“the truck occupants were treated as if they were wanted, known international mass murdering terrorist with very violent backgrounds. And just days prior, many of the same protesters met with, joked and shook hands with the FBI guys after voluntarily driving over to meet with the FBI.”
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Precisely! So how did it come to death and terror tactics against the passengers in the truck?!?
I am beyond knowing how to legitimately protest this outrage. I as many others, thought the original peaceful occupation to be ill-advised because they did not have a coherent plan or exit strategy; but there is no doubt that they had legitimate grievances for the Hammonds etc, and that grievance stands, now magnified by those arrested for peaceable protest and occupation, which we might remember has been an American tradition all along. Alcatraz under Reagan as Governor and Nixon as President, allowed for 19 months as long as they were peaceful. So WHAT was the great emergency to evict peaceful occupants of an unoccupied sanctuary?? Reagan as Governor and Nixon as President did not send in the 8th Fleet to Alcatraz for goodness’ sakes! WHAT exactly was the Reason to use a military assault against peaceable protestors? Above all, what was the great emergency or hurry? If the maligned Reagan as Governor and Nixon as President could have Patience for 19 months, what gives with this FBI, this administration?? Death over patience?
That does not compute with me. There is Occupy Wall Street, burning of Ferguson MO and Baltimore, but somehow the feds have to come down on peaceful protesters at an remote, uninhabited refuge in uninhabited parts of Oregon? when no businesses were torched, no citizens threatened?
Well said.
In response to Jeff Head and others who have said that the result was inevitable because of:1) the LEO training; and 2) Mr. Finicum’s actions, I agree.
But the unfortunate fact is that the term “armed and dangerous” keeps getting tossed around without being properly challenged. The only people at the scene who war both armed and dangerous were operating under color of authority. Saying that because Finicum left the first stop, or that he nearly hit someone who jumped in front of the truck at a roadblock set up at the exit of a turn on a highway, he is somehow “dangerous” is playing into the military mindset of the guys who use it to justify their obvious overreaction to the situation.
As for being armed, there is nothing wrong with possessing a firearm. The fact that only the LEOs actually grasped and pointed firearms at anyone show how specious the whole argument is. If you or I dare to EVER point a firearm at another human, we would be charged with deadly assault, whether or not it was ever fired. Point one at an LEO and it is an automatic death sentence, courtesy of any LEOs within sight.
So, again, exactly who was “armed and dangerous”?