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.”
Yeah, Halp Us Jon Cary has been condemening the wrong governmental agency. It's not our soldiers who kill women and children in the dead of night, it's the BATF and the FBI!
Please see link for complete story and details.
http://land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/weaver.shtml
Seeing his dog, Striker, shot to death by masked intruders clad in camouflage, Sammy Weaver, 14, fired back in fear for his life. The 4 ft., 11" tall youngster was hit in the arm, then shot in the back as he turned to run for home. He died instantly, killed by an agent of the federal government.
Cradling her 10-month-old daughter in her arms, Vicki Weaver stood in the doorway of her home, mourning her slain son, unaware that she herself had only seconds to live. In an instant a bullet tore into Vicki Weaver's face, blew through her jaw and severed her carotid artery. The bullet was fired from 200 yds. away by an agent of the federal government.
What had the Weaver family done to bring FBI snipers and submachine- gun-toting U.S. marshals to the woods around their cabin on Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho? Why did the government act as though the Weavers had forfeited the protections guaranteed all Americans by the United States Constitution? Who made the decisions that led to their unjustified deaths and also to the death of deputy U.S. Marshall William Degan?
Cont'd
"Yet you still love your country? How do you love your country and not the machinery of govt that, at least in part, defines it?"
Because the goodness of our people and the wisdom and rightness of our foundation remain static while bureaucrats are fleeting and their fiefdoms are transitory.
"Animal Rights groups never spoke out."
They only speak out and assault people when they know their victims won't fight back. Horiuchi would not fit that criteria.
"...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..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why do they call them WHITE separatists? What is the significance of their skin color? I've never understood this. Is the adjective WHITE suppose to add a more sinister meaning to the noun SEPARATIST? What gives?
I believe that every gov't organization, by definition, is flawed, mostly because people are flawed. However, the genius of America is that we're constantly trying to improve things.
Cow Palace 1974.....
Warriors basketball...not that significant
Roy Shire's Professional Wrestling with Ray Stevens, Pepper Gomez, Pat Patterson, Kenji Shibuya...possibly....
1964...Election Year....Republican Convention....
Senator Barry Goldwater nominated by the Republican Party at the Cow Palace!
I guess you must have been there.
Fixed it.
L
((((( ping )))))
Yeah, and the diaper was loaded.
That's the way I remember it. I thought there were a total of three family members shot, with Vicki and their son killed, and a friend of the Weavers who was staying with them was shot, too, and survived, as did Randy.
IIRC, the trial was held during the Waco standoff, with good ol' Lon firing merrily away at more innocents while his former victim, Randy, faced trial.
Every time I think of both events, I want to puke.
Inded we are, but "better is a rather subjective term, and seems quite variable depending on which end of the tax pipeline and which side of the beltway you're on.
What heroes!! Shooting a retreating boy in the back.
The Islamofascist terrorist leaders probably produced a video re-enactment of the event and use it as a training film at their terrorist training camps.
To quote Winston Churchill:
The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives.
And let's not forget that Randy was a green beret. Aside from what all that conveys, consider that those agencies chose a green beret and his family to set up for this kill, and then defended the killers.
Probably the result of having spent time working closely with FDR.
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