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.
If they’d been mooslims and turned the firefighter shack into a prayer room, the federal government would be building them a mosque.
It would certainly help. I like the idea of an all woman protest. They’d have to combat the common view purported by the press that “right wing†women are loons. Barefoot and pregnant types. Part of the marketing plan to consider.
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Their slogan could be "we feed our children off the land and the govt makes our children go hungry".
I just made that slogan up - but you get how more powerful it can resonate with people watching the boob tube (pun intended). "Don't mess with Mother nature" - slogans write themselves. In any case - I did not see any "out of the box" thinking on the part of these protestors and that fails to translate to a wider audience.
This man was there at the take down of the Bundys. He was with Ammon. He di not witness the actual shooting, but he saw what happened from a distance and talked to those who did. I believe he is the closest to the mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP-b6_X4M4k
Bookmark @244
My problem with your argument is; “who defines the Constitution?:
According to our laws, it’s the courts, not a bunch of guys with guns.
Again I ask, if it’s permissible for this group to make an armed occupation of public land, how would you answer the Black Lives Matter crowd if they made an armed takeover of the former slave markets in Southern cities, now often public parks, because their reading of the Constitution gave them the right to do so.
Crazy as hell, I know, but if the Oregon people can decide what the law is, why not Malcolm X.
What about if the took over the public park in your home town?
How can you say these Oregon people have the right to interpret the Constitution as they see fit, unless, you, I, Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton have the same right?
When we give each person the right to interpret the Constitution, or any law, as they see fit, that is anarchy.
Our system is slow, unwieldy, occasionally unfair.... and way better than anything else.
He didn’t see what took place. Apparently, the truck with Finicum left his location and was about a mile away out of his view. He’s relying on the testimony of girls from Finicum’s vehicle. Either he heard the girl from the other posted interview, or that girl has a different viewpoint than the one from whom he got his information.
And what you’re not seeing is that if they did take over the locations of former slave markets that NO ONE would be in imminent danger so there would be no reason for killing anyone.
And in this instance, way out in the countryside, there was zero reason for any confrontation at all.
Ruby Ridge II
Yep. I don’t recall with the RR guy. He hadn’t shot at anyone, either, had he? I don’t think he had, but I’m open to correction.
Ever heard of the phrase "We the People"?
Totally agree, but what happens when other “People”, with guns, think differently than we do?
Bttt
IOW, they’re not anarchists.
As I say, you may disagree with them all day long...but they were not seeking ana4rchy.
Wheels within wheels.
This is what AZ Central has to say. Mr. Finicum’s ex-wife is a good friend of mine. This is so wrong on so many accounts.
Oh...it is absolutely wrong. Those gys were not a danger to anyone. They were making a statement about the Federal over-reach that needs to be made.
We did much the same in Klamath in 2001.
But they were wrong to think that this administration was simply going to let them drive to John Day. This admin was gunning for them and looking for an opportunity to take them into custody.
I do not really know why they thought they could just drive over there.
They have been invited to a meeting in John Day, another city nearby, by the Sheriff. There were supposedly 100 or so people waiting in a rec center who were told the scheduled speakers would not be arriving.
Were they on back roads?
No. I am very familiar with the area. They were on what passes for the main highway going north/south in that area. It would be very difficult to go from Burns to John Day any other way, even for locals at this time of year. Impossible at night for out-of-area people.
Were they trying to avoid a larger confrontation?
No, I believe they thought they were negotiating and meeting with authorities in a public forum good faith.
I heard that they were going to a another meeting there.
Yes, they were.
Apparently the Sheriff who invited them was part of the team that took them down, so it seems like they were lured out of the Refuge with a false offer by LEOs, then intercepted on the road. Whether it was a full ambush is hard to say, but one of the survivors say there were many men in the woods with target rifles with laser sighting devices and that 120 shots were fired at the vehicle Levon was driving.
See my previous post for her first hand account of how it went down.
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