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Ruby Ridge Survivor: 'Not the Legacy I Wanted to Leave My Son'
KATU ^ | May 11, 2012 | Tracy Vedder

Posted on 05/12/2012 6:25:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway

One of the darkest times in our region's history ended with the deaths of a U.S. Marshal, a 14-year-old boy and a mother.

In August 1992, a white separatist family in northern Idaho ended up in a days-long siege with federal agents that would ultimately end in bloodshed. | Read more about the siege from Tru TV

Now almost 20 years later, Sara Weaver, who lived through it as a teenager is sharing her memories of Ruby Ridge.

The devoutly religious Weaver family had come to Ruby Ridge prepared for the End Times and they were armed. Federal agents believed Randy Weaver was dangerous, so when they showed up with arrest warrants, they came prepared for trouble.

It went bad from the start. As shots started flying, marshals shot 14-year-old Sam Weaver in the back, and a marshal was shot dead.

The government brought in reinforcements setting up their barricade at the bridge, and Weaver supporters showed up in force.

On day two, an FBI sniper shot into the Weaver cabin, shooting Sara's mom Vicki Weaver in the face. She was holding her 10-month-old daughter Elisheda in her arms, with 16-year-old Sara just steps away.

"It was very hard. I felt very hopeless. Scared. Lost," Sara Weaver said in an interview with KXLY-TV in Spokane, Wash. "The most important thing to me had been ripped away."

Instant family caretaker

Eleven tense days later, it was over. Randy went to jail, charged with the murder of a federal agent.

Sara Weaver, 10-year-old Rachel, and baby Elisheba left their home and went to live with family in Iowa.

"I instantly became the caretaker of my family," she said. "I was in the mind frame that, if I'm taking care of everyone else, no one can tell me what to do. I was very rebellious, very angry."

Sara Weaver went through the motions, graduated from high school and moved back to the mountains she loved. She settled in Montana, got married, had a son. But the scars of Ruby Ridge remained.

"I was miserable all the time, just sad and depressed," she said. "I had never dealt with all the feelings and emotions that came from the trauma I experienced. I just stuffed them and ran away from them."

But then Sara Weaver found comfort in something she'd abandoned years before: a Bible verse, one she'd memorized all those years ago.

" 'For God so love the world he gave his only begotten son, So that whomever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.' That moment, I felt God's love pour out from heaven," she said. "I started bawling, I knew Jesus was real. That he loved me."

'Not the legacy I wanted to leave my son'

Sara's life changed completely. She had a new reason to live, and a new challenge before her.

"Three or four years ago, I Googled my name and what was tied to that was not the legacy I wanted to leave my son," she said.

Hate groups and anti-government conspiracy theorists like to invoke the Weaver name. When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, he said he did it with the Weavers in mind.

"I didn't want my name tied to - to give anyone reason to act out in any kind of violence in my name," Sara Weaver said.

Sara says she's still a work in progress, still close to her family who live nearby. And dad Randy, now a grandfather and cleared of the most serious criminal charges, is a frequent babysitter.

Sara Weaver speaks publicly at churches and other organizations about her experience. Her book "From Ruby Ridge to Freedom" will be published this summer.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; US: Idaho
KEYWORDS: government; idaho; rudyridge
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To: ExpatGator

You didn’t read what I said did you. Go back and very carefully analyze who I said it about and the conditions applicable.


41 posted on 05/12/2012 7:54:37 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: the invisib1e hand

My son and I were talking today about violent and abusive police, and their shooting dogs. My son said it was only a matter of time before someone shot back, and I remembered the Weaver boy. He shot at the feds because they shot his dog.

Stupid, stupid federal agents. Set up the father in a sting, couldn’t arrest him in a normal way, killed a 14 y.o. boy and a mother holding a baby.

All because they are so damn gun-ho.


42 posted on 05/12/2012 8:07:35 PM PDT by heartwood
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To: driftdiver
Everytime someone says the military and police won’t follow immoral orders I think of these two events.

The military and the police are entirely different. I am an Army vet, and I can tell you that, although it has been 20 years since I was in, there were a lot of true believers in the Army. In fact, among us grunts, there were mostly true believers, and by that I mean that we felt we were soldiers in a righteous cause. We believed we were defenders of the Constitution and of all that was right and good in the world. If the government had asked us, then, to point our weapons at our fellow citizens, we would have revolted en masse because we were there to do the righteous thing, not the worldly thing. I can't say whether it is still the same in the US military, but I suspect that, largely, it is.

The police, on the other hand, always struck me as a bunch of military wanna-bees who took up the badge so they could bully people (apologies to the good men who took the badge to protect and serve). So, when the SHTF, I expect that the police will be against us, the federales will be against us, and a small percentage of the military will be against us, but most of the military will be with us.
43 posted on 05/12/2012 8:11:39 PM PDT by fr_freak
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To: skeeter

“Most Americans are still sleeping.”

Or locked into backing bogus candidates from bogus parties. The real struggle is not left versus right so much as it is the Washington Lords versus the subjects. The fight is vertical, not horizontal.


44 posted on 05/12/2012 8:13:57 PM PDT by Psalm 144 (Obama's record is an open charnel pit. Romney's too, but under a whitened sepulchre.)
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To: muawiyah

Yes, small world.

And along with those who you would rather not know, there are the Giants that you meet that make you proud you know them.

I know more than a few. Those are the ones that make life an experience to relish. Every taste.


45 posted on 05/12/2012 8:20:18 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one)
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To: nickcarraway
In August 1992

That would make it a Republican President George H. W. Bush operation? Hmmm...

46 posted on 05/12/2012 8:27:17 PM PDT by GBA (Read: The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn)
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To: fr_freak
The police, on the other hand, always struck me as a bunch of military wanna-bees who took up the badge so they could bully people...

I have never been able to locate the applicable information but I am convinced that the psychological tests that they administer to prospective LEOs try to determine the applicants' tendency to want to be a bully. And that's the kind of individual they want to recruit.

47 posted on 05/12/2012 8:33:03 PM PDT by OldPossum
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To: muawiyah

“The guys the federales (and everybody else) use as snipers are, for all practical purposes, sociopaths ~ not the kind who are trying to cheat everybody and his brother, or killing their wives and kids, but otherwise controllable guys who will kill on command.”

Yes, I read what you wrote, which is why I asked the question. “Everbody else” would include EVERYBODY else, which would include the military of my country, which would make you wrong. Correct your statement. Admit you were wrong and move on.


48 posted on 05/12/2012 8:58:47 PM PDT by ExpatGator (I hate Illinois Nazis!)
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To: skeeter

Soul? I wonder if he still is in possession of it or if something else owns it now.


49 posted on 05/12/2012 9:06:23 PM PDT by GBA (Read: The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn)
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To: driftdiver

Cut the barrels off some shotguns.

Cept Randy cut them over 18” long
where they got him was the stocks were
cut to where the overall length was still
too short.

A total screw up and the feds paid no price.


50 posted on 05/12/2012 9:18:15 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: cripplecreek

Waco and Ruby Ridge are the reasons why the government doesn’t want us owning automatic weapons. They want to have the upper hand.


51 posted on 05/12/2012 9:22:30 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: cripplecreek
And the feds still haven’t learned a thing

Some did.

52 posted on 05/12/2012 9:39:02 PM PDT by Ajnin (Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnocet!)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael

It seems that the majority of fed seiges against U.S. citizens end with fire. Makes sense. Its the best way to destroy the evidence of their screw-ups.


53 posted on 05/12/2012 9:59:55 PM PDT by 43north (BHO: 50% black, 50% white, 100% RED)
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To: Ouderkirk
Someone asked him to cut down a barrel that was 1/2” shorter than legal, and it just so happened that the requester was a federal agent.

That shotgun was shorter only because the federal agent used a cloth tape to measure with and stretched it to the max bringing the shot gun one eighth of an inch short of the minimum lawful length. Randy was very careful and used a steel tape to insure the gun would be legal.

The feds then told Randy the court date was such and in the court had a different date that was earlier. When he did not show up they issued an arrest warrant.

The entire fiasco was a con job by the government.

54 posted on 05/12/2012 10:36:06 PM PDT by W. W. SMITH (Maybe the horse will learn to sing)
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To: nickcarraway

MRKR


55 posted on 05/12/2012 10:40:33 PM PDT by JDoutrider
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To: skeeter
Most Americans are still sleeping.

I suspect, the majority of them, will never wake up.

56 posted on 05/12/2012 11:02:03 PM PDT by Mark17 (California, where English is a foreign language)
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To: driftdiver

EXACTLY CORRECT!


57 posted on 05/12/2012 11:08:03 PM PDT by Loyal Sedition
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To: skeeter

When Ruby Ridge was actually playing out, there was a Freeper whose name I cannot recall, constantly defending Horiuchi and the Federales.


58 posted on 05/12/2012 11:10:21 PM PDT by SVTCobra03 (You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
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To: SVTCobra03

Hell we used to have plenty here denouncing Weaver and justifying Feds since Weaver wasn’t PC on blacks etc

Less of that here now but it aint gone....depends on the mod...how frank one can be


59 posted on 05/12/2012 11:17:11 PM PDT by wardaddy (I am a social conservative. My political party left me(again). They can go to hell in a bucket.)
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To: SVTCobra03

No doubt true.

Sadly, FR has a strong contingent of “Law enforcement can do NO wrong” goose-steppers.
No matter how egregious the abuse of citizens, law, and constitutional imperatives, scum LE will still be defended.


60 posted on 05/12/2012 11:17:42 PM PDT by Loyal Sedition
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