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Site of white separatist shootout fades from......
Josey1
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Site of white separatist shootout fades from public eye
By THOMAS CLOUSE
The Idaho Spokesman-Review
NAPLES, Idaho (AP) - Just the crude foundation remains.
The sun-bleached plywood floor outlines the mountain cabin that long ago collapsed under the strain of North Idaho winters.
Gone is the door through which FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi fatally shot Vicki Weaver and injured family friend Kevin Harris.
Gone is the "birthing shed," where 14-year-old Sammy Weaver was laid to rest after being shot in the back by a U.S. marshal.
Gone, too, are the signs of the foot-chase-turned-shootout between Sammy, Harris and federal agents that left U.S. Marshal Bill Degan dead.
No monument rests on this rocky outcropping of Ruby Ridge.
Instead, the Weaver cabin's foundation withers like a scar that hasn't healed after 10 years - a decade that saw the rise and fall of the militia movement in the United States.
On Aug. 21, 1992, the shootout sparked an 11-day standoff between Harris, Randy Weaver's family and hundreds of federal agents.
The incident, known simply as Ruby Ridge, became a rallying cry for those fearful of government oppression and suspicious of efforts by the "New World Order" to limit gun ownership.
It also became a black eye for the FBI, which has failed even to this day to explain exactly who gave Horiuchi written permission to kill at Ruby Ridge without first being threatened.
A year after Randy Weaver's premonition of a government attack came true - largely caused by his refusal to appear in court on a federal weapons charge - a second event propelled the anti-government movement into the public consciousness.
Some 90 people were killed in Waco, Texas, in the standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians.
"Ruby Ridge gave birth to the militia movement," said Mark Potok, who tracks radical groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Birmingham, Ala. "But Waco lit this movement on fire."
In April 1995, USA Today conducted a poll in which 39 percent of Americans agreed with the idea that the government was so large and powerful that it posed an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.
"Four out of 10 people saw the federal government as a direct enemy," Potok said. "I think that is just a remarkable number."
It was also in April 1995 that a Gulf War veteran decided to get some payback for what he later said was the government's playing dirty at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb, killing 168 at a federal building in Oklahoma City. It was the single worst domestic terrorist act in U.S. history.
"McVeigh showed how bad it could go," said Jess Walter, a former Spokesman-Review reporter and author of the book "Every Knee Shall Bow," which detailed what happened at Ruby Ridge.
Initially, the militia ranks swelled after McVeigh's attack.
In 1996, the number of militias tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center jumped to 858 - almost four times the count from the previous year.
Militia faithful viewed McVeigh as a government pawn used to make them look bad.
That's how John Trochmann still describes McVeigh. Trochmann, of Noxon, Mont., founded in 1994 the movement's first major organization, the Militia of Montana.
"Many of us believe that he was a willing participant in a government program to promote terrorism in this country," Trochmann said of McVeigh. "He wasn't part of the militia movement.
"How would we gain, as the militia movement, trying to rally people around our cause by killing and maiming Americans?"
Yet the images of Oklahoma City started to turn the people against the anti-government movement.
"The people pretty much gave up on this so-called militia movement," Trochmann said. "When media and government brought the pressure on, they just disappeared."
Trochmann's influence is now reduced to a mail-order business. He also travels to gun shows to sell books and videos about how to prepare for disasters.
"Trochmann used to be able to draw 800 to 1,000 people in the mid-'90s," he said. "Now he's lucky to get a neighbor and his dog."
But that's not to say the movement didn't once have teeth, Potok said.
"The militia movement produced a great deal of violence," he said. "It had 31 or 32 major domestic terrorist conspiracies. The difference was that many were not successful."
After McVeigh, the militia movement began to decline until it suffered another blow - Y2K.
Some die-hard militia followers had been clinging to predictions of race wars, an electronic meltdown and fears that President Clinton would call for martial law.
"January 1 came and absolutely nothing changed," Potok said. "I think that hurt the militia movement badly because they had bought so wholly that this was going to be the apocalypse."
Hundreds of former followers also ended up in prison on weapons charges. More than half of the states passed laws aimed at anti-government activity.
Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed only 158 militia-type organizations. That's 700 fewer than 1996.
"In other words, we are looking at a movement that is one-sixth the size of its peak," Potok said. "The militia movement is a very pale shadow of its former self."
Still, Randy Weaver remains a popular figure.
"You only have to watch Randy Weaver at any gun show to see that he still has followers and people who believe that his story is representative of the way government treats its citizens," Walter said.
Weaver served 16 months for the weapons charge that initiated the standoff. He was acquitted of all other charges. He couldn't be reached for comment for this story, despite multiple calls to his home in Iowa.
Trochmann denounced claims that the militia movement is dying.
"They've gone underground," he said, "but they are still there."
President Bush's homeland security initiative following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 will provide plenty of anti-government fodder.
Trochmann claims that he's seen a resurgence of calls from people worried about losing their civil rights.
"This homeland defense force, as we see it coming down, has the same shades of tyranny as the rules of engagement change for the Weaver family," Trochmann said.
"It was seen, and still is seen, as a terrorist act by the federal government on we the people."
While Ruby Ridge still fuels complaints about an overbearing government, it's faded as a conversation piece at the Naples General Store.
"Locals don't talk about it," said Steve Berwick, who works at the store. "People sometimes come in looking for directions, but I don't even know what to tell them. There's no cabin, no monument. There's nothing to see. It's tragic."
http://www.trib.com/HOMENEWS/STATE/19RubyRidge.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By THOMAS CLOUSE
The Idaho Spokesman-Review
NAPLES, Idaho (AP) - Just the crude foundation remains.
The sun-bleached plywood floor outlines the mountain cabin that long ago collapsed under the strain of North Idaho winters.
Gone is the door through which FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi fatally shot Vicki Weaver and injured family friend Kevin Harris.
Gone is the "birthing shed," where 14-year-old Sammy Weaver was laid to rest after being shot in the back by a U.S. marshal.
Gone, too, are the signs of the foot-chase-turned-shootout between Sammy, Harris and federal agents that left U.S. Marshal Bill Degan dead.
No monument rests on this rocky outcropping of Ruby Ridge.
Instead, the Weaver cabin's foundation withers like a scar that hasn't healed after 10 years - a decade that saw the rise and fall of the militia movement in the United States.
On Aug. 21, 1992, the shootout sparked an 11-day standoff between Harris, Randy Weaver's family and hundreds of federal agents.
The incident, known simply as Ruby Ridge, became a rallying cry for those fearful of government oppression and suspicious of efforts by the "New World Order" to limit gun ownership.
It also became a black eye for the FBI, which has failed even to this day to explain exactly who gave Horiuchi written permission to kill at Ruby Ridge without first being threatened.
A year after Randy Weaver's premonition of a government attack came true - largely caused by his refusal to appear in court on a federal weapons charge - a second event propelled the anti-government movement into the public consciousness.
Some 90 people were killed in Waco, Texas, in the standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians.
"Ruby Ridge gave birth to the militia movement," said Mark Potok, who tracks radical groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Birmingham, Ala. "But Waco lit this movement on fire."
In April 1995, USA Today conducted a poll in which 39 percent of Americans agreed with the idea that the government was so large and powerful that it posed an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.
"Four out of 10 people saw the federal government as a direct enemy," Potok said. "I think that is just a remarkable number."
It was also in April 1995 that a Gulf War veteran decided to get some payback for what he later said was the government's playing dirty at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb, killing 168 at a federal building in Oklahoma City. It was the single worst domestic terrorist act in U.S. history.
"McVeigh showed how bad it could go," said Jess Walter, a former Spokesman-Review reporter and author of the book "Every Knee Shall Bow," which detailed what happened at Ruby Ridge.
Initially, the militia ranks swelled after McVeigh's attack.
In 1996, the number of militias tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center jumped to 858 - almost four times the count from the previous year.
Militia faithful viewed McVeigh as a government pawn used to make them look bad.
That's how John Trochmann still describes McVeigh. Trochmann, of Noxon, Mont., founded in 1994 the movement's first major organization, the Militia of Montana.
"Many of us believe that he was a willing participant in a government program to promote terrorism in this country," Trochmann said of McVeigh. "He wasn't part of the militia movement.
"How would we gain, as the militia movement, trying to rally people around our cause by killing and maiming Americans?"
Yet the images of Oklahoma City started to turn the people against the anti-government movement.
"The people pretty much gave up on this so-called militia movement," Trochmann said. "When media and government brought the pressure on, they just disappeared."
Trochmann's influence is now reduced to a mail-order business. He also travels to gun shows to sell books and videos about how to prepare for disasters.
"Trochmann used to be able to draw 800 to 1,000 people in the mid-'90s," he said. "Now he's lucky to get a neighbor and his dog."
But that's not to say the movement didn't once have teeth, Potok said.
"The militia movement produced a great deal of violence," he said. "It had 31 or 32 major domestic terrorist conspiracies. The difference was that many were not successful."
After McVeigh, the militia movement began to decline until it suffered another blow - Y2K.
Some die-hard militia followers had been clinging to predictions of race wars, an electronic meltdown and fears that President Clinton would call for martial law.
"January 1 came and absolutely nothing changed," Potok said. "I think that hurt the militia movement badly because they had bought so wholly that this was going to be the apocalypse."
Hundreds of former followers also ended up in prison on weapons charges. More than half of the states passed laws aimed at anti-government activity.
Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed only 158 militia-type organizations. That's 700 fewer than 1996.
"In other words, we are looking at a movement that is one-sixth the size of its peak," Potok said. "The militia movement is a very pale shadow of its former self."
Still, Randy Weaver remains a popular figure.
"You only have to watch Randy Weaver at any gun show to see that he still has followers and people who believe that his story is representative of the way government treats its citizens," Walter said.
Weaver served 16 months for the weapons charge that initiated the standoff. He was acquitted of all other charges. He couldn't be reached for comment for this story, despite multiple calls to his home in Iowa.
Trochmann denounced claims that the militia movement is dying.
"They've gone underground," he said, "but they are still there."
President Bush's homeland security initiative following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 will provide plenty of anti-government fodder.
Trochmann claims that he's seen a resurgence of calls from people worried about losing their civil rights.
"This homeland defense force, as we see it coming down, has the same shades of tyranny as the rules of engagement change for the Weaver family," Trochmann said.
"It was seen, and still is seen, as a terrorist act by the federal government on we the people."
While Ruby Ridge still fuels complaints about an overbearing government, it's faded as a conversation piece at the Naples General Store.
"Locals don't talk about it," said Steve Berwick, who works at the store. "People sometimes come in looking for directions, but I don't even know what to tell them. There's no cabin, no monument. There's nothing to see. It's tragic."
http://www.trib.com/HOMENEWS/STATE/19RubyRidge.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
By BILL STRAUB
Scripps Howard News Service
August 19, 2002
- Randy Weaver, still wiry after 10 years out of the limelight, his dark hair turned silver, was signing autographs for fellow survivalists at an Independent American Party convention in Elko, Nev., in April when someone asked if he would act differently if he could relive the horrible 11-day siege at Ruby Ridge.
"I would have put on my full camo," Weaver said, looking at his questioner, "and shoot them in the back. As many as I could."
It has been a decade since Weaver, waiting for Armageddon while holed up in a crude cabin in the Selkirk Mountains of Northern Idaho just 40 miles south of the Canadian border, engaged in a firefight with federal law enforcement agents.
The Aug. 21, 1992, shoot-out resulted in the deaths of three people - Weaver's wife, Vicki, holding an infant daughter when she was shot through the head by an FBI sniper; their 13-year-old son, Sammy; and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan. It also raised serious questions about the use of force and abuse of police powers by FBI agents and other law enforcement officials.
Weaver surrendered to authorities and, in July 1993, was acquitted of murder charges related to Degan's death. The FBI wasn't as fortunate. Subsequent investigations were critical of law enforcement's methods - gunfire occurred before the Weavers were afforded an opportunity to surrender - and the federal government in 1995 settled damage claims by paying Weaver and three surviving daughters $3.1 million.
The incident helped spawn an American militia movement that continues today, although its popularity appears to have waned. It also served, in the view of many, as a prime example of the abuse of federal law enforcement powers. The bombing of the federal government building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh in April 1995, leaving more than 150 dead, reportedly was motivated, at least in part, by revenge for what is known as the Shootout at Ruby Ridge.
Gerry Spence, the legendary attorney who successfully represented Weaver at trial, said the Idaho standoff and similar incidents, like the deaths of David Koresh and his followers in Waco, Texas, show what can occur when police powers are not properly checked.
"Where there is excess of power there will always be abuse of power," Spence said. "The people of this country are more and more acceding to the intervention of government into their lives. They look to the government for protection and more and more are willing to give up their rights in exchange for promises by the government for protection.
"The question then, of course, is who protects them from the government?" he said.
Spence said he and Weaver are "worlds apart philosophically" but he felt compelled to represent a man who believes in racial separation with ties to the Aryan nation because he was victimized by governmental abuse of power.
"We can expect increasingly more of it," he said.
Weaver and his family moved to Ruby Ridge in late 1983 to escape what they viewed as a sinful world. The home Weaver built with his own hands had neither electricity nor running water. Family members settled in and waited for the second coming.
According to a Justice Department report, Weaver first came to the attention of federal law enforcement personnel in 1985 after reportedly making threats against then-President Ronald Reagan and Idaho Gov. John Evans. A Secret Service investigation showed that Weaver mingled with members of the Aryan Nation, a white supremacist group, and had a cache of weapons including handguns and rifles and access to explosives and "an unlimited amount of ammunition."
Weaver denied making the threats and told agents he had "no time for Aryan Nation's preachers." But in July 1989, Weaver appeared as a speaker at the World Aryan Congress and met up with Kenneth Fadeley, an undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In October, after several conversations, Weaver sold Fadeley a pair of sawed-off shotguns for $300.
It was this incident, and Weaver's subsequent indictment on weapons charges, that led to the shootout. Federal agents initially tried to use the gun charge as leverage to get Weaver to inform on the Aryan nation. He refused. On Aug. 21, 1992, three deputy U.S. marshals were on Weaver's Ruby Ridge property trying to determine how best to bring him into custody when the shootout occurred, leaving Degan and Sammy Weaver dead. An FBI sniper killed Vicki Weaver the next day.
John Trochmann, a Weaver family friend and co-founder of the Militia of Montana, witnessed the standoff and described it as "a sad time in our lives when certain federal agencies exercised their might over the people."
Like Spence, Trochmann believes an incident like Ruby Ridge can occur again, noting that, "it happened again in Waco, Texas."
For a time, Trochmann said, it appeared the FBI and other agencies were using more subtle tactics. In 1996, for instance, the FBI was engaged in an 81-day siege involving about two-dozen heavily armed members of the Freemen group, hunkered down in a Montana ranch. The Freemen, who reject governmental authority, were wanted for passing bogus checks amounting to about $15 billion. The incident ended without violence.
But Trochmann said in the wake of 9/11, the federal government's attitude might be changing again.
"Based on past performance, I believe a mission creep is in progress," Trochmann said. "There is a homeland defense force being created that can do much the same thing."
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=RUBYRIDGE-08-19-02&cat=AN
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878