that Deagan fired the shot

(37:18):
that hit Samuel on the right elbow, that Harris shot
and killed Degan, and that Cooper probably shot and killed Samuel.
So yeah, yay. So that's kind of the whole idea
on that. So again, a lot of different stories in
different things of what happened there, so a little bit

(37:45):
more into everything that happened after that. So August twenty first, eleven,
am WUS Marshall Hunt requested immediate support from I know
law enforcement and also to the FBI by notifying it
that a Marshall had been killed. Following Hunt's phone call,
the Marshall Service Crisis Center was activated on the direction

(38:07):
of Duke Smith, Associate Director for Operations. The Marshall Service
Special Operations Group was allerted to deploy in response to
the call. The Boundary County Sheriff's Office mobilized. Also in
response to the Marshall's request, Idaho Governor Caesul Indrus declared
a state of emergency in Boundary County, lowing use of
the Idaho National Guard Armory at Bondis Ferry, and, after

(38:31):
an initial delay, to US National Guard armored personnel carriers,
soon thereafter, the Idaho State Police arrived at the scene.
FBI headquarters of WATHDC responded by sending the hostage rescue
team from Quantico to Idaho. Specialized in charge Eugene Glenn
of the Salt Lake City FBI office was appointed site
commander with responsibility for all active individuals from the FBI,

(38:52):
atf and the Marshals. Now, this thing went for, like
I said, nine days after this, So, like I said,
you have now and all of a sudden, it's not
really like I said, it's not just the FBI. It's
not the marshals. You've got marshals, FBI, atf Vocal State
National Guard. Everybody's involved in this now everybody, and everyone's

(39:14):
going off the information they got from the ones before them.
So that's where we start running into a lot of fun.
So by Saturday, August twenty second, special rules of engagement
were drafted and approved by FBI headquarters. It's what I
mentioned earlier about the special rules of engagement for use
on Ruby Ridge. According to the later reports to the DOJ,

(39:39):
the rules of engagement are as follows. If any adult
in the area around the cabinet is observed with a
weapon after the surrender announcement had been made, deadly force
could and should be used to neutralize the individual. Two
if any adult male is observed with a weapon prior
to the announcement, deadly force can and should be employed.
If the shot could be taken without in danger any children.

(40:02):
Three if compromised by any dog, the dog can be
taken out. Four any subjects other than Randy Weaver, Vicky Weaver,
Kevin Harris presenting the threat of death or grievous body harm.
FBI rules of deadly force apply. Deadly force can be
utilized to prevent the death or grievous body injury to
oneself or that of another so as noted in a

(40:24):
footnote to the report. In this crucial section, the ROE
was modified from adult to adult male to exclude Vicky
Weaver around two thirty or three PM after consultation with Glenn,
because Vicky Weaver was not seen at the site of
Degan's slang. The RIA was communicated to agents on site,
including communicated to HRT snipers observers. Prior to deployment, communications

(40:47):
that included the change of adults to adult mail to
exclude Vicky Weaver. Some deployed FBI agents in particularly the
sniper observers who would later describe their ADOPTEDRIA as a
green light to shoot on site. That's exactly what it was.
You see anybody, they're dangerous, shoot to kill, take him out.

(41:09):
So on Wednesday, August twenty sixth, four days after fifty
was killed, the RI that had been in effect since
the arrival of HRT was revoked. Per Glen's direction, the
FBI Standard Deadly Force Policy replaced the ro to guide
the law enforcement personnel that were to be deployed to
the cabin perimeter. The FBI Rules of Deadly Force in
effect nineteen eighty two, stated that agents are not to

(41:30):
use deadly force against any person, except as necessary in
self defense or the defense of another, when they have
reason to believe that they or another are in danger
of death or grievous bodily harm. Whenever, feasible verbal warnings
should be given before deadly force is applied. So the
typical this was in start contrast to the permissive are

(41:51):
adopted for the beginning of the standoff. So this is
the hard part. This is the two where all this.
Since Vicki had died, nobody knew this. Nobody on that
side from every report that I've seen supposedly knew that
Vicki had died, So that's a problem. So before negotiators

(42:18):
arrived with the cabin, FBI sniper Lonnie Harucci, from a
position of a two hundred yards north and above the
Weaver cabin, shot and wounded Ran Weaver in the back
with a bullet exiting his right armpit while he was
lifting the latch on the shed to visit the body
of his dead son. The sniper tests fight at the
later trial that he had put his crosshairs on. We
were spined, but we were moved. At the last second.

(42:40):
As Weaver, his sixte year old daughter, Sir, and Harris
ran back toward the cabin, Haruci fired a second bullet,
wounding Harris in the chest. This bullet went through him
and killed Vicki Weaver, who was standing behind the door
of the cabin when Harris entered. Vicki was holding the
ten year old baby. The RRTF report to the DOJ's

(43:03):
Office of Professional Responsibility of June nineteen eighty four stated
unequivocally in conclusion in its executive summary that the rules
that allowed the second shot to have been made did
not satisfy constitutional standards for legal use to dadly force.
The nineteen ninety six report of the US Senate Judiciary
Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information Arle inspector chair,

(43:26):
concurred with Senator Dianne Feinstein dissenting the DJ's r RTF
reports of the lack of a request for surrender before
Agent Heruchi's second shot was inexcusable, as Harrison the rivers
were running for cover at the time and did not
pose an a minute threat. The later Justice Task Force
criticized Herouchi's for firing through the door when he did

(43:49):
not know if anyone was on the other side of it.
Where there's a dispute as to who approved the rules
of engagement which Rouchi followed. The task force condemned the
rules of engagement that allowed shots to be fired without
a request for surrender, but again that's what they had
so situations for evaluation, he suspended. Like we said, the

(44:11):
FBI is a headquartered in the site. Commanders in Idaho
both reevaluate the situation. The situation based on information about
what had happened on August twenty first, which they were
receiving from US Marshall's hunt, Cooper, and Roderick on August
twenty third, Repeated attempts to negotiate that we would be
a bullhorn failed. There was no response from the cabin

(44:32):
On about Monday, August twenty fourth, the fourth day of
the siege, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Danny Coulson, who did
not know that Vicky Weaver had been killed, we wrote
a member about the Weaver's legal position. The members recorded
in the nineteen ninety six report, although it is unclear
whether the Senate Committee, subcommittee or Coulson himself censored the
word shit. So this is what he wrote. Something to consider.

(44:57):
Number one charge against Weavers bullshit to no one saw
we were doing any shooting. Three VICKI has no charges
against her for weavers defense. He ran down the hill
to see what dog was barking at. Some guys in
camis shot his dog started shooting at him. Killed his son,
Harris did the shooting. He's in pretty legal, strong legal position.

(45:18):
So this was kind of what they said to him
because what we had said. I mean, it's one of
those things. Some random people in camouflage who never identified
themselves shot the kids dog. Of course I'm shooting too,
So there was a civilian negotiator named Bo Gritz, to
whom we were agreed to speak the wounded Harris, who

(45:39):
had earlier urged we were for mercy killing. So Harris
was wounded and so bad that he actually asked Weaver
to just take him out. Was convinced by Gritz mediation
to surrender on Sunday, August thirtieth. So Bo Gritz is
one of those guys that he was a big right
winger back in the day, and a lot of these
militias people and you know, people liked Weaver would talk

(46:06):
to and have faith in. So Harris was moved from
the property via structure and was cent phone by a
medical evacuation helicopter two Sacred Heart Medical Center and Spokane.
We were allowed to remove his wife's body, which Grits oversaw.
So there's the first people to leave. They're finally leaving.

(46:26):
So there's a funny part too, and not really a
funny part, a crazy part two. Before Grits got there,
they supposedly offered him sent a phone up so they couldn't.
They want to talk over a bullhorn, and they used
a robot. Now Here, I'm gonna put in a little
audio here because you got to hear this to understand.

(46:47):
I'm not even going to tell you what happened. Just listen.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
The robot was setting right in front, right up against
and right in front of the door. The robot had
a claw and it had a twelve gage shotgun that
was pointed right in the door. But once again, as
far as I know, that was an oversight.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
So that was someone, you know, explaining that the robot
had a shotgun in his hand. And then that last
little part is I said, oh that was an oversight.
That was the FBI saying oops, yeah, I don't know
why that happened. So yeah, so they sent the robot
with the phone and a gun in its hands supposedly,
So that's another one of those ones. Again, that's the

(47:30):
one thing that's great on the story. There's a few
things that it's like, hmm, I saw that in a
couple different articles and then I saw that audio clip
and just had to say it, So if that happened, wow,
but insane. So yeah, so that's that's kind of you know,
they finally got Kevin out, So the FBI HRT commander

(47:52):
gave Gritz deadline to get the REMAINI Weavers to surrender,
and they did not surrender. On the day of the deadline,
he said he would resolve the stand off by launching
a tactical assault. Now again Weaver and his daughters. His
daughters are still inside, So what fifteen year old, ten
year old and a ten month old are still inside

(48:13):
and they're going to make a tactical assault. Go FBI.
But we were and his daughter's surrounded. The next day,
both Harris and Weaver were arrested. Harris was in serious
condition at Sacred Heart, but US Marshals did not allow
his parents to see him or to talk to him
until Monday evening. After federal court order was issued. We

(48:35):
Were's daughters were released to the custody of relatives. Federal
officials considered charging Sarah, who was sixteen as an adult.
Weaver was transferred by military helicopter to the airport at Sandpoint,
and from there he was flown by the marshals jet
to Boise. There, he was given a brief medical examination
at Saint Luke's Medical Center. He was held at the

(48:55):
Ada County Jail and reigned in federal court the following day, Tuesday,
September first, No Now the one thing too to remember here,
the son was killed the first day, mom was killed
the next day. Both Randy Weaver and Kevin are injured,
had been shot. So you're talking a sixteen year old,

(49:16):
like I said, a ten year old girl and I
think a ten month old girl and two injured men.
So those girls were taking care of these guys and
they kept them alive, which to me is awesome, just amazing.
So that's kind of what happened there. And I mean
there's more to it, like I said, but I mean,
you really got to deep, dig deep into this. There's

(49:36):
a whole thing. Apparently they shot at Heraldo's helicopter, which
was a whole side story, which there's no evidence of it,
just stories that have happened that Heraldo. You know, if
you don't know who ol there is, that's a whole
nother crazy guy. He was famous for basically being like
a shock TV jockey, would do crazy stuff, opened al

(49:56):
Capone's vault to find nothing in it. Just yeah, whatever,
huge pain in the ass pretty much. He was kind
of funny to watch though, But he tried setting a
helicopter to go like investigator see it, and apparently they
took shots at it, which, like I said, Weaver denies,
everybody else denies. But it's this, this story that's out there,
this legend. So so yeah, that's everything that happened in

(50:22):
the standoff. Now we're gonna go a little bit into
what happened after so and this is kind of what
is insane. So so, in the aftermath, Randy Weaver and
Kevin Harris were put on trial for the death of
Deputy US Marshall William F. Degan, which they were acquitted of.

(50:44):
They were quitted a murder basically the jury and everyone
else agreed that it was self defense. So and after
the Weaver family filed wrongful death claims, the government agreed
to pay them three point one million dollars. But the
one thing is who but that still doesn't bring them
back still dead. They still died, which to me is

(51:11):
just so wrong. Yeah, insane, So, like I said, they
would charged multiple offenses. Trial and us dis to court
and boise began in April nineteen eighty three, proside over
by Judge Edward Lodge, and mid June, Weaver's defense Turny
Gary Spence rested his case without calling any witnesses for

(51:34):
the defense, none said he sought to convince the jury
through cross examination aimed at discrediting the government's evidence and witnesses,
and July Weaver was acquitted of all of the charges
except the charge incurred by missing his original court date
and the charge of violating his bail conditions. So the
only thing which cracks me up because he was even

(51:55):
found like acquitted of the original gun charge that he
was supposed to go on, and the only thing they
were able to get him on is the fact that
he didn't go to trial for that which he was
acquitted of as well, because they found that basically he
was that it was entrapment, that he'd been entrapped. And

(52:18):
that's where it comes down to earlier where I was
talking about the argument on whether Weaver started, you know,
the idea of selling the the guns, or if the
informant did. If the informant, you can't as an informant
or as a police officer, get someone to do something illegal.

(52:38):
It has to be their idea. If you put the
idea in their head or anything like that, or get
them to ask them to do it, or entice them
to do it, then that's entrapment. In that space where
they got him it was entrapment, so he got out
on that. So the only thing he was found guilty
of was missing court and violating his bail conditions on

(53:01):
a charge that he got acquitted on anyway, Yeah for it.
He was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment and fined ten
thousand dollars credit with time served and good behavior. We
were served less than sixteen months and he was released
from Canyon County Jail and Caldwell mid December. Spence later

(53:22):
wrote that he rejected Weaver's extremist political opinions, but took
the case because he believed federal officials had entrapped Weaver
and also behaved uncon conscionably in shooting Weaver's unarmed wife.
Harris was defended by attorney David Even, and he was
acquitted of all charges. Exactly five years after the incident,
he was indicted for the first murder of Bill Degan

(53:45):
by Boundary County Prosecutor Dennis Woodbury, but the charge was
dismissed in early October on grounds of double jeopardy because
they'd quitted of that same charge in the fed criminal
trial in nineteen ninety three, So there was some federal
investigations into the how things were handled. So defense councils
for Webro and Harris Arreage alleged throughout their nineteen and

(54:07):
eighth trial that agents of the ATF, the Marshalls, and
FBI were themselves guilty of serious wrongdoing. The DOJ created
the Ruby Ridge Task Force to investigate events. It delivered
a five hundred and forty two page report on June tenth,
nineteen ninety four, to the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility.
This RRTF report originally available in a highly redacted form.

(54:30):
They became available in a much more complete form. So
questions persisted about Ruby Ridge and subsequent Waco seeds, which
we've talked about, which of all the same agencies and
many of the same officials, and in fact, the shooter,
the sniper was at way at Waco, the sniper that
shot and killed Vicki. So yeah, insane that all this happened,

(54:58):
just so wrong. Everything that went down in this is
so crazy.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
To me, But.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
Yeah, so kind of. The one thing that they always
talk about to is the dark legacy, the legacy of
what was left behind. So in the aftermath of the
Ruby Ridge incident, Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris are put
on trial, like I said, and we're found quitted. By then,
the Ruby Would stand up had been largely overshadowed by

(55:31):
the bloodier Waco Siege, during which federal agents stormed religious
compound that belonged to the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas,
ultimately killing seventy six people, including twenty five children. Chillingly enough,
both the incidents would be used by domestic terrorists Timothy
McVeigh as justification for bombing a federal building in Oklahoma
City on April nineteen, nineteen ninety five, which we've done

(55:53):
on both those. We've done episodes on both Oklahoma City
bombing and Waco. Since then, both the Ruby Ridge incident
and the Waco Siege have been blamed for sparking rise
of anti government extremists across the US. Despite this, government
officials have admitted to wrongdoing during the Ruby Red standoff.

(56:14):
One just Department official acknowledge that Randy Weaver wasn't bothering anyone,
and then FBI Director Lewis J. Free admitted in his
congressional testimony that Ruby Ridge was a series of terribly
flawed law enforcement operations with tragic consequences. But for Randy Weaver,
who lost his son and his wife, the Ruby Ridge incidant,
the truth of the matter is much more shattering. Should

(56:36):
never have happened, he tearfully stated in the aftermath. So
that's kind of the big thing on this one. Definitely,
if you don't have never seen anything on this or
anything else, look into it if you want. It's a
huge sign of government oversight. This is one of those
things they talked about, the government overside also in the
fact that government agencies compete and don't talk to each other.

(56:59):
So that was the big thing here. The ATF pretty
much never told the marshals that, you know, that they
were trying to get Randy to be an informant and
he said no. So basically they had a beef with him.
But then they just basically handed him off, say hell, yeah,
this guy's kind of a nut job, stays up on
his mountain, does whatever here you go have fun with him,

(57:20):
and gave him, you know, handed him over to the marshals.
So the marshals you know, went up there with the idea,
this was a crazy guy that was gonna you know,
some extremist group that was gonna do whatever, so they
had them, you know, scared and whatever put up all
these cameras. Never never introduced themselves or claimed that they
were government officials. Nothing shot the dog. Everyone reacted like

(57:45):
you would. I mean, I'll be honest, I see camouflage
people running through my backyard freaking shooting my dog. I'm
gonna shoot back, just the way it is. You know,
they knew they had guns, they kneither they carried them,
not basically because they were out there trying to shoot anyone.
They were hoping they might run across deer and get
some lunch. So a lot of problems there ends up,

(58:06):
you know, the shootout. Then, of course, when the marshals
handed over to the FBI and the FBI takes over,
they're like, oh, this extremest group they shot one of ours,
they did all this, So of course the FBI is
going there like, oh, there's a bunch of crazies up
here doing all this stuff. When Whaley was a family
defending themselves. I think if the marshals had been upfront
in the beginning and said, hey, we didn't announce ourselves.

(58:30):
The dog spooked us. We shot at the dog. It
spooked the kid, The kids shot at us, the agent
went down, blah blah blah. I think the FBI would
have gone a little bit different because, yes, an agent
was killed. But you know, eh, but this is how
these things happen. It's like in Waco, most of the
people believe in Waco, the only reason the first shot
that was fired was because some jackass tripped. And that's

(58:54):
how these things happen. Something happens, there's a lot of miscommunication,
people overreact, and then three people are dead, including a
mother who was shot in the face while holding her
ten month old baby. Just I don't have any other
words after that. That right there is just the most

(59:15):
telling part of this whole story, and that's what I'm
gonna leave you guys with. Go down the rabbit hole.
Look at this one. This is definitely a huge, huge
look into government oversight and what happens when the government
agencies don't talk to each other. Have a good one,
we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Ax.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
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