An Open Letter to three FBI Agents that killed Finicum

Fox 1450 News ^ | 2-25-2016 | Kate Dally

[Smokin' Joe]

So you would keep your hands up when shot? Bigger tough guy than most.

People tend to reach for the wound site, somewhat reflexively.

[gibsosa]

Amen

[Yo-Yo]

No, I would have stayed pulled over the first time with my hands in plain sight, instead of trying to get away.

[DPMD]

“Armed takeover of an area.”

Would that apply to the millions of state acres stolen by the fed, and protected by men with guns? To places like Area 51, and the massive neighborhoods taken over by armed men to accommodate the president’s stupid motorcade? To the White House grounds protected by a massive fenced wall and protected by men with tons of guns, even though they may be drunken whoremongers?

And so on?

[pilgrim]

If I may?

I've thought about you. All three of you, with your guns pointed at LaVoy Finicum. The video still haunts me.

I would have been the first one to give you the benefit of the doubt. I was raised around law enforcement. I know good men in law enforcement. But that changed for me, as it did thousands of Americans, with the events that unfurled in Oregon as I felt utterly stunned at what I viewed in that video.

I watched the grainy version of the video that the FBI administration released of LaVoy Finicums death, even though I knew that with our technology today, they have better, more clear footage and footage with audio from this event. But you will not release that, it is too incriminating for the FBI. They did this with purpose to deceive the public and that video would have revealed to the world your actions that day. This footage you did release, left people arguing about what they were seeing in the blurry video rather than to bring their attention to the way that three FBI agents ambushed and murdered an innocent, non-violent rancher with no criminal history. A man with a large family. A good man. A man who never threatened you.

The FBI had clearly set this up in advance with stops prepared and dozens of agents ready to end the protest because four weeks of a land rights issues protest was all the patience they could muster. The protesters had left the ranch many times before and on this day we're headed for a meeting to inform ranchers of their rights. You knew that. You stopped the two cars and started shooting at LaVoy's truck full of passengers- unprovoked. They never brandished a weapon against you.

Finicum told you he was driving to the Sheriffs office for protection from you. The only place he felt safe. You fired on his vehicle. You could have just followed him if you had ever intended to have a peaceful outcome. But that was never your intention. Finicum knew why the local law enforcement wasn't invited to this event- why the local Sheriff was intentionally kept at bay- Finicum feared what you would do to him with no local oversight. The Sheriff of Grant County, just over the county line where you ambushed him, valued Constitutional rights and Finicum knew the Sheriff would never approve of an ambush on the highway and and execution of a protester.

A tax-paying citizen who loved America could not trust you and fled for his life because he knew you could murder him and get away with it. Let that sink in.

When Finicum got out of his vehicle with his hands up, within seconds you gathered around him and shot him in the back.

You shot him him in the back.

Who would carry out such a cowardly deed? Who would follow orders to shoot a rancher with his hands up and shoot him in the back seconds after getting out of his vehicle? The three of you would do this. What were you thinking? How do you reconcile this in your head and in your heart?

No talking? Not one attempt at a peaceful negotiation? At the refuge all he did was talk to you, never threatened you. His hands were UP. Did your conscience allow you to shoot him without any reservation? After his lifeless body dropped into the snow, you cared so little for this fellow citizen that you walked around his body and didn't check for a pulse for 15 minutes? Why? Because of your guilt or because you had such little regard for him or for human life in general? Both of those answers are equally terrifying to me.

Moments later you shot rounds of ammunition into Finicum's truck with scared women inside screaming for help- trying to surrender. You threw gas cans inside the vehicle. Is this how you do it now? Are you sincerely okay with this? Look at what you have become. By a miracle they survived.

Before you hunted him down and silenced him like wild game, Finicum carried out two heroic acts. As he turned the blind corner on the highway, he almost ran into your barricade head on, as vehicles and men stood standing in the middle of the highway at your "stop". He veered to the left on the snowbank to avoid hitting you. To preserve your lives. He then got out of the vehicle with his hands up to divert your attention from his truck with passengers inside, so you would stop firing upon them. To preserve their lives. This is the man you surrounded and killed within seconds. You killed a hero.

I wonder what has happened to my America where you could easily tell the good guys from the bad guys. Are you mercenaries now? Carrying out executions on demand? Have you realized yet that you did the bidding of a government that is seeking to violate the property rights and steal the land of your fellow citizens? Do you realize that you are a citizen and that these ranchers were standing up for YOUR rights, too? Or have you not realized this.

Most Americans won't take the time to do the research to find out that you shot him in the back two times before he ever reached for his stomach – the area where you shot him. And your bosses instructed the media to tell everyone he reached for a gun to justify this cowardly act of murder on a fellow citizen. What a pathetic cover-up for your actions that day.

I'm asking all three of you who carried out the execution of Finicum, to RESIGN.

Resign, because I have to know that you will never be allowed to act with force again. I have to know that men like you would not be allowed to continue on as FBI agents. If you are rewarded for this dastardly act, I will lose all faith in our justice system.

We need men with a conscience and a soul in law enforcement.

We need good men who are there to protect the citizens rights. Your fellow men. You took an oath to defend the Constitution. Did you understand this oath when you excitedly repeated its words to get your badge? It wasn't a promise. It was an oath. An oath to protect and to serve- us. LaVoy was one of US.

Are you going to protect us or are you going to protect orders? Even if those orders compel you to disregard someone's Constitutional rights in the most brazen and corrupt and evil way? Was this you "just doing your job", so that you could end their protest?

Millions of people have died as a result of those " just doing their job". Under Hitler. Under Stalin. Is this who you have become? Shooting someone with their hands up because you were told to?

You can no longer hide behind the lie that you felt threatened enough to shoot him dead. With a dozen or more of you ready to attack him, the only one that felt threatened was Finicum, I assure you. You murdered an innocent man. The salt of the earth. A man who would have stood up for you and who would have respected you. A man who would have shaken your hand and talked to about his love for America. You killed him.

Let me ask you this. In all of your years in the FBI, how many ranchers have ever threatened you or have drawn weapons on you? I'm guessing the thugs you deal with everyday do not include ranchers and farmers.

How many ranchers over the years have left their working farms, to protest over the stealing of another ranchers land and imprisonment? I'm guessing probably none.

Here's the difficult question. After decades of government abuse to rancher's property rights, how many ranchers have YOU defended, or aided, or stood for- because you did take an oath to defend the Constitutional rights of those in your care. I am going to guess that you have never stood for any of these men against the abuse of the government. You have become pawns. You are protecting the governments special interests, not the people's.

Resign, so I can sleep at night with some of my faith in America restored.

Resign, so I can tell my kids to respect the FBI.

Resign, because I need to know there are not monsters out there with guns and badges that will do anything they are told to do, like killing innocent Americans, because we could be next.

Resign.

You may be a fellow citizen, but you are not my fellow American.

[azkathy]

The list of events nationwide is linked here https://www.facebook.com/events/upcoming

[backwoods-engineer]

Whoever killed Finicum will not only continue in the job, they will be slapped on the back by their fellow oathbreakers. Like Lon Horiuchi, they will never be called to account.

[wrench]

Very, very few cops today are willing to walk away from a paycheck and a pension. They are convinced their team will win.

Almost all will follow whatever orders are given. Look at the pics and videos from the Boston manhunt if you need any convincing.

[backwoods-engineer]

Precisely so. I mentioned Horiuchi before I saw your excellent comment.

[rdcbn]

As a general rule, armed confrontations with governmental employees are not an effective form of dispute resolution in a civil society and are generally counter productive to the resolution of the dispute and destructive to the cause at issue.

[Gil4]

I can't say I did. Video quality isn't the greatest. What times should I have seen them?

[Smokin' Joe]

Every time a rifle or pistol fired that is in the field of view of the camera. Either all of the shooters were off camera, or the video isn’t at full brightness.

[Vigilanteman]

Thanks for the formatting. Very sobering.

[pilgrim]

NP!!

It really is! Many do not even see or know there is a problem!!

[Trod Upon]

Does it strike you as at all odd that a guy who “wanted” suicide by cop would try to escape like that? Wouldn’t the first stop have been just as good a place to get himself killed? Also, it seems odd that he tried to continue his escape by attempting to drive around the barricade at the scene of his killing.

[Yo-Yo]

What strikes me as odd is if the FBI were intent on killing unarmed civilians who were just trying to surrender, why didn’t they open up on the truck after the first shots at LaVoy were fired, instead of letting three more people surrender one by one after waiting them out for five minutes.

[Trod Upon]

Might be the objective was to make an example of the outspoken Finicum while taking the lower profile occupants into custody. I would say nobody will know for sure, barring an actual conspiracy and someone getting an attack of conscience, but the video is troubling to me.

[DoughtyOne]

Folks, if you're reading this, you know what needs to happen.
It doesn't take a big contribution. Pick your comfort level and
please join others to help put the FReepathon to rest. Thank you.

[azkathy]

This post from Barbara Berg who helped get people out of the refuge and knows the Bundy’s, Finicums and Patriots personally explains what they were actually doing.

“THIS IS THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY OREGON STATE POLICE, HARNEY COUNTY SHERIFF AND THE FEDS CONSPIRED TO ASSASSINATE LAVOY. HE WAS KILLED BECAUSE HE WAS EDUCATING PEOPLE!

Further confirmation as to why the feds needed to stop LaVoy and Ammon.

Hundreds of people were freely coming into the refuge to get education on their rights. Many group presentations were given each day. On Saturday, the 24th, ten ranchers from Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona nullified their grazing contracts with the BLM and U.S. Forest Service.

On Saturday, the 24th, grand jury administrators from Nebraska and Florida were forming a grand jury to review the abuses in the Hammond case. Tuesday, the 26th, the day LaVoy was killed, we began releasing documents exposing criminal acts by the government.

The evening of the 26th, a meeting was scheduled with Grant County residents to give a presentation with those at the refuge. To give their presentation to hundreds of people in the county, including the county Sheriff.

The FBI attacked those who were to give the presentation on the way to this peaceful meeting, leaving hundreds at the meeting with no speakers.

On Wednesday, the 28th, a follow up meeting was scheduled with Harney County residents with those at the refuge to finalize actions to claim back lands that were taken by the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and United States Forest Service. This included plans to take action to begin logging again in Harney County and to restore the thriving economy once known to the Harney County residents.

On Thursday evening, the 29th, a meeting was scheduled with Malheur County residents with those at the refuge to give a presentation on the constitution as it pertained to federal limits to land ownership inside the states.

This meeting was to occur in Ontario, Oregon. Hundreds were expected to attend. The sheriff’s Department also accepted the invitation and was scheduled to attend.

On Friday afternoon, the 30th, residents surrounding Jordan Valley, Oregon, had scheduled a seminar with those at the refuge to come out and inform them of how they can protect themselves from a national monument that is to be signed in by President Obama this year, 2016. This monument is twice the size of Yellowstone, takes up a third of the county’s land mass, and will put over 250 ranchers out of business as they know it. Ranchers from Malheur county were scheduled to nullify their contracts with the U.S. Forest Service.

In the following weeks, meetings were scheduled in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and the State of Washington. Multiple Skype meetings were also set up throughout the Western U.S. All these meetings were to discuss how they would stand against the unconstitutional land control by the federal government.

Those at the refuge collected over 50 testimonies of ranchers who lost their family property to the U.S. Government in Harney and surrounding counties. Hundreds of government documents were compiled by those at the refuge. Many of the documents exposed abusive actions by federal government officials, Judge Grasty, Harney County Sheriff’s Department and direct abuses to the Hammond family.

Escalation of force from the FBI, OSP, and the Sheriff’s Department incrementally increased as the education from the refuge expanded. Government officials knew that if they did not take forceful preemptive action to stop the expanding the influence of the refuge, many would begin to stand for land rights as protected by the United States Constitution. Make no mistake about it: those that were educating at the refuge and are now suffering in jail at this time are political prisoners.

Those at the refuge never pointed a gun and never pulled a trigger to kill. They chose to educate, giving others the freedom to choose. The government promoted fear and forceful tactics to control and stop this education. And ultimately, they used force by the barrel of the gun.”

[SaxxonWoods]

I come from a ranching family, 7 generations worth since 1823. I’m on the ranchers’ side in the basic debate.

There are too many wrong things in the letter to get started on, don’t have that kind of time.