Posted on 11/04/2006 12:16:33 PM PST by happinesswithoutpeace
As the Justice Department’s chief civil rights prosecutor, Deval Patrick made the controversial decision not to criminally prosecute an FBI sniper who shot and killed an unarmed woman as she held her infant daughter in her arms during a 1992 standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
The incident, in which U.S. Marshall William F. Degan of Quincy and the wife and son of white separatist Randy Weaver were killed during an 11-day standoff, is cited by experts as the spark that started the anti-government militia movement that exploded after the standoff in Waco, Texas, less than a year later. 1994, Patrick, the Democratic candidate for governor who was then assistant attorney general, concluded there was insufficient basis to prosecute FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi for shooting and killing 43-year-old Vicki Weaver. Horiuchi had testified that he opened fire on the woman’s husband and his friend, Kevin Harris, when he thought they were about to fire on an FBI helicopter.
Patrick made the recommendation despite a report by a task force assembled by Patrick’s boss, Attorney General Janet Reno, that found numerous problems with the FBI’s handling of the standoff, and called the protocol used by the FBI’s Hostage Rescue unconstitutional under the circumstances. The report referred the case to Patrick’s department to decide whether to charge Horiuchi. Aides to Patrick said he was unavailable for comment because he was preparing for last night’s debate. Former Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin called the incident “a tragic one that occurred during the final months of the first Bush administration.”
“The Justice Department believed the critical element of willfulness necessary for a criminal civil rights prosecution could not be established beyond a reasonable doubt,” Marlin said in a statement to the Herald yesterday. “Such willfulness, or knowing, intentional use of unreasonable force could not be made out against the FBI agent.”
Patrick’s assessment, he noted, was“reaffirmed by a separate criminal investigative team.”
In 1995, however, a Senate subcommittee headed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) found “simply no justification” for the shot Horiuchi took that killed Vicki Weaver and “missed the 10-month-old baby in her arms by less than two feet.”
“Horiuchi should have known that as he fired blind through the cabin door, he was shooting into an area which could well have contained Vicki Weaver and her two younger daughters,” states the report, which took no position on whether Horiuchi should have been prosecuted.
The decision not to prosecute was ripped by both conservative and liberal groups. “It was obscene,” said author James Bovard, an outspoken critic of federal officials’ handling of the case. “There was no need for the excessive force the FBI used in gunning down a mother holding her baby. ACLU Legislative Counsel Timothy Edgar said the incident was “the result of overzealous - and unchecked - federal power.”
If Weaver had not been entrapped into making a sawed off shotgun, the whole thing would not have happened. The point of the Government action was to get another informant friendly with the Aryan Nations. Weaver would not do it, so the Goverment made this Scheme.
Where is Horiuchi now? Still a sniper?
Its good to remember this stuff but the militia timeline in the article is off. Openly operated militias, those "anti-gov" or not, were already in decline by then.
Maybe his is working for "CNN" now....
Last I heard he was a training instructor at Quintico (sp).
Yes, Lon Horiuchi was at Waco, and he is said to have shot several innocent people who ran from the burning building. But no followup investigations were ever allowed, and clinton had all the remaining evidence bulldozed and buried. Including the infamous front door with the bullet holes in it.
Presumably Janet Reno approved of Horiuchi being there, assuming that her foggy mind was up to such details. It's not as if he was a low-profile kind of guy, and after Ruby Ridge allowing him to go into action again with his sniper rifle was absolutely incredibly stupid, if not deliberately murderous, on the part of his superiors.
I haven't heard a single word about Horiuchi since Waco. I wonder if he is still at the FBI, no doubt being given medals and promotions by that idiot Mueller?
"Including the infamous front door with the bullet holes in it."
Or when the finally admitted they used incendiary devices.
I believe I had read that he received a promotion to some admin position shortly thereafter, I dont know that its true...
Three of the twelve expended .308 Winchester shell casings that the Texas Rangers reported finding in the house, were at Horiuchi's position, but officials maintain that they could have been left over from the BATF's use of the house earlier, and that it would be impossible to run ballistics tests to see which rifle fired the shots[5].
Three empty shell casings were found where Horiuchi was stationed at the time, but there was no investigation. Apparently the FBI said it couldn't be proven because his rifle had been rebarrelled. A somewhat odd thing to do in the circumstances, one would think.
"A somewhat odd thing to do in the circumstances, one would think"
Not odd. A cover up.
Whereabouts Undisclosed. The photo came from one obtained by Soldier of Fortune Magazine
That would be him.
Anyone who tries to excuse the murders at Ruby Ridge and Waco is a Clintonite scumbag.
Murder? Yes. Mass Murder? No. (I think you need a bunch more victims for that.)
Whoever authorized the shooter is, in my mind, every bit as culpable as Horiuchi, however.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/horiuchi.htm is an interesting read with links.
"If he hadn't given in to the urgings of the Government snitch"
"urgings"
Nice term. What type of "urging" was it?
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