Finicum had a pre-arranged meeting with a LEO...The Sheriff...This had to be known by all LEO’s in this operation...
What was it that they did not want him talking to the Sheriff about?
Presumably their job was to arrest him. They didn’t care who he was talking to, they wanted to put him in a cage (alive or dead). When he got out of the car screaming about “shoot me” and reaching into his coat, he gave them reason to shoot him. That’s not justifying their mindset in arranging the situation, it just observes that he went a long way in giving them reason to end it as they did. They had a chance to stop him, their goal was to stop him, he gave them objective urgent reason to stop him, and they stopped him.