This is an archive of past discussions about Ruby Ridge standoff. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The edit that the judge was contacted by Hofmeister, added words in bold, is not supported by reliable sources; Hofmeister was contacted by the judge:
Department of Justice
Office of Professional Responsibility
Ruby Ridge Task Force Report 10 June 1994
IV. SPECIFIC ISSUES INVESTIGATED
B. THE FAILURE OF WEAVER TO APPEAR FOR TRIAL
2. STATEMENT OF FACTS
b. Events Occurring From the Arraignment Through February 20, 1991
On January 22, 1991, four days after the arraignment, Judge Ayers
sent a letter to Everett Hofmeister informing him that he had
I noticed the template requesting a complete rewrite for this article and I can't really understand the justification for the request. Having only briefly skimmed the article: I can't really see any need for a total rewrite. As far as I can tell the article could be greatly improved, but there are no outstanding NPOV or copy-edit issues. Could someone provide a reasonable justification for a complete rewrite of this article, or -failing that- remove the template? bwmcmaste (talk) 17:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Comparing the article from the version of 24 Aug 2009, when the cleanup tag was added, to the version of 14 Feb 2010, when the cleanup tag was removed, indicates both actions were justified in their times. Naaman Brown (talk) 14:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The article says "The version of the firefight told by DUSMs Roderick and Cooper was that the dog, followed by Harris then Sammy, came out of the woods. DUSM Degan challenged Harris, who turned and shot Degan dead without Degan firing a single shot", but then says "The ballistics evidence presented at trial" "showed:...Bill Degan fired seven shots from an M16", and then this: "The ballistics experts called by the prosecution testified on cross examination by defense that the physical evidence did not contradict either the prosecution or defense theories on the firefight "
Um, the Marshals say Degan didn't fire a shot, balistics say he fired 7 shots, and the prosecution 'expert witness' says these things don't contradict each other?? Something doesn't add up.
The jury thought the same thing, which is why they acquitted Kevin Harris of the charge of murdering Bill Degan when the only defense open was self-defense against excessive force under color of law. Marshals Roderick and Cooper apparently believed that Degan had not fired and that his shots were shots fired by the Weaver party. When DUSM Mark Jurgesen did cartridge counts on the marshals' recovered guns 22 Aug 1992 he found seven rounds missing from the magazine of Degan's M16 and observed that Roderick and Cooper seemed genuinely surprised. Days later during the search of the "Y" FBI found seven .223 casings on a 22 foot path indicating Degan had been moving as he shot. Then the FBI HRT decided to interview the Idaho marshals, after HRT sniper had shot Randy, Kevin and Vicki. After those interviews, FBI Site Commanders Glenn and Rogers rescinded the Ruby Ridge Rules (shoot on sight) as not justified by their new understanding of the circumstances of the shooting at the "Y". Jesse Walter, Spokane Spokesman-Review reporter, Every Knee Shall Bow (Harper Collins 1995 (2nd ed. under title Ruby Ridge 2002)) is perhaps the best account of the Ruby Ridge affair especially the account of the trial in pages 263 to 368. The Senate Judiciary hearing on Ruby Ridge is also a fair and balanced account (Randy and Sara Weaver reprinted the Senate Report on Ruby Ridge as the appendix to their book on The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge making their book a two-for-one: the Weaver's side and the results of the Senate investigation). And a little reality check: a prosecution expert witness is not going to tell the defense attorney that the prosecuting attorney's theory sucks; Fackler and Haag honestly answered on the ballistic facts in cross examination and the jury did their own math and added it up themselves. However, pointing out the contradictions between the stories and the facts is kinda like original research or drawing conclusions, which may be done in Talk but is not proper in the article. Naaman Brown (talk) 04:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Are you seriously suggesting that these trained US Marshals mistook 7 shots from an M16 fired by someone on their side as he ran around for shots fired by the people on the other side of the conflict with rifles?? In any case, even if the DUSMs were confused at the time, the government's "expert witness" had all the facts at the time of the trial, and therefore had no basis for saying the two stories contradicted each other. 68.194.38.248 (talk) 04:23, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Seriously. IIRC these trained marshals (Roderick, Cooper, Degan) had never been in an actual firefight before. Degan's M16 was set on semi-automatic when found by Cooper so it would have sounded like rifle fire. Later, when Mark Jurgensen did a cartridge count from the magazines of the marshals' guns, he found one missing from Art Roderick's M16, six missing from Larry Cooper's 9mm Colt SMG and seven missing from Bill Degan's M16 (incidentally matching the count and match-up of empties found later at the "Y" by the FBI). Roderick and Cooper seemed genuinely surprised according to Jurgensen: they insisted Degan had not, to their knowledge, fired a single shot. I accept the idea they were sincerely mistaken in all the confusion. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Say What Now?
Am I the only person that has a problem with the first line, which states the entire Ruby Ridge incident was, "because Randy Weaver refused to be an informant for the federal government."? Can someone cite some proof of this? I doubt it. Hardly NPOV, should be removed. Status4 (talk) 07:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
This is the assertion of Weaver and of his defense attorney Gerry Spence. It may be backed by the timeline of facts presented by the Senate and DOJ investigations: Weaver sold two guns to ATF informant Fadeley 24 Oct 1989; FBI informant Valentino outted Fadeley in an apparent ATF-FBI turf war; 12 Jun 1990 ATF agent Byerly tried to recruit Weaver as a replacement informant using the stale gun sale; Weaver refused; gun charge indicted 13 Dec 1990. Byerly passed on false information against Weaver leading the USMS and FBI to overreact. Weaver stated in an interview that if he had accepted the offer, became an ATF informant, the Ruby Ridge incident would not have happened.--Naaman Brown (talk) 02:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
There is your answer then: "assertion of Weaver and of his defense attorney" plus "may be backed" does not constitute enough rationale to include it in the article, much less in the lede. Weaver's "would not have happened" line is not only conjecture (and no doubt reflects his personal bias), it's also logically unsound: The event would no have happened if Weaver's mother would have left the country as a child; does that mean her stay is "the cause" for this incident? --79.223.10.247 (talk) 03:53, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
The question was raised by User:Status4 and I was responding to that user until IP number 79.223.10.247 interjected. (Unless 79.223.10.247 is Status4.)
The chronology in the DOJ OPR Ruby Ridge Task Force Report notes:
June 12, 1990
BATF agents Byerly and Steve Gunderson approach Weaver in Sandpoint, Idaho, and attempt to enlist him as an informant regarding illegal activities of Aryan Nations members. Weaver says he won’t be a "snitch."
After Weaver refused to become an ATF informant, Byerly passed the Weaver case on with exaggerated claims about Weaver's involvement with Aryan Nations and Weaver's criminal record (he did not have one). From the report from the 1995 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information hearings on Ruby Ridge:
A theme that emerged repeatedly during these hearings related to the proliferation of false information concerning the activities of Randy Weaver and his family. This started with ATF. We examined evidence and heard testimony that ATF provided the United States Attorney’s Office and the Marshals Service with inaccurate information about the danger Weaver posed to law enforcement personnel or to others.
There were three major pieces of inaccurate information that the ATF case agent passed on to the United States Attorney’s office or the Marshals Service. First, ATF agent Byerly misinformed the USAO that Weaver was "considered to be active in white supremacy activities and has been convicted of activities." (9/7/95 Tr. at 42-45 (Byerly)). Weaver had not been convicted--or even arrested for any crime before he came in contact with the ATF informant. Although Byerly testified that he thought the USAO was aware that Weaver was not a convicted felon, he never took any action to be sure that the USAO was informed that this information was inaccurate.
Second, there is evidence that Byerly informed the USAO that Weaver was a suspect in several bank robberies. Byerly conceded that there is a "possibility" that he did give this information to the USAO. (9/7/95 Tr. at 104-05 (Byerly)). In a memorandum from Chief Deputy Marshal Ron Evans to Chief of Enforcement Operators Tony Perez, Evans stated that the ATF case agent (Byerly) told the AUSA that Weaver was a suspect in several bank robberies. In addition, Byerly wrote in a report of investigation that "Weaver could be a suspect in several bank robberies in Spokane." This was wholly unfounded; Weaver was not a suspect in any bank robberies.
Third, Agent Byerly or another ATF agent informed the Marshals that Weaver had the potential to be another Bob Mathews--Mathews was an extremely violent man who had killed, bombed and robbed--and his home another Whidbey Island standoff. (9/7/95 Tr. at 79-80 (Byerly); 9/8/95 Tr. at 155 (Magaw)). Weaver had done none of these things. Of course, federal agents need to be aware of and cautious about potential threats. Nevertheless, in this case, the Mathews analogy was extreme and inaccurate.
(the dates above are the dates of the Senate hearing testimony)
These false accusations against Weaver influenced the way the USAO Idaho, USMS, and FBI reacted to Weaver. The Senate report stated:
...there is no question that exaggeration of Weaver’s dangerousness was a major contributor to the eventual bloodshed on Ruby Ridge.
If Weaver had agreed to become an ATF informant, ATF agent handler Herb Byerly would not have passed on to the USAO, USMS and FBI the false claims about Weaver that caused the USMS and FBI to overreact and the federal prosecutor to take a harsher stance against Weaver than was warranted. The argument that Weaver's refusal to become an informant was a cause of the Ruby Ridge standoff and that if he had become an informant, the standoff would not have occurred, is not a stretch. --Naaman Brown (talk) 06:07, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Someone has gone through the article correcting references from "the Aryan Nations" to "Aryan Nations". Going to the source cited for much of the article's dates and facts, US Dept of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility Ruby Ridge Task Force Report June 1994, in the first 39 pages of a 406 page PDF I find:
"When BATF agents later attempted to enlist Weaver as an informant in their investigation of the Aryan Nations, Weaver refused to cooperate."
"The Secret Service was told that Weaver was associated with the Aryan Nations, a white supremacist group,..."
"BATF exaggerated to the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the court the extent of Weaver’s involvement with the Aryan Nations..."
"Weaver was frequently visited by Frank Kumnick, who was associated with members of the Aryan Nations"
"He also denied having any affiliation with the Aryan Nations or its members."
"...Weaver’s "accusers" had made false statements about his connections with the Aryan Nations..."
"...a series of bombings in Coer d’Alene, Idaho in which the Aryan Nations was believed to be involved."
In reference to the group, the team of DOJ lawyers under Barbara Berman used "the Aryan Nations" refering to the group by name, and dropped "the" only when using "Aryan Nations" as an adjective, eg, "a local Aryan Nations Church".
The Berman task force report is not a fluke: another reliable source is fairly consistent.
US Senate Subcommitte report on Ruby Ridge, first 10 pages of a 76 page PDF of the report:
"ATF attempted to persuade Weaver to act as an informant within the white supremacist Aryan Nations, but he refused."
"..because of his religious and political beliefs--specifically his affiliation with members of the Aryan Nations,..."
"...ATF had been well aware of Weaver’s involvement with Aryan Nations for several years before that." (¿typo?}
"...it is important to note that the Aryan Nations and the people with whom Weaver associated..."
"...political extremist groups, like the Aryan Nations,..."
"The ATF first made contact with Weaver at a meeting of the Aryan Nations..."
"...Fadeley had received virtually no training before he was sent to gather intelligence on the Aryan Nations."
"...political extremist organizations like the Aryan Nations."
The "someone" you refer to is easily identified by the diff for the change; I am he. I did not make this change without consideration:
Our own article on the group is titled Aryan Nations, not The Aryan Nations, which of course mostly suggests that the matter has not been hotly debated. I am not offering this as a reliable source, but lack of even a redirect from The Aryan Nations to Aryan Nations does suggest that usage with "The" in front is not the more common search term.
Reading that article, there are some usages that suggest The in front, but there are more that do not. Again, not necessarily a reliable source, per se, but that can inform the discussion.
The sources listed above are not necessarily reliable sources either. As primary sources, it's not at all clear that they are more definitive than anything else.
Note George H. W. Bush's mis-pronunciation of Sad-em for Saddam Hussein way back when, and (not to pick on a single family), George W. Bush's pronunciation of Al-Kay-da for Al Queda. At the risk of being accused of original research, I nevertheless submit that these are highly respected individuals who we might be tempted to treat as reliable sources, but...their particular pronunciations are not the generally accepted ones for the terms in question. (Indeed, they may be unique pronunciations to these two men.)
There are any number of references that support usage without the leading The, including:
Removing the "the" from a direct quote from a government report discussing the Aryan Nations was a bit far. I have seen this before: editors imposing their sense of style on an article using a global replace, affecting book or article titles, direct quotes and even links (creating red links).
Referring to a group/agency by name whether it is the Aryan Nations, the Cherokee Nation, or the Environmental Protection Agency, the name is commonly preceded with l.c. "the" when obviously "the" is not part of the name. The OPR and Senate Reports refered to "the Aryan Nations" not "The Aryan Nations".
The narrative of the DOJ OPR and the Senate SubCommittee reports refer to "the FBI", "the BATF" and "the ATF" even though "the" is not part of the title of their WP articles or actually part of the name of the agencies. There is currently a redirect for "The FBI" but no redirect for "The BATF", "The ATF" or "The DEA". BTW I question the necessity of a redirect for "The FBI". It is not all cut'n'dried: I have observed a tendancy in government reports to use "the" before a name of an agency or group beginning with a consonant, but to inconsistently use/not "the" before a name beginning with a vowel (DOJ OIG does that).
I question calling the DOJ OPR Report a primary source: primary source would describe the court documents, raw FD-302 interviews and other accounts written by the witnesses involved in the event. The DOJ OPR Report (interpretation, analysis and evaluation by the experienced DOJ Ruby Ridge Task Force attorneys led by Barbara Berman from those primary sources on the event) fits the definition: "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event." --Naaman Brown (talk) 20:12, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Can you point out where I changed a direct quote? (Found it, sort of...the text actually doesn't appear in the article, though!) And would you please comment on the content, not the editor? Your broad-stroke painting of me as "imposing" a sense of style by association is uncalled-for. Of course editors write with their own style; nothing to see here. It is not "imposing", and at any rate, as I explained above, it was not a wholesale change just because I felt like it; it was a reasoned change that I investigated first. No - I didn't come up with ALL of those points before making the change, but I did look at more than one angle on the matter.
I think a DOJ report is very much primary. It may not be first-person, but that doesn't mean it's not primary.
I've provided a number of third-party reliable sources that use the style I am preferring, and they are current, whereas the documents you are relying on are almost 20 years old. Is it completely inconceivable that the group was referred to one way in the past and another way now?
Modern, current usage of the sort I am proposing certainly has precedent. For example, we speak of members of Al Qaeda, and not of "the Al Qaeda".
It is not (again) a slam-dunk case on either side, but just because I tried to change the status quo doesn't mean it's automatically wrong. Frank | talk 00:11, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree, the article seems confused, the thrust submerged in boring details. One example is this quote: "Following an April 18, 1992 fly-over by a helicopter for the Geraldo Rivera..." Huh? Why on earth was Geraldo's news team around? There is seemingly no mention that anything particularly newsworthy has happened. I too agree that a condensed timeline should be in the lede, also. --68.127.92.198 (talk) 00:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)Doug Bashford
The Rivera fly-over is a notable part of the Ruby Ridge story, a complicated case that cannot be adequately described without going into detail. The allegations about shots fired at the helicopter contributed to USMS HQ pursuing the Weaver case when their Idaho field agents wanted to leave it on the backburner. The incident contributed to the severity of the Rules of Engagement issued for Ruby Ridge by the FBI Aug 1992. It is discussed in detail in the DOJ OPR Ruby Ridge Task Force Report, in several books and in documentaries. About the trial, the OPR concluded that the prosecutor over-charged the Weavers, including the fly-over: "Overt Act 32 alleged that a helicopter with a television crew had been shot at as it flew near the Weaver residence. When the first superseding indictment was presented to the grand jury, the prosecution had evidence that no shots had been fired at the helicopter." The overcharging, exemplified by Act 32 included in the Conspiracy charge, is believed to contributed (out of 10 charges) to 6 acquittals by the jury including the Conspiracy charge, 2 charges tossed by the judge based on prosecution witnesses contradicting the charges, and 1 conviction overturned by the judge. The Task Force recommended that the prosecutor be investigated for misconduct. I know some people see forensic or legal complexities as "boring details" (after all Alfred Hitchcock passed on filming The Wreck of the Mary Deare because he felt the Board of Inquiry trial scenes would bore the audience) but the notablity of Ruby Ridge is the boring legal and forensic details. --Naaman Brown (talk) 11:39, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
In popular culture
I notice the "In popular culture..." section has been removed. I'll paste the note originally included under the head:
!-- Popular culture sections in WP articles often get trimmed or eliminated if bloated with trivia. (see the edit history of this article over the years) Make sure additions are truly additions (not already mentioned in the article or related articles) and do represent how the subject has resonated in popular culture (art). There are sections on documentaries and external references that should be checked before adding here. --
The 2001 film Hannibal has an FBI agent in trouble for shooting a woman with a baby in a botched raid, and a corrupt FBI official abusing a position of power, themes that some attributed to a post=Ruby Ridge sensitivity. Worth mentioning here? No. "In popular culture..." the article on Ford cars could end up mostly a list of every novel, film, TV show, song with a Ford in it. "In popular culture..." R.I.P. --Naaman Brown (talk) 12:08, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
was added on 2 Aug 2008 by "Aldrich Hanssen" (later identified as a sock puppet of "Sarsaparilla" blocked indefinitely).
By Feb 2010, that line was tagged:
The incident was cited[who?] as a motivation for the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010
on 14 Jan 2010 by Bwmcmaste with comment: (add fact template)
on 27 Jan 2010 by Naaman Brown with comment: (cited by whom?)
On 26 Feb 2010, IP user:86.163.44.63 added ref with comment:
(added reference (if I Can find them, why can't you?? Lazy F^&*s who slap on tags and leave the work to others))
Now in the Aftermath section, on 30 Jan 2010, "Naaman Brown" added a ref in response to a fact tag with the response:
(Aftermath: replace "citation needed Jan 2010")
If something is posted as a fact in the article, it is up to the person who posted it to provide a cite to a reliable third-party source that can be verified by the reader. The "lazy F^&*s" are the people who throw things in articles and expect the reader to do the search for citable sources.
Still the statement is in the vague passive voice: "The incident was cited as...." begging the question cited by whom? when it is obvious from the source that "Timothy McVeigh cited the incident as..."
The source ("McVeigh offers little remorse in letters" (Associated Press 10 Jun 2001)) also states:
In the letters to his hometown paper, McVeigh reiterated that what he did was necessary to defend the personal freedom of all Americans and exact revenge for the disastrous government raids at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. . . .
• The siege at Waco was the defining event in his decision to retaliate against the government with the bombing, which occurred two years to the day after the fiery end of the Texas standoff.
"If there would not have been a Waco, I would have put down roots somewhere and not been so unsettled with the fact that my government was a threat to me," McVeigh wrote. "Everything that Waco implies was on the forefront of my thoughts. That sort of guided my path for the next couple of years."
McVeigh's personal reaction to Waco was more motivating than his reaction to Ruby Ridge; anyway, it is more related to the aftermath.
Naaman Brown (talk) 03:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
McVeigh is said to have visited Ruby Ridge alone one time. Walking at night among the Weaver Family belongings still scattered on the floor. There are no independent witnesses to place him there. He was filmed at Waco, and seemed motivated by that event far more than Ruby Ridge.Johnwrd (talk) 02:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
He implicitly claimed it according to the McVeigh wiki article, 'McWeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge for "what the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge."
See "McVeigh Remorseless About Bombing," newswire release, Associated Press, March 29, 2001, reposted on culteducation.com. Retrieved August 8, 2006.' BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 16:57, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
overlooked source
Ruby Ridge, Reality Productions Group for TLC (The Learning Channel), television, 2000.
This documentary covers primarily the Ruby Ridge standoff of 21 Aug-31 Aug 1992, preceded by a summary of the lead-in and followed by a summary of the aftermath. The narrative structure is a strict timeline of events.
This documentary featured interviews with, among others, Eugene Glenn (FBI SAC Salt Lake City, Site Commander at Ruby Ridge), Fred Lanceley (FBI HRT negotiator at Ruby Ridge), Don Kusulas (Denver FBI SWAT deployed at Ruby Ridge), Randy Weaver and daughter Rachel, civilian negotiators Bo Gritz (retired Colonel, US Army) and Jackie Brown (Vicki's best friend), and County Sheriff Bruce Whittaker.
There is coverage of the Ruby Creek vigil and protest during which civilians from the area camped out at the bridge leading to Ruby Ridge, facing off with the state and federal police controlling access to the road to Ruby Ridge; the Ruby Creek Bridge vigil helped mainstream the militia movement of the 1990s, and deserves some study itself as a historic event.
Sometimes Wiki articles pack so much technical detail that they forest is lost for the trees. Ruby Ridge caused Waco caused Oklahoma City. That's the straight and simple truth. Everything else is obfuscation and superfluous details. Another simple truth is that, since then (for a while anyways), the Federal Government has changed they way it does "Law Enforcement". Remember how arrogant they used to be ? Remember "Boys on the Hood" T-shirts and para-military esprit de corps by the ATF ? Don't see that anymore, do you ?Jonny Quick (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
While the acclaimed 'American Terrorist' notes that the Federal government "learned a painful lesson" from the Oklahoma City bombing, that is really something that would be more relevant on the article that discusses the bombing, not Ruby Ridge. Nevard (talk) 11:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Any causal or correlational effect of government actions at Ruby Ridge on actions at Waco, and on the reaction at Oklahoma City to those two actions, lies in the details and timeline of events. Obfuscation could arise from ignoring or forgetting the details with an oversimplified gloss. The Oklahoma City Bombing is an important consequence and deserves a mention and link from here, but the details belong in the seperate article. Naaman Brown (talk) 12:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Where Is Byerly
As I read this article, I keep seeing Byerly's name at critical junctions, and each time it appears Randy Weaver gets deeper and deeper into trouble as he becomes more & more interesting to law enforcement. He seems central, pivotal and responsible to me. There seems to be no hyperlinked article for him, no history of what consequences he may have suffered as a result of his actions or what the Weaver family has to say about him now, in retrospect. Am I off-base, or is there something here that should be included?Jonny Quick (talk) 23:42, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Description
Perhaps I am missing something, but after having read this article, and knowing nothing else about the incident, I have very little idea what happened. What were they charged with? What happened during the siege? What led into the siege? Details of the actual events in this article are exceptionally sporadic. Most of the description contains random events from the trial and testimony with little substance. Is it just that the factual details are disputed? If so, that should be stated as well. As it is, this article gives very little to indicate why this was so controversial or what the controversy was even over. TV4Fun (talk) 01:44, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
M16's were never produced in .223 they were produced for 5.56x45. If we are to change this back to the original we need to find out if the rifles were actually M16's or if they were just "M16's" Aka AR-15's. If someone can link me to a version of the M16 with a .223 chamber sold to the US goverment I will change it. But since that does not exist it will stay the same. 5.56x45 =/= .223 the chamber dimensions are quite different and can lead to overpressures. I direct you to the 5.56x45 Page as well as the M16 page 5.56×45mm NATOM16 rifle Both of which clearly state that 5.56x45 is used in the M16 not .223
Searching my PDF copy of the 10 Jun 1994 DOJ OPR report on Ruby Ridge, I find no instances of "5.56" but several instances of ".223" in respect to the M16 and M16a2 rifles used by the US Marshals.
o "In preparation for the mission, the marshals had acquired three .223 caliber M16 rifles from the Spokane office."
o "...Degan shipped a .223 caliber M16A2 Colt Carbine..."
o "Roderick and Degan were carrying .223 caliber M16 rifles."
o "Degan’s M16 rifle fires a .223 caliber round."
And the local sheriff's dept routinely procures .223 Remington 55gr FMJ for use in their M16 and M4 rifles and carbines. --Naaman Brown (talk) 16:50, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on Ruby Ridge. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
Noticed while reading that "U.S. District Court Judge Harold L. Ryan" was not given a single mention throughout the entire article, and was only referred to as "the judge" throughout, despite the fact that a strong argument could be made that Judge Ryan's failure to fix his administrative mistake of sending a inaccurate court date and then refusing to rescind the warrant was the reason why the murders took place. It's Judge Ryan's fault, and yet the wikipedia article won't even mention his name. I smell bias, and added either his name and full title, name and general title ("Judge Ryan") and the last mention of his involvement is simple "the judge" given that his name was mentioned in the previous sentence. I'm not married to my edits stylistically, but I would like to ask that the article not have the most important information regarding who is most responsible for the situation to be sanitized and scrubbed from the article. And I don't believe it was inadvertent. The article has 8 separate references to "the judge" and yet the judge is not named once.Jonny Quick (talk) 01:55, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jonny Quick. I noticed that while you added Judge Ryan's name to the article, you didn't add a single link to his Wikipedia bio when you added his name. I smell bias, and added the link myself. I'd really hate to see the mention of a prominent judge sanitized and the link scrubbed from the article. And I don't believe it was inadvertent; there are numerous references to "the judge" and to "Judge Ryan" and to "Judge Harold L. Ryan" in the article, and not one of them contained a link to his bio. OK, sorry for being a bit pointy, but there is a point here: articles are written by editors, who are volunteers, and if something is missing from an article, just add it. If someone reverses you, then discuss it on the talk page. A variation on Hanlon's Razor might be appropriate here: Never attribute a lack of Wikipedia coverage of some particular fact to bias, when it is more easily attributed to a lack of interest or a simple oversight on the part of another editor.Etamni | ✉ | ✓00:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
On judge Harold L. Ryan not mentioned by name in text (but mentioned in footnote). This took some digging into the history of the article, and I originally did this back 27 Jul 2015 but lost my round tuit. I notice today the subject had been revived.
Judge Ryan did not give Weaver the wrong date: Richens of Pretrial Services gave Weaver the wrong date (20 Mar 1991 instead of 20 Feb). The DoJ OPR Ruby Ridge Report did criticize Ryan for keeping the bench warrant active after learning Weaver had been misinformed about the date; the marshals complained it made gaining Weaver's trust impossible. Worse, in my opinion, was the federal prosecutor Howen getting a grand jury indictment 14 Mar for failure to appear 20 Feb without informing the grand jury that Weaver was given a 20 Mar date by pretrial services. (Weaver felt he was being railroaded by the entire US Govt for refusing to become an ATF snitch.) There is so much blame to go around, singling out Judge Ryan for special attention is not balanced and I do not believe his name was deliberately scrubbed.
Judge Ryan's name was in the article 9 Feb 2008 when an editor cut the article from 38,832 to 4,523 bytes, removing all details about the leadup. When those edits were undone by Cluebot, another editor cut the article from 38,810 to 5,129 bytes on 13 Feb 2008. On this Ruby Ridge article and its talk page, the first editor was active 9 Feb 2008 (stating the article was antigovernment and was too sympathetic to the Weavers) and the second was active 11 - 13 Feb (stating the article was being watched by a Weaver proponent and was biased toward a seperatist anti-government view). Those two editors contributed little to Wikipedia other than gutting the Ruby Ridge article and edit warring.
This article has been slowly rebuilt since then by editors careful to use neutral, reliable sources and stick to verifiable fact. And when leadup and incident details were added back, the judge's name was simply left out. As the article stood before you reinserted Ryan's name, it would have been easy for a casual reader to assume "the judge" was magistrate Ayers, so adding Ryan's name back in a neutral way was good. --Naaman Brown (talk) 02:23, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
I spoke with Weaver back in the 90s (not long after the events in question) and I don't see anything in the article that is inconsistent with what he told me then, although my recollection may have since faded. Naturally, his focus was more on the shootings of his wife and son. For a variety of reasons, I was never able to interview any of the government agents who were involved. I added the interlink for the judge, and commented above about the prior lack of the judge's name, but I've avoided editing this particular article due to the possibility of not keeping an NPOV tone. One thing that is missing from this article, which Weaver told me, involved the length of the "sawed off" shotguns, vs. the legal length. I don't remember the exact numbers now, but he claimed that the weapons were right at the legal limit when they were sold, and that somehow, when the informant turned them over to the government agents, they were shorter than the legal limit, but only by a fraction of an inch. If this is true, I can certainly see how it would have contributed to his feelings that the government was out to get him. Another thing he mentioned, as did Kevin Harris, was that after they were captured and were in jail (in Ada County, Idaho), the jail staff moved them nearly every day out of fear that there might be an organized effort to break them out. It's an interesting factoid, but doesn't seem relevant to the Ruby Ridge article. Etamni | ✉ | ✓03:17, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
But I will make grammar corrections, as I did today. I will also revert vandalism here. Neither action violates NPOV. Etamni | ✉ | ✓19:58, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Accused of death threats
Weaver was arrested and interrogated due to alleged death threats. He denied having made such threats, and given the context of a lawsuit that is probably true - his neighbor just wanted to get back at him. The statement that "Although the Secret Service was told that Weaver was a member of the Aryan Nations and that he had a large weapon cache at his residence, Weaver denied the allegations and no charges were filed" is nonsense. Whether he had made death threats against various people is an entirely different matter from having weapons and being a member of Aryan Nation. He could have had 1,000 firearms, that would not be a reason for charging him with making death threats. The illogical and irrelevant claim should be deletedRoyalcourtier (talk) 06:14, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Legal defence
It is not correct that "Weaver's defense attorney, Gerry Spence, rested his case without offering a defense. Instead he convinced the jury to find as they did merely through his cross-examination and discrediting of the government witnesses and evidence". That is a defence! What should have been written is that "Weaver's defense attorney, Gerry Spence, did not call any evidence in support of the defense".Royalcourtier (talk) 06:26, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
You are correct. As is noted in Spence's Wikipedia article, he "never called a witness for the defense. He relied only on contradictions and holes in the prosecution's story." This does not mean he didn't offer a defense; he merely offered that defense through vigorous cross-examination of the government's witnesses as the prosecution presented its case. He decimated the government's already-weak case, and everyone in the courtroom knew it. But we cannot say that in the article as it would violate WP:NPOV. We probably can -- and should -- improve the wording you mentioned above to be more encyclopedic. Etamni | ✉ | ✓13:01, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Done. The wording has been changed to "Weaver's defense attorney, Gerry Spence, rested his case without calling any witnesses for the defense." This wording is an accurate statement of fact without using weasel or peacock words and remains within the bounds of WP:NPOV. Etamni | ✉ | ✓13:14, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Normally a criminal trial is in two phases: the prosecution calls witnesses and introduces evidence supporting their theory of the case, then the defense would present witnesses and evidence for their theory of the case.
It is said that Gerry Spence conducted his defence during the prosecution phase by his cross examination (and in some cases recall of prosecution witnesses). (Spence is noted for arguing his defense theory to juries during the prosecution phase.)
After the prosecution rested their case, Spence declared the prosecution had not proven its case, and rested without presenting a defense. As Jesse Walter points out in his book Every Knee Shall Bow (2nd edition entitled just Ruby Ridge) the court room was stunned when Spence rested without presenting a defense. There was only a prosecution phase presented in the Weaver-Harris trial. It went directly from prosecution to the summations by prosecutor and defense attorneys without a formal defense. --Naaman Brown (talk)
Sara Weaver
It is suggested that there was a proposal to charge Sara Weaver. If that is the case, what was she to be charged with? It seems that no member of the family were guilty of any crime.Royalcourtier (talk) 06:28, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Actually there were ten charges against the Weaver Family including Kevin Harris. Weaver was found guilty of one charge out of ten: not showing up in court on either 20 Feb 1991 the reassigned date or 20 Mar the date he had been given. Randy Weaver was convicted by the jury on two charges, and the judge set aside "crimes on pretrial release" on the grounds it required that he be convicted of one of the two charges dismissed by the judge or one of the the six acquitted by the jury. But there was a guilty verdict.
Sara and Vicki Weaver were unindicted co-conspirators in the Ruby Ridge trial of Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris. The second Indictment listed Overt Acts charged against the Weavers and Harris including:
"41. On or about August 22, 1992, Randall C. Weaver or Kevin L. Harris and an unidentified female, probably Vicki or Sara Weaver, took offensive action against a helicopter and its occupants, including attempting to shoot at the helicopter, resulting in the death of Vicki Weaver and the wounding of Kevin L. Harris and Randall C. Weaver."
The DOJ OPR stated: "Even though [FBI sniper] Horiuchi could not identify the female, the prosecution had abundant evidence that Vicki Weaver had not run outside. Naming Vicki Weaver as one of the people who might have responded to the helicopter could readily be interpreted as an attempt to assert that Horiuchi was justified in shooting her. It was careless and wrong for the indictment to charge than "an unidentified female, probably Vicki or Sara Weaver" took offensive action against the helicopter." No one in the Weaver party fired a shot in that 22 Aug 1992 helicopter incident.
It was also alleged during the trial that bullets from Sara Weaver's rifle were found (lying pristine on a leaf) at the scene of the 21 Aug shooting at the "Y" in the trails when Sammy Weaver and US Marshal Degan were killed; these were the Evidence series L bullets of questionable provenance. USMS observors placed Sara squarely at the cabin, far out of sight or line of fire of the "Y", during that incident.
Accusations against Sara related to at least two of the ten charges in the Weaver-Harris trial: conspiracy against the government and threatening a helicopter. The Weavers were acquitted by the jury on the conspiracy charge. During the prosecution witness testimony, Spence got the pilot and passenger on the helicopter to admit they were seldomn in line of sight of the cabin and never felt threatened by anyone at the cabin. Judge Edward Lodge dismissed the charge of threatening a helicopter based on prosecution witness testimony. --Naaman Brown (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Ruby Ridge
What Did That Woman Named Vicki Weaver Ever Do That Led To Her Getting Shot To Death At Ruby Ridge,Where She & Her Family Were Staying At That Time?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.16.119.31 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 14 January 2016
In The Part Of That Ruby Ridge Film Where Vicki Shouts Out "Yahweh" While Randy Is Being Taken Away,Who Is She Shouting It At & What Does She Mean By That?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.16.119.31 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 14 January 2016
Since you spelled it correctly, I suspect you know exactly what the term means. (If not, click the link.) Personally, I never watched the film. (Not saying I wouldn't watch it; it just hasn't been convenient to do so.) Etamni | ✉ | ✓22:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Why was Vicki Weaver shot
22 Aug 1992 her daughter Sara and husband Randy and family friend Kevin Harris were escaping an FBI HRT sniper who had opened fire after spotting them outdoors. Vicki held the cabin door open as the sniper fired a shot that passed through Vicki's head and struck Kevin Harris as he ran through the door. (The sketch of the shooting situation was made by the FBI HRT sniper during an FBI interview and was included in evidence at the trial.)
Why did Vicki Weaver shout Yahweh
17 Jan 1991 Randy and Vicki Weaver stopped to aid "stranded motorists" broke down on a bridge who were actually ATF agents with an arrest warrant. Vicki regarded the federal government as the Apocalyptic "Queen of Babylon" from the Book of Revelations. As Randy was taken away by what she saw as agents of Satan, she called out to Yahweh (aka Jehovah or God).
Edits of this date—clear sourcing and citation issues
I have placed the under construction tag, because I am working my way, start to finish, through the cited sources, after finding all sorts of discrepancies, as well as numerous cases of repeat appearances of the same citation (i.e, redundancies). I have finished with the Walter (2002) book, and am partially finished with the RRTF (1994) report. In all editing of citations, I am using standard markup—cite report, cite journal, cite news, etc.
I have already noted a few things that will be longterm issues, including:
repeated use of books without giving page numbers,
the same with 30-200 page reports,
the over-reliance on a few sources rather than broad, scholarly sourcing (which has been, and continues to be masked, by the failure to condense sources when a source is reused), and more critically
repeat uses of poor sources—for instance, where Jess Walter is widely regarded, and fine, but where Vin Suprynowicz, and apparent self-published author, is not—as well as the
overuse by WP editors of primary sources, not as references to declare their existence, but as sole sources of information (which then becomes the focus of WP:OR-violating editor interpretation).
Generally I am just checking content to citations, and completing the citations (adding authors, dates, urls, etc.). But when I find a cited article that does not support a text statement—and I have found clear cases, for instance, of articles cited, that do not even mention Ruby Ridge or other aspects of sentence content—I move it to Further reading, for others to try to re-use later.
In many cases the original citations are so poor (devoid of sufficient content to clearly ascribe them to a single book, or other source) that I have had to do my best, and the add a [verification needed] tag—for instance, for a statement tied to a video, with no URL or time stamp provided, or for a citation to a book, where multiple editions exist, and no information appears as to date or page number.
In short, the article superficially appears fine, but when anyone with scholarly chops takes a look, it is in very bad shape. I will do what I can to bring it into compliance with guidelines and policies, but it will take a while. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 08:24, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
The page was probably just fine until you started littering it with inane tags, eg. FBI "who" ... lol, well I'm English, but even I know what "FBI" stands for! I cannot for the life of me understand the people who come on wikipedia pages and litter then with these extremely annoying comments. Why do you not just put references in yourself if you feel so strongly about it? (Most people probably couldn't care less). You read newspapers without them being littered with references. Well who ever said newspapers were 100% reliable sources of information? Please. get on with it, put your references in (that the whole world will ignore) if you want and leave it at that! John2o2o2o (talk) 23:01, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Construction work—citation checking and consistent formatting—over half done
The work to identify the actual sources used, to simplify their presentation (so the same source does not appear multiple times), and to assign content to the actual few pages from which it was gleaned in the sources (so that it is truly verifiable, without becoming a doctoral dissertation project)—this work nears half way done.
A few significant hallmarks of the work:
A single, complete version and online location of the Ruby Ridge Task Force (RRTF) report—the earlier named DOJ OPR document—was found, and all citations are now being made to this consistent source, to the extent possible, noting a subsection used as source, and so a very narrow set of pages (of the ca. >540 page document);
As a result, we now distinguish between the early release—likely a FOIA request release—of that report, and the complete, unredacted source, and provide clear links to both in the Bibliography (the complete as one document, the redacted as a series of PDFs).
Likewise, a complete version and online location of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism... report was found, and all citations are now being made to this consistent source, to the extent possible, noting a subsection used as source, and so a very narrow set of pages (of the ca. 150 page document);
In these and other cases, repeat citations are to a full entry in the Bibliography, with a short format appearing as the inline citation entry in the References (thus not cluttering the References section with repeated report Section and Chapter titles, and other repeat information, that characterized this section earlier.
Besides allowing more direct access to the actual sources, this cleanup also (i) makes clear the extent to which this article relies on a narrow range of sources (the Jess Walter book, and the two reports—the latter, for our purposes, almost being primary sources, see below), and (ii) brings to the foreground what will be persistent issues that remain after I finish my work. In the bullets below, I begin to outline those issues I perceive will persist.
For perspective on what follows, there are, as of this date, about 25 total distinct sources, being used to support about 110 appearances of inline citations. Of these, about 70 of the 110 inline citations are to the Walter book and the two reports. That is, 3 of the 25 sources correspond to over half of the inline citations.
The issues likely to persist are:
To some extent, reliance on questionable sources for factual content, e.g., the Send in the Waco Killers: Essay... book by Vin Suprynowicz may be self-published, and is, in any case, not a neutral source; it and the similarly obscurely published book by Mr and Mrs Weaver (Mr Weaver, the article title subject; "Weaver & Weaver" herein), are cited 10 times in the article, sometimes reasonable (giving the Weaver's perspective), other times not (giving sensitive, putatively historical facts, such as "Sammy Weaver was killed by a shot to the back while retreating").
Over-reliance on the reports, which are, for our purposes, essentially primary sources—they are not the raw data (interview transcripts, ballistics reports, daily marshall or bureau reports, etc.), they are a primary reporting based on these, and not secondary sources such as magazine exposes, historical reviews, or books that evaluate all reports and other sources, to give us a broad interpretive perspective; hence, as we are doing the work of the expose, review, and book writers in handling these reports, there is a reasonable likelihood that the article contains WP:OR, and will into the foreseeable future.
As stated, an over-reliance on a limited array of sources. Of the ca. 110 appearing inline citations, 45 are to one source (the RRTF report), another 25 to two others (the Jess Walter book and the Subcommittee report, in about equal measure). As noted in summary above, this means over half the cited content is from just 3 (of the 25 current) appearing, stated sources. This is far too narrow to be good scholarship, and it makes clear that we are analyzing and interpreting the reports, and not presenting the analysis and interpretation of others (except in the case of the good secondary source, the Jess Walter book). [Note, about Jess Walter, I say book singular, because even though multiple versions have been cited in past, they are essentially all the same content.]
Finally, there are tens of critical, WP:VERIFY-violating uses of the reports, and other book-length sources, that do not follow the WP guideline on the matter, which states, in short:
I.e., narrowing the place to which we point, within a source, to a couple pages. For the purposes of this work, I have added a [page needed] tag to any inline citation where the range of pages is greater than 10 pages. For instance, there are two citations that are cited 22 times(about 20% of total),that are to the RRTF and Subcommittee reports (>540 and >150 pp., respectively), that do not have any page number, chapter number, or section, and are therefore essentially pointers for readers to "just trust us, it is in there somewhere." [I have added a note to these 2 citations, which between them, are cited the 22 times, making this limitation clear.] This lack of a pointer to a specific page or two is very poor scholarly form, and unacceptable in the long run—it is not encyclopedic (i.e., violates statements in our guidelines/policies).
There may be more issues, but this is what I have seen in the work to date.
When I complete the "Under construction" effort, that tag will come down, and any other tags I have fully resolved, but any of these issues, described here, that are not resolved, will remain tagged.
The page was probably just fine until you started littering it with inane tags, eg. FBI "who" ... lol, well I'm English, but even I know what "FBI" stands for! I cannot for the life of me understand the people who come on wikipedia pages and litter them with these extremely annoying tag/comments. Why do you not just put references in yourself if you feel so strongly about it? (Most people probably couldn't care less). You read newspapers without them being littered with references. Well who ever said newspapers were 100% reliable sources of information? Please. get on with it, put your references in (that the whole world will ignore) if you want and leave it at that! If I could be bothered (oh don't worry I won't!) I would remove all of your tags. They are really annoying and add nothing to the article.John2o2o2o (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
I have to agree with John2o2o2o. The tagging was excessive. I have went through and fixed the bulk of the page. It is in better shape than it was. --Jennica✿ / talk07:11, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
"Magistrate"
In the section, "U.S. Marshall Service involvement" there is a sentence:
Weaver came to believe that he would not receive a fair trial if he were to appear in court. His distrust grew further when he was erroneously told by his magistrate that if he lost the trial, he would lose his land, essentially leaving Vicki homeless, and that the government would take away his children.
There is no indication anywhere else in the article who this "magistrate" is, magistrate is not a commonly accepted English term for a lawyer or advisor, and no official judge or arbiter appears to have made this sort of threat to Weaver. The citation is to a book to which I don't have immediate access, but even if the information is in some twisted way correct, at least the phrasing should be altered. NobleHam (talk) 11:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
The magistrate who misinformed Weaver is often glossed over in overview sources on Ruby Ridge as a minor character and left unnamed.
DOJ OPR Ruby Ridge Task Force Report led by Barbara Berman, on Weaver's 18 Jan 1991 arraignment: "Weaver appeared in court for his arraignment the following day before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Ayers. No one was present for the government at the arraignment nor was Weaver represented by counsel."
Jesse Walter, "Ruby Ridge", HarperCollins, 2002. p.125, details that Ayers mistakenly informed Weaver that if found guilty, he would probably be required to reimburse the government for the trial costs; and, that if he did not abide by the pretrial release rules, his land could be sold to make up the full value of the $10,000 unsecured bond even if found not guilty). By most accounts these mistakes by Ayers aggravated Weaver's sense of persecution. By his own later admission Ayers was mistaken about both points of law.
Ayers is identified as "magistrate judge", "magistrate", and "judge" sometimes within the same source; OPR Report lists his job title as "U.S. Magistrate Judge" and later refers to hom as "Judge Ayers" but quotes the Karl Richens probation officer as referrng to him as "Magistrate Ayers". I think magistrate judge is almost like pizza pie (redundant); however, federal magistrate v judge appears to be a difference in rank or experience like the academic diff between lecturer, associate professor, and (plain) professor (full and tenured). -- Naaman Brown (talk) 13:28, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
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The article quoted the permissive Rules of Engagement as the FBI Standard Deadly Force Policy a few paragraphs after a list of the ROE. I am not going to look up in the edit history when this mixup occurred. I replaced it with the 1992 FBI Standard Deadly Force Policy given by the 1994 Ruby Ridge Task Force (Bermann Commission, Office of Professional Responsibility, Department of Justice) Report.
"The FBI’s Standard Deadly Force Policy states that:
Agents are not to use deadly force against any person except
as necessary in self-defense or the defense of another, when
they have reason to believe that they or another are in danger
of death or grievous bodily harm. Whenever feasible, verbal
warnings should be given before deadly force is applied.[711]"
The Ruby Ridge Task Force (DoJ OPR, Bermann Commission) Report has different evolutions of the Rules of Engagement:
"The proposed Rules of Engagement provided at the initial briefing
were:
Any adult with a weapon who was observed in the vicinity of
Randall Weaver’s cabin or the fire fight area, could and should
be the subject of deadly force.
Following the briefing, the HRT travelled to Ruby Creek at the
base of the mountain on which the Weaver cabin was located and
began to establish tactical operations centers."
then
"If any adult in the compound is observed with a weapon after the
surrender announcement is made, deadly force can and should be
employed to neutralize this individual.
If any adult male is observed with a weapon prior to the
announcement deadly force can and should be employed if a shot
can be taken without endangering the children.
If compromised by any dog the dog can be taken out.
Any subject other than R, V, + K, presenting threat of death or
grievous bodily harm FBI rules of deadly force apply."
and later:
"1. If any adult male is observed with a weapon prior to the
announcement, deadly force can and should be employed, if the
shot can be taken without endangering any children.
2. If any adult in the compound is observed with a weapon after
the surrender announcement is made, and is not attempting to
surrender, deadly force can and should be employed to neutralize
the individual.
3. If compromised by any animal, particularly the dogs, that
animal should be eliminated.
4. Any subjects other than Randall Weaver, Vicki Weaver, Kevin
Harris, presenting threats of death or grievous bodily harm, the
FBI rules of deadly force are in effect. Deadly force can be
utilized to prevent the death or grievous bodily injury to
oneself or that of another."
Instead of using weasel language "...killed by sniper fire...", I think the Lede should say she was "...killed by FBI Sniper Lon Horiuchi...". I almost just changed it, since the information is already in the body; it's just a matter of moving it to the Lede. Could not think of a reason to NOT do it, however in the interests of "consensus" and on the chance it's already been discussed, I figured I should ask the question here first.Tym Whittier (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
That's not weasel language in any sense; it's a generalization, because the identity of the sniper isn't so critical to the article that it belongs in the opening paragraph description. The overall lede is excessively long as it is, and the final paragraph of the lede references him by name, already. Not sure why you're putting consensus in scare quotes, either. Grandpallama (talk) 08:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
I didn't intend to convey sarcasm with the use of quotes, nor did I intend them to be "scare quotes". At the time, I was simply trying to convey the idea that consensus is a part of Wikipedia Policy, although I can absolutely understand how you interpreted it to mean something else. I meant "consensus" in the defined, official, quoted, Wikipedia Policy sense of the word. I disagree with your analysis. It costs only a few more characters to say "...Weaver's 43-year-old wife Vicki was killed by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi...". "sniper fire" has 11 characters and "Lon Horiuchi" has 12 characters. Lon Horiuchi was criminally charged for this killing, and it was one of the primary reasons given for the Oklahoma City bombing, so to avoid naming the shooter in the Lede smacks of censorship. Further, the generalized phrase "sniper fire" carries connotations that there may have been more than one FBI sniper (there wasn't), and that the shooting was the result of an action of indiscriminate, "haze of battle" fire, instead of a deliberate, well-aimed and killing shot by an FBI sniper that was highly-trained specifically to either do this act, or not do this act. "sniper fire" ignores and to some extent denies the fact that snipers, particularly FBI snipers (who shoot at American citizens and not enemy combatants on the battlefield), are highly trained to either shoot or don't-shoot. That simple two word phrase hides all of the true, and relevant connational meaning, in order to save a single character in the Lede. Full disclosure I'm very new at this and do not know or understand Wikipedia Policy to the extent that others do, and so am sometimes forced to look at things from the perspective of "Reader" more than "Editor".Tym Whittier (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Lon Horiuchi is already mentioned in the lede, as I pointed out, so his name isn't being avoided and there is no "censorship"; the conclusions that the use of "sniper fire" implies either multiple shooters or indiscriminate fire is in no way implied, so I'm not sure why you would infer that. His role is not so prominent that he needs to be named in the opening paragraph, which would lend undue weight to his prominence, and your arguments of censorship and suggestions that there are attempts to hide the truth are undermined by the fact that he is named in the lede. Grandpallama (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
There were other FBI snipers in different positions on the hill. Don Kusulas of the Denver FBI consulted with his team and they agreed that the Ruby Ridge Rules of Engagement sounded like unacceptable shoot-on-sight rules and that they should follow the standard use-of-force rule only-if-necessary. Only HRT sniper Horiuchi fired, once at Randy Weaver (with his back to him) and once at Kevin Harris (as he ran away and through the door Vickie Weaver was holding open). No other FBI sniper (HRT or otherwise) saw a need or opportunity to fire at the Weavers. So the role of Horiuchi is important in the details of this event, but I question the need to have it in the lede. The perennial criticism of this article's lede is that it is too long and not a concise summary. -- Naaman Brown (talk) 17:33, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. It belongs in the body; it's already in the lede, which seems excessive to me, but it absolutely doesn't belong in the opening paragraph. Grandpallama (talk) 17:55, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Current article: "The attorney for Kevin Harris pressed Harris's civil suit for damages, although federal officials vowed they would never pay someone who had killed a U.S. Marshal. In September 2000, after persistent appeals, Harris was awarded a $380,000 settlement from the government."
Even though Harris had been acquitted of murder in the shooting of Degan 21 Aug by the jury when the only grounds for acquittal was justifiable homicide in defense of self or others, and Harris was shot running away 22 Aug without firing a weapon that day, federal officials repeatedly refused to settle Harris' claim, even though they had settled with the surviving members of the Weaver family. The took several appeals between 1997 and 2000 before the case was heard and settled. --Naaman Brown (talk) 21:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Misuse of Quotation Marks
Quotation marks which do not should come with a citation of the person who said it, and when. It is a violation of NPOV and tonally wrong for a reference to attempt to convey sarcasm. If editors do not believe the claim, then should write that out explicitly. 70.127.17.241 (talk) 07:19, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
On a USGS map, the coordinates given at the top of the article point to Caribou Ridge, on the other side of Ruby Creek from Ruby Ridge. —Tamfang (talk) 15:55, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Neutral?
With sentences such as "Public outcry over Ruby Ridge and the subsequent Waco siege involving many of the same agencies and even the same personnel fueled the widening of the militia movement" imply that there was an outcry from the majority when, in truth, only a very vocal minority made much of this event. Eyes down, human. (talk) 17:15, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Edited later stages of events to add more sub-headers to make it easier to read, such as "Trials", "Aftermath: Civil suits," "Federal investigations," etc. Put McVeigh's domestic terrorism in a separate sub-header after completing material about Ruby Ridge, the Weavers and Harris.Parkwells (talk) 14:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Incorrect number of deaths
I had previously made a minor edit to correct the number of deaths listed in the sidebar. It incorrectly lists 2 deaths when there were 3. Sammy Weaver, Vicki Weaver and US Marshal William Degan all died as a result of gunfire during the siege. (the actual text of the article and existing references confirms this data).
Can someone of sufficient access correct the number of deaths in the side bar and toss a lock on this article to prevent incorrect changes?
When your edit was reverted, it was explained in the edit summary that the civilian casualties are on the left, and the law enforcement casualties on the right. Please take another look; the numbers are correct. Also, please sign your posts in the future. Grandpallama (talk) 18:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Then at the very least it should be clarified in the side bar as 2 Civilian Deaths, 2 Civilians Injured.. it's not an equal level of detail on the two sides of the section if we're omitting info on one side, but including it on the other. NYGuy315 (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
The infobox is pretty explicit, stating which column is which immediately above - "Parties to the civil conflict" and who those parties are. The other side says US Marshal because there are three possible parties (Marshals, FBI, ATF as noted above). There's no need to state "civilian" on the Weaver side because it is already noted that this column is the Weavers. The infobox has been this way for about 10 years, and I don't recall anyone questioning it before. ButlerBlog (talk) 19:21, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Harris and Weaver's son, Sammy?
in the opening, it states Sammy Weaver was "Harris and Weaver's son." Unless Harris and Weaver were a gay couple, this cannot be correct. 96.63.163.11 (talk) 20:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
It's correct. They encountered Harris, and they encountered Weaver's son. Notice that there is no possessive on "Harris". It's an ambiguity of English usage that is clarified by the context (since they are obviously not a gay couple). Grandpallama (talk) 20:18, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
"six U.S. Marshals encountered Harris and Weaver's 14-year-old son, Sammy" Breakdown (poomp poomp-poomp deedly deedly poomp breakdown!). Subjects: "Six U.S. Marshals"; Verb: "encountered"; Objects: "Harris" and "son" (two); Modifier to son: "Weaver's". In high school I had Latin under Mrs Leftwich and English under her daughter who taught syntax and sentence diagramming; I found reading Dickens, Poe and Lovecraft a lot easier after that. Schools don't teach English anymore. Sad. --Naaman Brown (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
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