Back to doubleUOglobe
From: Brian Redman (bigxc@prairienet.org)
Date: Mon Aug 28 1995 - 09:12:01 PDT
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 5 Num. 92
======================================
("Quid coniuratio est?")
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FBI LINE ABOUT RANDY WEAVER DOESN'T RING TRUE
By Thomas Shapley
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
[qtd. in *Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette*, 08/27/95]
[The following is an abbreviated version]
>From the moment the story broke of the siege on Ruby Ridge, the
media played back, note for note, the official government score
of what had taken place. The official line was that Randy Weaver,
a neo-Nazi white supremacist and his fanatical family, with the
aid of a fervent follower, had ambushed and gunned down a U.S.
marshal trying to serve a warrant for Weaver's failing to appear
on federal weapons charges. The hapless marshals had been pinned
down by subsequent waves of gunfire from the remote mountaintop
compound, a fortress whose grounds were riddled with booby traps,
those holed up inside trained and ready to use an arsenal of
weapons, including rockets, in a long-hoped for deadly
confrontation with the demonic federal government loathed by
these militant extremists.
But time and trial slowly exposed a different story. The
testimony and evidence presented at the trial of [Kevin Harris, a
friend of the Weaver family] and Weaver and that contained in the
still unreleased internal review by the Justice Department as
well as interviews with Jackie Brown, her husband, Tony, and
others close to the incident weave together sufficiently well to
offer a far more plausible chain of events.
In the summer of 1989, while attending an Aryan Nations World
Congress in Hayden Lake, Idaho, Weaver was introduced to Kenneth
Fadeley, who, by the fall of that year, was talking with him
about buying weapons, specifically sawed-off shotguns.
Fadeley was a paid informant for the federal Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms. ATF officials believed that Weaver might be
a conduit to Chuck Holworth, who had formed an Aryan Nations
splinter group in Montana. He was not.
In October 1989, Weaver sold the informant two shotguns, the
barrels of which he had shortened in accordance with specific
instructions provided by Fadeley (who didn't tell his ATF
handler that he had provided such instructions). Fadeley recorded
all his conversations with Weaver -- with one glaring exception,
the one in which Weaver allegedly made the offer to sell the
weapons to the informant.
On May 21, 1990, the ATF asked the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Boise to prosecute Weaver for selling the illegal shotgun. The
very next month, two ATF agents approached Weaver outside a hotel
in Sandpoint, Idaho, and told him about the charges and that he
could help himself by agreeing to provide information about the
Aryan Nations. Weaver refused, saying he wouldn't become a
government "snitch." One agent gave Weaver his card and the
agents left.
Incredibly, no one in the ATF told anyone in the U.S. Marshals
Service that they had tried to solicit Weaver to work as an
informant.
On Dec. 13, 1990, a full seven months after the ATF referred the
case to the U.S. attorney's office, a federal grand jury indicted
Weaver for manufacturing and possessing an unregistered firearm.
On Jan. 17, 1991, he was arrested near his residence by ATF
agents. Weaver was arraigned the next day. He posted a $10,000
bond, secured by his property on Ruby Ridge, was released and
told by the court that his trial was set for Feb. 19, 1991.
Several weeks later, the court changed the trial date to Feb. 20.
Two days later, a U.S. probation officer sent Weaver a letter in
which he erroneously referred to the trial date as March 20. Yet
when Weaver failed to appear for trial on Feb. 20, a bench
warrant was issued for his arrest. On March 14, 1991, still
nearly a week before the trial date given Weaver, a federal grand
jury indicted him for failure to appear for trial.
This further inflamed the suspicion in Weaver's mind that the
government was conspiring against him. He made it clear in talks
with friends, in at least one newspaper interview and in letters
to the U.S. attorney's office in Boise, signed by Vicki Weaver,
that "whether we live or die, we will not obey your lawless
government... we will not bow to your evil commandments."
Nonetheless, Weaver did, through intermediaries, negotiate with
the U.S. Marshals Service. On Oct. 12, 1991, the local Marshals
Service office in Boise proposed offering formal surrender terms
to Weaver and requested authorization from the U.S. attorney's
office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Howen refused to authorize
further negotiations with Weaver and declared that all further
communication with him must be through his court-appointed
attorney, with whom Weaver had repeatedly refused to speak. Howen
would later be the lead prosecutor at the trial of Weaver and
Harris.
So the stage for disaster was set. Weaver, an increasingly
paranoid, radical ideologue convinced that the federal government
was evil {1}, was cut off from negotiations that could defuse the
situation. Weaver, although he had not left his home, was
officially a federal fugitive.
The case was transferred to the Enforcement Division of the U.S.
Marshals Service. It was given the code name "Operation Northern
Exposure" and put under the guidance of Deputy Marshal Arthur
Roderick.
In August 1992, Roderick assembled the team that was supposed to
conduct the necessary surveillance to set up an approved
undercover plan to arrest Weaver away from his family. On the
team was Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan, commander of the
Northeast Task Force in Boston, and a close friend of Roderick's.
The team met in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Aug. 17, 1992. Four days
later, Degan would be dead.
About 10 a.m. Aug. 21, three of the six marshals on the team,
including Roderick and Degan, crept close to the Weavers' cabin.
None wore bullet-proof vests, although they were available.
Suddenly, the Weavers' dogs began to bark and Randy Weaver,
Harris and several Weaver children ran out of the cabin. They
were armed. The marshals retreated through the woods, pursued by
the Weavers' dog Striker, Harris and Sammy Weaver.
The most likely scenario of what happened next is that one of the
marshals (probably Roderick) shot Striker (the autopsy showed the
dog was hit from behind). Sammy responded angrily and fired his
.223 mini-14 rifle. His shots hit no one. He turned to run back
to the cabin. One or more marshals, including perhaps Degan
(whose gun was found to have been fired seven times), returned
fire, hitting Sammy in the arm and the back, killing him. Harris
then fired his 30-06 rifle and hit Degan in the chest with a
single round, killing him.
Harris and Weaver returned to the cabin. At no point during the
gun battle were any shots fired from the cabin. After the initial
exchange of fire, no shots were fired from the cabin or any of
its occupants throughout the ensuing seige.
Nonetheless, Jose Antonio Perez, chief of Enforcement Operations
of the U.S. Marshals Service at headquarters, reported to the FBI
that "the marshals were still on the mountain and were pinned
down by gunfire" more than two hours after the firefight. (The
marshalls involved in the shooting reported receiving 100 or more
incoming rounds. But investigators recovered far fewer bullet
casings.)
[...to be continued...]
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{1} "Weaver, an increasingly paranoid, radical ideologue
convinced that the federal government was evil..."
"paranoid" ---- "convinced that government was evil"
"crazy" ---- "thinks that government is evil"
"thinks that government is evil" -- "crazy"
TRANSLATION: "If you think the U.S. government is evil, you are
'crazy'."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For information on how to receive the new Conspiracy Nation
Newsletter, send an e-mail message to bigxc@prairienet.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like "Conspiracy Nation" sent to your e-mail
address, send a message in the form "subscribe conspire My Name"
to listproc@prairienet.org -- To cancel, send a message in the
form "unsubscribe conspire" to listproc@prairienet.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc?
(1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
O what fine thought we had because we thought | bigred@shout.net
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out. | Illinois,
-- W.B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen" | I'm your boy.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=