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Lon Horiuchi's Shot: The Killing That Built a Myth
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A federal sniper's bullet through a cabin door killed Vicki Weaver — and handed the American militia movement its founding myth. This is the full sequence: the unconstitutional rules of engagement, the shots in the woods that killed Sammy, and the eight days that followed.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A single bullet fired through a cabin door on a remote Idaho mountain didn't just kill a woman. It handed the American militia movement its founding myth.
Randy Weaver wasn't a terrorist. He wasn't a fugitive when this started.
On the morning of August twenty-first, nineteen ninety-two, a team of marshals was conducting reconnaissance near the Weaver property. The family's dog, a yellow Labrador named Striker, picked up their scent and started barking.
The day after the firefight, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team arrived at Ruby Ridge. That's when the situation crossed a line that has few precedents in American law enforcement history.
On August twenty-second, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi was positioned near the Weaver cabin. Randy Weaver came outside, walking toward a shed where his son's body had been placed.
For the next eight days, Vicki Weaver's body remained in the cabin. The family didn't remove her.
The federal government prosecuted Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris in nineteen ninety-three. The charges included conspiracy and murder.
After the trial, investigators turned their attention to how the Justice Department had handled the case and the aftermath. What they found was a pattern of document destruction and deliberate concealment.
Randy Weaver was a white separatist with extreme views. He held beliefs that deserve no defense.
The full story of Ruby Ridge isn't reducible to a single villain or a single decision. That's part of what makes it so instructive.
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