Free Republic

The top job at Oregon State Police has gone to Casey Codding, one of two state police troopers who fatally shot a leader of the armed Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation in January 2016, Gov. Tina Kotek announced Monday. Codding, a 27-year veteran of Oregon State Police, shot Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum in the back after Finicum sped his truck toward a roadblock of state SWAT police and FBI agents. State police withheld the names of the two officers who fired at Finicum, but a witness let Codding’s name slip during subsequent court hearings about the shooting. Now superintendent, Codding started...

It was senior recognition night at Jeanette Finicum’s daughter’s high school basketball game on Jan. 26, 2016, when Jeanette started hearing that something had happened to her husband, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum. A Mohave County, Arizona, cattle rancher, father of 12, and foster parent, LaVoy Finicum was among a group of people who participated in a 41-day occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, 700 miles from his home. It started on Jan. 2, 2016. They were protesting federal land use policies—something LaVoy Finicum had been speaking about a lot on his YouTube channel, “One Cowboy’s Stand for Freedom.” Jeanette...

When one talks about the Bundy Family, the first thing that springs to mind is the standoff in Nevada in 2014. However, perhaps even more important is the standoff and occupation at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. Indeed, the two events are often conflated because Ammon Bundy is the son of Cliven Bundy, the man who stood up to the federal government over “grazing fees” on Bureau of Land Management land. The occupation was a highlight for both the militia and the sovereign citizen movement as well as proponents of states’ rights. The main argument from those occupying...

The Bureau of Land Management, ironically going by the acronym BLM, with help from Federal agents, shut down the Bundy range land protest and killed LaVoy Finicum. A far worse group takes over a section of Seattle and NOTHING happens? Really? This raises and insurmountable number of questions.

Interesting how so many people forget things. What about the Cliven Bundy standoff? A lot of people (mostly white) showed up to protest about the impending arrest of the Bundys and were very poorly treated. I don't remember anyone going out on the streets and rioting, do you? We left it to the courts (probably a mistake). They even ambushed and killed La Voy Finicum for no reason and we didn't even blink an eye. Now we wonder why all of this is happening and no one does anything about it? I guess no one cares about standing up for...

"Dad was One Cowboy who stood to uphold and defend the United States Constitution against domestic adversaries" Haunted by the mental picture of the body of patriot cowboy LaVoy Finicum lying in the winter Oregon snow, Canada Free Press wrote back in March of 2016… ““Maybe some day, a song writer with heart will come along and mark his passing with ‘The Ballad of LaVoy Finicum’ to remind us all in song about the cold-blooded cruelty of governments who put power and one-upmanship ahead of the dignity of human life.” That day has come. Much better than any ballad is...

After less than a day of deliberation, a jury of nine men and three women found FBI special agent Joseph Astarita not guilty of lying about a high-profile police shooting during the 2016 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation. Astarita faced two counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. The charges stemmed from a critical moment during the occupation when spokesman Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum was shot and killed by Oregon State Police after he fled a traffic stop along a remote stretch of highway in eastern Oregon.

I just watched the TV documentary (American Standoff) about the Oregon Standoff and occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, and I am still sick to my stomach. Not living out west, I did not realize that Dwight Hammond and his son Steve were still in jail for this travesty of justice. A good man named LaVoy Finicum was killed by the feds in the standoff. The Ruby Ridge feds were at it again. As i understand it, Trump talked about this situation during his campaign. I am incensed that he still has not pardoned the Hammonds. The...

Lifelong Southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, recently cleared of federal charges and freed from jail after nearly two years, has turned his sights on state and county government. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Clark County District Court, Bundy claimed that former resident Barack Obama’s late 2016 establishment of Gold Butte National Monument, which occurred while the rancher was in federal custody, was “as illegal as it is unlawful” and would preclude him from continuing to function on his land and destroy his livelihood. ... “Recognizing that the land is not owned by the United States of America, (Bundy) has...

On this week when the second anniversary of his killing will be marked, the widow of LaVoy Finicum will reportedly file a complaint over the matter. That's the word in a video posted by Bryan Hyde, who's been posting videos regarding the recent trial in Las Vegas. Hyde spoke with Jeanette Finicum and said in a video posted yesterday that she "will be filing a wrongful death complaint" later this week. Hyde also said her intention in filing the complaint is not revenge, but to hold government accountable for its actions. Jeanette Finicum also wanted to thank all the people...

An FBI agent has been indicted on accusations that he lied about firing at a rancher in 2016 when officers arrested leaders of an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in rural Oregon. Sources familiar with the case say the agent will face allegations of making a false statement with intent to obstruct justice, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Tuesday. The indictment stems from more than a yearlong investigation by the U.S. Justice Department inspector general. The agent will be identified when summoned to appear Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland. Authorities moved in on Ammon Bundy and other leaders...

Bravo to the the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and the Oregonian for helping release the truth from that cage The truth will always out. The truth will always out even when top authorities squat on it for five long months in efforts to suppress it from ever finding sunlight. “An FBI agent has been indicted and accused of lying about firing shots at slain Oregon militia member LaVoy Finicum during a fatal roadside encounter, according to (a) report.” (NY Daily News, June 28, 2017)

A federal civil rights lawsuit in the death of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum will allege that Oregon State Police and the FBI used excessive force in a confrontation that could have ended peacefully, the Finicum family's lawyer says. The family also will contend that improper police procedures and lack of communication between state police and FBI agents at the scene contributed to Finicum's shooting death, said attorney Brian Claypool. --- The suit will allege that the FBI fired at Finicum "when he's getting out of his car to surrender," Claypool said. "What's critical is he's not even out of his door...

Mark McConnell, the driver of the Jeep that Ammon Bundy was riding in before this arrest on Jan. 26, was a government informant who had tipped off law enforcement about the occupation leaders' trip out of the wildlife refuge, according to court testimony Wednesday..... Oregon State Trooper Jeremiah Beckert said that McConnell provided information about the occupiers vehicles, their location and a basic threat assessment, leading to the high-risk traffic stop on U.S. 395 about 4 p.m. that same day..... The government limited Beckert's testimony to the arrests, with little discussion of Finicum's fatal shooting..... Before the trooper took the...

It was a rough morning for U.S. attorneys arguing the federal government’s case against Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and six other defendants accused of conspiring to occupy an Oregon wildlife refuge. A visibly frustrated Judge Anna Brown struck from the record a previous ruling that effectively allowed evidence from defendants’ Facebook accounts into next month’s trial. Despite calling an assistant U.S. attorney, two legal assistants and an FBI agent as witnesses, prosecutors weren’t able to explain to the court how protected information from 11 Facebook accounts used by defendants ended up being shared as part of discovery. Judge Brown ordered...

MISSOULA – U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ... Putnam said he’s attended several Oath Keepers rallies in the past, including three in Portland, Oregon and several at a memorial on the highway outside Burns, Oregon where LaVoy Finicum was killed by law enforcement in a standoff following the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge. ... Jason Van Tatenhove, a Eureka-area man who serves as the national media director for the Oath Keepers, said he had doubts about the performance of Robertson’s federal public defense attorney, Michael Donahoe, saying he had refused, for example, to push to get an...

Seven state legislators from Arizona have called upon the attorneys general of the states of Arizona, Nevada “and any other states with standing,” to bring legal action against Oregon law-enforcement officials and prosecutors, as well as against the FBI, over the shooting death this past January of Arizona rancher Robert Lavoy Finicum. In a letter to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, the Arizona lawmakers contrast the extreme treatment accorded Finicum, the Bundy ranching family, and their supporters versus the kid-glove treatment given to the violent and destructive leftist demonstrators of the various “Occupy”...

Attorney Joel Hansen referred to Bundy as a "political prisoner" and said the government does not want to release him for fear it would lose if the case is ever heard before a jury. ... "The government seems to be afraid that it might lose in a jury trial, so it wants to keep him in prison, in solitary confinement, as long as it can because he, like Nelson Mandela, is a political prisoner," Hansen wrote. "There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution allowing the federal government to hold political prisoners without a trial. Nothing." ... Does Mr. Bundy have...

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is reportedly hoping the federal government — specifically resident Barack Obama’s administration — will grab a stretch of land in Southern Nevada near the infamous Bundy Ranch, now that many in the Bundy group are in federal custody. The reason that the resident hasn’t had an opportunity to look at that very closely is that is where the Bundy family raised the hell that they did. Now most of them are in jail so maybe we can move forward on that,” Reid said, according to a Nevada political observer, Jon Ralston. ... Nevada...

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office released video footage Tuesday shot from Ryan Bundy’s cellphone in the moments before and after police shot wildlife refuge occupier Robert “LaVoy” Finicum. Ryan Bundy, the brother of Ammon Bundy, was one of the leaders of the occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The footage is shot from inside Finicum’s truck during a fatal Oregon State Police traffic stop Jan. 26. “We got too lackadaisical trying to speak to people,” Ryan Bundy said in the video after Finicum died. “But anyway they ambushed us on the way to John Day.” Finicum, an Arizona rancher...