Jack of Harts

I was 17 going on 18 when Ruby Ridge and Waco happened. I was a child going on adulthood, and I still thought that the government was looking out for me. I totally bought into the government narrative about both Ruby Ridge and Waco. That they were dangerous people that the local police departments couldn’t handle. It was up to federal law enforcement to bring them in or kill them if they refused to be good American citizens. I remember saying that to my best friend. But he forced me to take a step back and look at all the facts. When I did, I began to see the world through different eyes. Randy Weaver’s only crime was making illegal shotguns, and those he only did because an ATF informant solicited him to do. He didn’t do that on his own. It was classic entrapment, which is illegal. Everything else was a disaster of government errors and assumptions and orders that escalated everything to a deadly result. And the government walked away from it by paying 3 million dollars.

The Ruby Ridges standoff’s final stage was bleak indeed. US Marshals had killed Randy Weaver’s son. An FBI sniper killed Weaver’s wife, shot Weaver in the back, and shot the family friend in the chest. Third party civilian negotiators spent the next week trying to mediate terms of their surrender to the FBI. They finally got the family friend to agree to surrender on August 30, and took him and the body of Weaver’s wife out of the house. The FBI commander on site then ordered Weaver to surrender or they would stage a tactical assault on the house. Weaver and his daughters surrendered the next day. The government decided in the end not to charge his daughters for the standoff, but did charge Weaver with numerous and sundry crimes. The jury acquitted him of all charges except for failing to go to court on February 20. He received 18 months and a 10,000 dollar fine for that.

The Ruby Ridge standoff entered a new phase when the US attorney in charge charged Randy Weaver with over 30 Overt Acts in what he called the Weavers’ Conspiracy Against the Federal Government. US Marshals were sent into Ruby Ridge on October 21, 1992, wearing military camouflage, night-vision goggles, and M-16 rifles, and they infiltrated the Weaver property. They threw rocks at the house to alert the watchdogs, and then retreated to a split in one of the trails out of sight of the house. A family friend, Weaver’s son, and one of their dogs went out to investigate. Once they arrived at the split in the trail, the Marshals shot the dog dead, and shot Weaver’s son in the arm. Weaver’s son turned to run away, and then was shot in the back and killed. The family friend shot and killed one Marshal before retreating to the house. Thus the Ruby Ridge standoff entered its most deadly phase.