Posted on 03/08/2016 6:16:30 PM PST by Wilderness Conservative
Burns, OR - An FBI agent is suspected of lying about firing twice at Robert "LaVoy" Finicum and may have gotten help from four other FBI agents in covering up afterward, authorities revealed Tuesday.
The bullets didn't hit Finicum and didn't contribute to his death, but now all five unnamed agents, part of an elite national unit, are under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is leading the independent inquiry.
The remarkable disclosure came as a team of local investigators released findings that two state troopers shot Finicum three times in the back during the chaotic scene at a police roadblock Jan. 26. One bullet pierced his heart, an autopsy showed.
A prosecutor ruled the fatal shooting was legally justified, saying state law allows use of deadly force when officers believe a person is about to seriously injure or kill someone. Finicum kept moving his hands toward a pocket that contained a loaded handgun. Although he was shot from behind, Finicum had a trooper in front of him armed with a Taser who was thought to be in danger.
Finicum, 54, an Arizona rancher, was one of the leaders of the Jan. 2 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns.
Investigators gave no details to explain why the one FBI agent, a member of the Hostage Rescue Team, wouldn't report the two shots. They also didn't indicate what his four colleagues on the team did to warrant investigation other than saying it was related to conduct after the shooting.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3406566/posts
See post # 18 linked above. 42 People being held now I believe unless some have been missed.
Maybe Pilgrim can add the graphic to this thread.
JEANETTE FINICUM STATEMENT - AFTER REVIEW OF YESTERDAYS OREGON INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Mrs. Finicum will take initial questions for the first time today from media in an 11:30 AM MST news conference at the Washington County Building 197 E. Tabernacle St. St. George, Utah related specifically to the civil and criminal lawsuits she and her legal team are pursuing.
March 9, 2016, St. George, UT — Yesterday a tag-team of law enforcement officials announced they have found that the Oregon officer who shot my husband dead while he had his hands in the air was justified. These officials announced that without a doubt the officer who killed my husband did so to protect himself and his fellow officers from imminent harm.
I know my husband, Robert LaVoy Finicum, and I knew him on the day he died. With his hands in the air, he was no danger to anyone, he intended no imminent harm. He was giving himself up in order to divert shooters from the others in the truck. Right down to the very last act of his life, he was giving for others. That was my husband. That was the man who the panel of investigators concluded was responsible for the situation in which he was killed in a well-planned ambush.
My family and I reject the biased, whitewash findings and conclusion reported yesterday. My lawyers have assured me that the men who ambushed my husband, who set him up for death, who assassinated him, will face justice in a court before an unbiased jury that will be deciding whether my husband was killed by a wrongful action or omission on the part of the police. That action will be joined with an action based on violation of the due process clause of the United States Constitution, the very document for which my husband gave his life. That is a Civil Rights Act claim.
Prior to yesterday the FBI held the position that my husband was shot during a traffic stop. That was such a stretch of the truth that even the tag-team news conference group could not repeat it. There was no traffic stop. This was an ambush by use of a Deadmans Blockade designed to allow a Kill Stop-—a roadblock on a blind curve on an almost abandoned road.
Those officers at the roadblock were the last line available to block the truck LaVoy drove, to assure that he was killed. In our wrongful death and civil rights violation lawsuit we will prove the kind of man my husband was, and that as a leading spokesman of this movement to restore the U.S. Constitution and our unalienable rights, he had to be made an example: Dont interfere if we as law officers are depriving someone of their rights, property and person. Is this what Americans believe? Or is this the kind of fear tactic despots in the Middle East have used for centuries when they place crucifixes along the highway to strike fear into their slaves dont you dare oppose our unjust laws or this is what will happen to you!
I dont think so. Not in America. I still believe we are governed by the same Constitution that our founders created and that we are a republic, one nation under God.
Yesterday, as before, the officers set up a false scenario that my husband was reaching for a loaded gun as he was shot. Before yesterdays selectively edited video showing, we saw the uncut version. In that uncut version, we see my husband with his hands up, walking away from the truck and not reaching for anything when a man to the right of the video obviously fired some projectile at him. Immediately he leaned over to his left hip area where it appeared some projectile hit him. At that one moment, shots were reigned down on him and he died there in the snow bank-—where he lay for ten minutes without anyone checking to see whether he was alive. They let him lay there because they knew that the three shots into the back had killed him.
My attorneys have already begun to assemble a trial team of investigators, paralegals, videographers and writers to make sure that the man who shot my husband in the back and all those who were accomplices will face justice. They will soon be filing the Oregon 30.275 notice that precedes a lawsuit for wrongful death and civil rights violations.
At least twice yesterday the officials blamed my husband for being solely responsible for what happened at the site where he was ambushed. Again, my attorneys assure me that we can show differently, even with yesterdays law enforcement whitewash. This tag-team said that the officers on the scene where the killing took place were there, putting themselves in harms way as part of an effort to bring the situation at the refuge to an end peacefully. This statement is consistent with the goal law enforcement announced from the beginning in this case: Lets just get them out of the refuge building peacefully to the outside where we can talk.
If they had been telling the truth, on January 26, they could easily have achieved their goal. They knew from an informant inside the refuge that all but four of the people inside the refuge would be leaving for several hours. That included the long trip to John Day, the meeting with Sheriff Glenn Palmer, and the ranchers workshop that evening on the original intent of the Constitution.
So, I ask, why didnt the officers pull the roadblock and let the group go out peacefully to John Day? Why didnt they choose to arrest him while at the Sheriffs office? If they had done that, this case would have been put in the books with the peaceful ending they now claim they wanted. In fact, the Harney County Sheriff had every opportunity during their stay at the Malheur Refuge to make a peaceful arrest during the numerous conversations they had with him in Burns. My lawyers believe we can show that was not their goal because there is no better evidence of their intent than their actions.
So when the officials said yesterday that my husband was solely responsible for the situation and happening of his death, they were spreading their whitewash with a very broad brush. Yesterday one of the tag-team said that my husband chose to break the law, chose to put himself and other people in danger, and then chose to enter into a face-to-face confrontation with armed police officers. My lawyers have already discussed with me how the facts will show that the officers intended to shoot LaVoy, how an informant arranged for him to be in the lead truck, how the officers started shooting at the truck to force it to stop, and then finally how my husband gave himself up in order to draw attention away from the others in the truck.
Contrary to what the panel of officials found, my husband was not responsible for the situation that ended with his death. He is not the one who blockaded the road with a deadmans blockade. He is not the one responsible for officers armed with long guns firing from behind the trees. He is not the one who chose to block himself and his friends from leaving the refuge to go out to John Day. He is not the one who lined armed personnel all along the roadway from the refuge to the blockade. No, all those actions can be laid at the feet of the officials who spoke of their innocence yesterday. They will not have to explain their actions in a preliminary hearing or at trial, because their actions were glossed over-—law officers will take care of their own I was told. But I still had faith in the system my husband fought to protect. I was wrong.
We had no chance at justice in this investigation of law enforcement officers by other law enforcement officers, more like the fox guarding the hen house. But in a wrongful death action, coupled with a civil rights action, the shooters and their partners will make sure that the officers involved will face the same kind of music enjoyed yesterday at our expense.
Yesterday the panel said that the troopers knew that Mr. Finicum carried a weapon on his left side. Mr. Finicum was reaching for that loaded 9mm gun when the troopers lawfully used deadly force to protect themselves and others including the trooper armed with a taser. You all have seen the full video where it shows the trooper with the gun or taser to the right of the screen as you look toward the screen. You see my husband lean over to his left hip area immediately where he grabs for the place he was hit. The gunman turns his back on my husband and runs. Isnt it strange that a law officer turns his back on a person he believes to be heavily armed? Not so strange if he knows that his partner intends to shoot that person in the back.
We believe they will have a hard time squaring their actions with the Attorney Generals statements when we next get into court. My attorneys tell me that we will have to get past the motion to dismiss the civil rights action, which is a motion often governed by intangibles such as, Does the action of the state shock the conscience? The media have called my husband a lot of names that are foreign to the peaceful man and extraordinary father of our children that I knew. We must now ask the question, Who are the real domestic terrorists here?
We believe that this Kill Stop staged by government agents was barbaric, that their whitewash of this horrific incident is more worthy of an Academy Award-winning film in the fiction category and that unbiased American citizens will have their conscience shocked by the government agents conduct in:
Arranging for imbedding an informant among those in the house, on the basis of the informants information they set up a Deadmans Blockade and an intentional killing;
They shot at the truck in an effort to prevent it from leaving peacefully;
They shot at the truck after it came to a halt;
Then they shot my husband, the father of our eleven children, as he moved away from the truck with both hands in the air;
At the time he was seen to reach down and bend down to his left as though he had been shot or hit with a bullet or taser ray;
As he bent down, and then tried to straighten back up he was shot three times in the back and died.
I believe, my family believes, my lawyers believe that this evidence will shock the conscience.
Thank you.
How did the officers that shot him in the back know more that the officers he was facing?
They should have just let him continue on his trip to meet the Sheriff, which they had done before. Seems like a setup.
Wow... they had literately hundreds of other options.
Failing to yield to a police stop is not a felony nor is reaching into your coat. Further more depending on the legality of the roadblock he(lavoy) could have every right to use lethal to defend himself. Further into to that their is no evidence of him reaching into his coat. Their is evidence of his hands falling as bullets are flying all around him. He maybe not have been reaching for anything but was struck by bullets/tazers/gas rounds and knocked off balance.
The fact that no a single fbi or cop had a body camera and no footage from a single police car has been released the idea that he was reaching for anything is absurd at this point.
Let me tell you a story about your so called “no alternative” BS.
During the iraq war a unit was out on patrol. At that time a woman rounded a corner in the road and saw the patrol. The woman then pointed at the patrol and started yelling(in arabic) while shaking a large bag in front of her. She then started “charging”(if police talking about the event) quickly at the soldiers. The soldiers started backing up behind cover of building and vehicles. When the woman had approached to roughly 20 feet away the nearest soldier fired at the woman. He being a soldier knew how to aim and struck the woman in the leg. Their were 4 or so soldiers directly behind/next to the soldier and another 4 or so soldiers in turrets and so forth that could have taken a shot at the “charging” woman. Not a single soldier fired any rounds even though they were all aimed at her.
As the woman was laying on the ground a group of soldiers approached and checked out the bag. It was filled with homemade cookies. Quickly figuring out that the woman was not a suicide bomber they evaced her.
This was during bush’s term so ROE was open they could have put hundreds of rounds into her and no one could say they did anything legally wrong. Their were many suicide bombing happening at the time. She was not a US Citizen and had no US Constitutional rights.
The soldiers acted correctly and professionally.
Lets rewrite this as if it took place in say NYC.
During a police patrol of NYC. At that time a woman rounded a corner in the road and saw the patrol. The woman then pointed at the patrol and started yelling(in arabic) while shaking a large bag in front of her. She then started “charging” quickly at the police unit. The police started pulling their guns up and yelling at woman to stay back When the woman had approached to roughly 40 feet away the nearest police officer fired at the woman. He being a police officer fired 8 shoots. Their were 4 police directly behind/next to the police officer who also opened fire between 2 and 9 shots and another 4 police in turrets and so forth that fired 2-10 rounds at the “charging” woman.
The woman now being struck repeatedly is laying on the ground. The police move slightly closer only to see the woman reach for a weapon and they open fire against firing no less then 40 rounds total from no less then 8 officers. The police then wait several minutes and approach. At which time they find that the bag had a large number of donuts in it. The police then mill about aimlessly for several more minutes while eating the donuts.
A DA refuses to press charges against the police saying the shoot was perfectly legal.
stormer wrote on on FR at the time commenting about the police shooting “the police had no alternative but to shoot.”
My question was how many of those arrested were actually Oath Keepers?
The lesson here is that the US has well and truly become a police state.
And it has been a police state for quite some time. It didn’t start in 2009. It didn’t start in 2001. I’ve been lurking on FR since the late 90s, and the sort of comments on this story remind me of pre-911 FR.
Commenters above refer to Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Richard Jewell. Check out Radley Balko’s website, and you’ll discover that these are just the tip of the iceberg. Also, consider the fact that the police state steals more via civil asset forfeiture than private criminals steal in burglaries, robberies, and other thievery. (And, who knows how much the police states steals outside its “legal” means.)
As a Christian, my lesson is to follow the Apostle Paul’s guidance for coping with the infamous, anti-Christian regime of the Emperor Nero: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” Later on, he basically exhorts Christians to minimize adverse contact with civil authorities by submitting to their will and paying taxes. (The authenticity of Romans 13:1-7, however, is disputed.) It’s still good practical advice for living in a police state.
I don’t know but that is a good question.
OMG thank you for this amazing info
“Armed civil disobedience” is called rebellion, and the US government has harshly suppressed rebellion since 1786 (Shay’s Rebellion.)
The only groups whose ringleaders got away with armed rebellion were a few communists back in the 60s and 70s. But even most of them met violent ends unless they had deep connections with the ruling elite (e.g., Bill Ayer’s father was CEO of Commonwealth Edison.)
He was shot on his side and then his hands dropped, that was the excuse the fedgov maintains why they shot him, but he was shot before his hands dropped. - Also he never had a 9mm gun, he carried a revolver .45 colt. - The gun they planted on him was a stolen gun. - People can say many things about Lavoy Finicum, but what you cant say is he is a thief, ie. - he would never have a stolen gun.
My guess would be a really low number.
People really need to watch and listen to the whole sinc'd video. It appears from that video that the three shot fired at Finicum were fired when he ignored multiple verbal commands and dropped his hands to his jacket. We will never know if he heard those commands because he was too busy screaming "go ahead and shoot me!"
Had he complied at the first stop instead of yelling at agents to go ahead and kill him, he would be in jail with the rest of his compatriots.
I saw an article posted that said they are trying to throw the living into prison for life.
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