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.
I prepared a rough transcript of the entire interview if anyone thinks it's worth posting, I put it up.
Much like the court system have been taken over by Occupy Lawyers. You may wanna close your eyes for the next part.
The courts have became a Damned Lawyers Oligarchy and group of back slapping deal cutting thugs willing to surrender any case and Constitutional point for an agreement cut either in the judges chambers or out in the hallway. Truth left the halls of justice decades ago and so has justice.
If a person wants a Contempt of Court Charge all they have to do is simply these days try to tell "The Whole Truth" on a witness stand about something. It's scripted tyranny and I say it as a person who has had it done to them before where I was a called witness. What Courts? What Judges? Even the Juries never hear the whole truth now but rather they hear pre-screened scripted B.S. approved by judges and lawyers before hand.
As for persons occupying parks? The ones you speak of are burning down peoples homes and private businesses and the government has convicted just how many in places like Ferguson? They demand we tear down statues many times donated to parks by private donors. They call it diversity AND THEY ALWAYS GET THEIR WAY UNHARASSED.
Ever hear of the Pine Tree Riot? The government of the day decreed what belong to it as well. It was the start of the Revolutionary War in a very real sense.
There is no sense in government holding the massive lands it holds. It should be state of private property except where national security is an absolute issue. Some lands were not long held ones rather many came under the Clinton Land Grabs. And as for cattle grazing? It should an even non cash beneficial service in return for beneficial services deal. The cattle are beneficial in promoting environmental growth and helping contain fire risk which is to BLM's interest.
One of the largest problems in federal government today is it has way overstepped it's Constitutional Authority and it's duties & limits specified in the Constitution. We have federal agencies coming in making laws and saying We want it so it's ours now. Sometimes compensation is made and sometimes it isn't.
Ever had a run in with a federal agency doing a land grab before. I don't mean a client I mean personally? I have against TVA. I was intimidated, threatened, and harassed. I made no bodily harm threats. I was trying to ensure my home would not get flooded off the ridge by a federal power producer who had ran roughshod over the southeast since the days of FDR. They purchases by contract a 50' by 1200' easement with a contracted 100' clause for danger trees for a high voltage transmission line. They came in with chainsaws and dozers cutting an almost 500' wide path. I had a family member hold a camcorder and I went up and told them they were trespassing and to stop cutting. They said we'll take what we want to and need to. I said you violated our contract now you leave my property and bring your supervisors to me for a meeting. The crew supervisor said we're bringing a U.S. Marshall to take the trees. I had made no threats and they said they needed a Marshall?
I took pictures of the damage. I called my congresscritter and media. I called neighbors and warned them. I raised hell. But I made no threats. A few days later I got a call from a purchasing agent wishing to meet with me and my dad to discuss what happened and he was bringing a forestry expert. The came, we talked, he counted stumps, I expressed grave concerns that they were cutting to close to my home located below and the next big rain would cause a landslide and take my home. He agreed and so did the forestry guy. They paid us for their damages then asked about the trees what to do with the cut ones. We said the trees stay on the ground.
I called the neighbors and all had to renegotiate. What happened was they purchased a R.O.W. for the planned stacked single pole power 30' plus high line. Someone in design decided to go with the wide and high tower configuration. They thought they could run roughshod.
Anyone who thinks government isn't corrupt and ran by liars, cheats, and thieves and thinks it can police itself with courts is insane.
Was posted by you and not made by me. Formatting error on my part.
Read the Comments, my blood was boiling last night that Americans can be so cold to fellow Americans. The word “Militant”, is such a disgraceful and disrespectful word to be used..
Our country is done.
Not mine.
Have a good evening.
Randy Weaver’s son killed (or shot...don’t remember) an agent who killed the family dog. That started the shootout. But the agents shouldn’t have been on the property in the first place.
This video is unlisted. Be considerate and think twice before sharing.
Curious, no? Mark comes off as very dismissive of the harassment he himself endured at this stop. He didn't exactly witness the shooting of LaVoy but states he witnessed LaVoy's vehicle leave during a LE stop...the very same LE stop at which Mark had his vehicle impounded for further investigation as well as having all his weapons seized for additional testing. Mark even admits he isn't likely to see his weapons again.
Why is Mark so dismissive?
Why the yellow bar statement/caution about sharing a video statement he obviously prepared for consumption on YouTube?
Given the eyewitness testimony of Victoria, it does sound like authorities were aware of this planned meeting with the sheriff which these folks were heading towards. Mark describes a large number of vehicles seized in the cage along with his own. Adding to that, Victoria's description of mulitple snipers in the trees with laser sites set on their vehicle at the location where LaVoy's vehicle came to it's final stop, it certainly implies a planned LE ambush to shut down the occupation - gone horribly wrong.
Reading this it says law enforcement is tightening their circle. It also suggests that no one will get out just to leave and go about their business.
This is so different than occupy wallstreet.
These guys are cowboys as the woman said about Finicum, and they carry guns. It’s just a reality of who they are.
But, there was no tightening circle against Occupy, no threatenings, no talks about bloodshed, no dead people
He didn’t know it was an agent at the time.
Dead link you posted.
Good Point!
My sincere sympathies for what you endured
My advice, for what’s it’s worth, never deal with any government agency. Hire a good lawyer.
One of may partners represented someone in a situation such as yours. Even though the Feds were legally right on the issue of Eminent Domain, there were much better ways to accomplish the same thing, and the local Feds had been very abusive.
The State was one where one-party notification of intention to record voices & video (hidden camera) was legal. Client told the feds he was very ill and bedridden. Idiots came into his bedroom where the hidden camera was set up and restated everything.
After the victim’s session with the local Feds, my partner took the video to the Feds big boss here in DC and basically said, “If you go away, this goes away too. If not, Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes was my fraternity brother. I have him on speed dial. My next call is to him, and I send him the tape.”
Problem over. Oh, and because it was an Eminent Domain action, the Feds paid our firm’s bill.
Best of luck
Virginia's story is much more plausible, she was, at least by all accounts in the car that LeVon was driving when he was killed. She was not somewhere between hundreds of yards and a mile away.
“”I am gonna try to track down this tome.””
Did you have any luck? All I could find was for Kindle on Amazon....
Wonder if the mighty Portland Oregonian, which essentially called for this, can manage to do enough real reporting to get pictures of LaVon's truck before the Feds lose or destroy it?
You know, actual reporting.
With ALL the time the Feds had setting up the ambush site, and with ALL the hullabaloo lately from blacks about body cams for cops, and ALL the advance warning and planning time in Oregon, the Feds should have NO trouble turning over video of the so-called “shoot-out” that supports their narrative. If they DO NOT (or CANNOT) produce the video, that constitutes PRIMA FACIE evidence of Federal culpability in murder. Q.E.D.
“Our system is slow, unwieldy”
Keep in mind that we’re not talking about using the system to get justice for some every day crime.
In the context of the fed prohibitions/land grabs, by the time you try to go through the process, if you haven’t already lost your land, you’ve lost your livelihood trying to pay to protect it.
Many ranchers have gone out of business because of this. Generally, it’s mostly the largest of companies surviving.
So, generally speaking it’s ok to talk about using the process, but I’m sure you’d change your tune pretty quick if you were the one bankrupted by “the process”.
What’s going on now is the end of the rope, so to say, where some of the remaining small sized ranchers are saying they’ve had enough of the process are ready to fight.
Victoria Sharp's account makes more sense as she was an actual eye witness.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3389155/posts?page=134#134
Do you want me to ping folks to this ?
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