The murder of Sammy Weaver and the ensuing siege, that led to the murder of Vicky Weaver, the shootings of Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, and the psychological torture of the surviving children, is collectively known as Ruby Ridge.

This was an absolute travesty in America. The beginning of a “take no prisoners” approach to law enforcement. This was also an absolute joke as to just how many agencies were working on subverting a group without even knowing about each other’s informants.

This started when the Weaver family took their belongings and moved to a very modest cabin in rural Idaho. In this seemingly peaceful and remote setting, the Weaver’s world would be turned into a nightmare.

As it would happen, the US government was very interested in a group located near the Weaver’s new home. Through operations like PATCON and others, the feds had invented their own extremist Neo-nazi organization and crossed the US looking to entrap/recruit unsuspecting patriots.

Randy Weaver ended up at a picnic held by the Aryan Nations that happened to be swarming with informants and under cover agents for several different agencies. At least the ATF and FBI each had “assets” at the occasion.

The ATF was the agency that set to work on Randy Weaver. They attempted to get him to secure automatic weapons. After he made it clear to them that he had no access to such weapons, they changed tactics.

From then on the goal was to get Randy to saw off a couple shotguns. Then they would use the weapons charge to coerce Randy into being an informant against the Aryan Nations. Weaver declined the offer to become a snitch and then refused to go to court for the trumped up charges they were using to threaten him with.

This was the beginning of an 18 month long stand off. Where the Weavers refused to leave their home and the agencies interested in capturing him continued to lose their minds. Mind you, they wanted Randy to be an informant on a group he had visited 3 or 4 times in 4 years. Not exactly a great asset.

The nightmare began August 21st, 1992. This night, marshals dressed up in military garb and armed with sub machine-guns, spooked the family dog. This sent the two grown men and little Sammy and his dog to go investigate what they hoped was a deer.

Sammy the 13 year old 80 pound boy, was first to make contact with the agents. The agents made themselves known by shooting Sammy’s dog in the back so the boy could watch it shreak out in pain. After this the boy shot towards the woods, in protection of himself and his dog.

Sammy’s last words were, “I’m coming dad”. Sammy was then shot first in the arm that damn near took it off. The kill shoots raked up the boys back as he ran towards his father.

When the night was done, Sammy and his dog were dead. One agent was dead as well. Now the feds took the gloves off and the situation escalated.

The next day Randy, his daughter Sarah and Kevin went to see Sammy’s body, to mourn and be with him one last time. As Randy cleared the corner of the shed housing the lifeless body of his only son, he took a rifle shot to the shoulder.

Hearing the shot Vicky opened the front door of their home and ushered them all to come back inside. At this time another rifle round rang out. This shot was to tear through the face and throat of Vicky Weaver, killing her outright. She died holding her 18 month old. She fell straight down gripping her daughter to keep her from falling.

The bullet that ripped Vicky’s throat out, continued on into Kevin. Kevin was hit in the chest and suffered a punctured lung. Finally they got all bodies inside. Vicky was left in the entryway with a blanket covering her head.

For the next several days the Weaver family, that remained, was subject to psychological warfare. The feds would constantly ask how Vicky was doing? They would begin the mornings by saying, “Good morning Vicky. What’s for breakfast, what do you have for the kids? We’re eating pancakes”. All after she was dead by their own hands.

However awful this must have been on Randy Weaver, I am disgusted to think of the effects this had on his poor daughters. Watching your mother murdered, your father shot, and the family friend wounded seriously, wasn’t enough. They had to endure the taunting by federal agents over their dead mother. Who was laying right in plain site and by this time, was starting to bloat and stink of death.

In the end, Weaver and Harris were both found not guilty of any charge except one failure to appear to court for Weaver. The government paid out a million dollars to each surviving child and $100K for Randy himself.

Here’s some quotes from Weaver’s congressional testimony.

 “On August 21, 1992, Federal marshals shot my son Samuel in the back and killed him. He was running home to me. His last words were, “I’m coming, Dad.” They shot his little arm almost off and they killed him by shooting him in the back with a 9-millimeter submachine gun. The gun had a silencer on it. He was not wanted for any crime. He did not commit any crime. The marshals killed his dog right at his feet. He only tried to defend himself and his dog.

Sammy was just 14 years old. He did not yet weigh 80 pounds. He was not yet 5 feet tall. The marshals who killed Sammy were grown men. They were in combat gear. They had their faces painted with camouflage. They were wearing full camouflage suits with black ninja-type hoods. They were carrying machine-guns and large caliber semiautomatic pistols. They were trained to kill. Two of them were hiding behind trees and rocks in the woods where they could not be seen. The third was around a bend in the trail in thick forest. They were under direct orders from Washington to do nothing to injure the children. They were to have no contact or confrontation with me or my family. They killed him anyway in violation of their orders.

On August 22, 1992, completely without warning of any kind, an FBI sniper shot and killed my wife, Vicki. He was using a .308 caliber sniper rifle with a specially weighted barrel and a 10-power scope. He was using match grade ammunition. He had years of training to kill. I heard him testify at the trial that he wanted to kill. He shot my wife in the head and killed her. She was not wanted for any crime. There were no warrants for her arrest. At the time she was gunned down, she was helpless. She was standing in the doorway of her home. She was holding the door open for me and Sara and for Kevin Harris. She was holding Elisheba our 10-month-old baby girl, in her arms. As the bullet crashed through her head, she slumped to her knees, holding Elisheba tightly so she would not drop her. We took the baby from her as she lay dead and bleeding on our kitchen floor.”

This is hardly breaking news but it’s important to me. I was only 10 years old when this happened and remember nothing from the time about it. I have had to research it myself to get anything close to the truth. The Weaver family has been called white supremacists and plenty else to dehumanize them. 

Let this be a history lesson for those of us who were too young to have seen this first hand. This is my small attempt to humanize and support the Weavers and all of the rest of the victims of this demonic government.

Here’s a link to the testimony I quoted from.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/weaver/randytestimony.html