Posted on 01/27/2016 5:55:49 AM PST by xzins
Four days after taking the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, LaVoy Finicum, a 55-year-old Arizona rancher told NBC News that he'd rather die than spend his days in prison.
"There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them," he said in early January as he sat huddled in a blue tarp outside of the wildlife refuge keeping watch with his gun in his lap. "I'm prepared to defend freedom."
Finicum told NBC that night that he was staying outside to ensure that the FBI could find him if they came to arrest him.
Finicum was shot and killed Tuesday night when law enforcement stopped two cars carrying standoff leaders on their way from the refuge to a meeting in Grant County. Ryan Bundy, another militiaman, was shot and transported to the hospital, but did not suffer any life-threatening injuries, according to The Oregonian.
Before Finicum's death was even confirmed, supporters rushed to portray him on social media as a martyr who, according to unverified accounts, had his hands up and was unarmed when he was shot. Law enforcement sources told CNN that Finicum and Ryan Bundy were the only two leaders who did not surrender during the confrontation.
Finicum had taken a strong interest in land disputes with the federal government after he stood at Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's side during his confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management in 2014. After returning home to Arizona, Finicum – a Mormon father with 11 children– made a decision. He was no longer going to write a check to the federal government for his grazing fees.
At the refuge, Finicum became a spokesman for the militiamen, fielding questions from press and helping plan events like one Saturday where ranchers were invited to come to the commandeered refuge to sign "declarations of emancipation" from the federal government, documents asserting they would no longer pay grazing fees. According to the Oregonian, Finicum had incurred about $12,000 in fees with the BLM.
In a video posting just hours before his death, Finicum described why the militiamen were still holding onto the refuge after more than three weeks and after local officials and community members had asked them to go. Finicum said that the occupation was intended to push back on the federal government's overreach.
"They do not want to let go of this," Finicum said. "They do not intend on loosing here and we do not intend on giving it back to them."
But Finicum's participation in the standoff had taken a toll. Back home in Arizona, child services had removed four foster children from his family's care, a move Finicum characterized as retribution. Oregon Public Broadcasting had reported that Finicum made most of his income from fostering.
Before Oregon, Finicum kept a website One Cowboy's Stand For Freedom where he documented his beliefs, his family and his ranch.
Finicum writes on the website that "he has drawn a line in the sand and that line is the Constitution in its original intent."
He also had written a cowboy thriller about the chaos of the American West after an electromagnetic pulse collapses the country's infrastructure called "Only By Blood and Suffering." The novel traced a family as each grown child navigated the new world and fights back against the overreach of the federal government.
These people had harmed absolutely nobody.
Waco II
Insane!
are you saying it was a ‘hands up don’t shoot’ scenario?
FBI ambush with witnesses saying he was out of his car without a weapon and they murdered HIM....
THE UNDERLYING ISSUE IS THAT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS NO RIGHT TO LAND AFTER A TERRITORY BECOMES A STATE AND THAT HE ONLY LEGAL AUTHORITY IN SUCH A CONFRONTATION IS THE LOCAL SHERIFF....
PLUS BLM AND THECURRENT ADMINISTRATION INCLDUING OBAMA ND HILLARY ARE SELLING THE MINERAL ASSETS TO FOREIGN CORPORATIONS... CASE IN POINT URANIUM ONE WHO ANT THE LOAND THE PROTESTERS ARE DEFENDING....
I wish they would litigate this and get a SC ruling to stop these confrontations.
“law enforcement stopped two cars carrying standoff leaders on their way from the refuge to a meeting in Grant County”
Was it a trap?
The article says that’s being claimed.
But NO ONE had been shot by these people. No one had been molested.
Their crime, as far as I can tell, was living in an unoccupied forest fire shack in a park.
Their real crime was opposing the federal land grab that has been ongoing for decades. The Constitution does not give the Federal government authority to permanently hold lands.
One of the Bundy brothers had been livening in Emmett, ID for one time before this...where I live.
The Bundy’s and others were trying to drive to John Day Oregon this evening when they were stopped by the FBI and the Oregon Highway Patrol.
Gunfire ensued...with some reports indicating that the Feds initiated the shooting while Lavoy Finicum, who was shot, was trying to negotiate a surrender, but that is confirmed.
Both Bundys were taken into custody,. LaVoy Finicum, was killed and another member of the group wounded.
This happened about 15 miles from the refuge.
I am wondering what motivated them to try and drive to John Day? Were they on back roads? Were they trying to avoid a larger confrontation? I heard that they were going to a another meeting there.
Time will tell.
It was an unnecessary confrontation. No one was being harmed, and the only way their fire fighter’s shack would be needed would be in the case of a forest fire. And there were none.
Except this time it's real. Don't expect any BLM*-type protesters to show up, or the press to report the truth. Except the UK press, of course.
* Black Lives Matter, not Bureau of Land Management
Jeff, if you are close to the story in any way, it would be very helpful to share whatever you find from time to time.
This really strikes me as totally unnecessary on the part of the feds.
Yes it was.
IIRC one of the arrestees saw it happen and got the word out.
Sounds more like an ambush than a trap. That “A” word appears to be appropriate in context of the now-fuzzy facts of what occurred... Did they run a stop sign or not wear their seatbelts to warrant a “stop/execute” operation?
Waco III. Waco II has been claimed by the biker shootout.
So, where’s the Media? No breathless reporters “raising questions” about a protester dying at the hands of “militarized” law enforcement? Where’s Obama? Where’s Megyn Kelly?
#CivilianLivesDontMatter
God bless that American patriot, damn this government.
I agree Waco Redux. The Government will justify the death as necessary. The sheep will continue in the bonds and the Tyranny will march on—unchanged. So long as the slaves have bread —and circuses the Pax Romana will hold.We lived a long time a nation of free men but have chosen to die by suicide.
I despise this government.
Of the bosses, by the bosses, and for the bosses.
Step out of line and you will be ridiculed, arrested in the middle of the night, or killed.
Say it isn’t happening in America
I agree, Flyer. The ‘breathless media’ is part of the oligarchy.
Tyranny.
Our government owns half the land in the entire nation, could open it up to a new migration that would VASTLY expand the power, wealth, and influence of the USA.
They could swap food stamps for land and a tractor, and the enterprising would take them up on it, and instead we get them selling mineral rights to China via a discredited Clinton Secretary of State.
Amazing that we put up with this.
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