Jack of Harts

The Ruby Ridge standoff truly began when the US Marshals took over a grand jury indictment on March 14 to arrest Randy Weaver for not showing up for a trial over illegal firearms charges solicited by an ATF informer on February 20, when his court-appointed lawyer told him the trial was on March 20. Weaver was reluctant to trust anyone from the government by then. A seven-month period of negotiations between the Marshals and Weaver to get him to surrender did not work. The US attorney in charge of the case told the Marshals to stop negotiating in October and demanded that negotiations go through the court-appointed lawyer. The media got wind of the standoff, and sent a helicopter to fly over Ruby Ridge in April, 1992. Reports said that Weaver fired on it. Weaver and the helicopter pilot denied the reports, but the US attorney charged Weaver with firing on the helicopter as part of an Overt Act in what he called the Weavers’ Conspiracy Against the Federal Government.