~ Update at the bottom ~
The rumors immediately said LaVoy Finicum’s hands were up and he peaceably was complying to the FBI. He a) ran, b) he hit an officer with his vehicle, and c) was reaching (a couple of times) into his jacket (video will start close to the action) ~ Twitchy h/t:
I HATE that there is a drone involved. But at the same time I LOVE that a drone is involved BECAUSE it puts to rest the crazy conspiracy theories that would be more dangerous than these few nut jobs:
“Unfortunately, when the Attorney General, as the highest law enforcement official in the country, does not vigorously pursue justice in cases where government clearly employed improper force, a cancerous suspicion metastasizes in the body of society with potentially devastating effects. Not least of all, it encourages dangerous extremists like those in the Oklahoma City bombing.” ~ Dean Koontz on Ruby Ridge
Here you see proper government force in my opinion… more is needed… I would hate to find out that the reason LaVoy initially reached for his side was that the FBI fired and hit him.
The other day Medved gave some good commentary about the situation, here it is:
Convo Time
In conversation on Facebook I noted the following in response to the officer “jumping into the path of the vehicle,” and the FBI shooting while LaVoy’s hands were in the air:
The vehicle hitting the officer is clear… clear that if he didn’t run the officer would not be hit to begin with. Second, the officer could have thought the truck was going to hit the truck he was behind and made a last second decision to get away from the back of the vehicle he was hiding behind. He was still struck by a felony evasion driver.
In other words, if that officer jumped in front of the car on accident, it doesn’t matter, the felony evasion would cause the driver to be charged with felony assault.
[LaVoy] could have been shot first. The video does not show this to NOT be the case, which is why I said:
- I still want to see a body cam… the FBI would still need to show that LaVoy reaching for his hip/side area wasn’t due to them firing first. Ballistics and the final report and any other video will squash fears.
LaVoy said this a few days prior: “I have grown up loving the fresh air. I love the elements. And this is where I’m going to breathe my last breath… I’m not going to spend my last days in a cell. This world is too beautiful to spend it in a cell.”
This IS NOT like the power used in Ruby Ridge or the overwhelming force used at WACO instead or arresting David Koresh in town earlier. And most of the very small group of men there on this Federal land [in Oregon] were from out of state, people not vested in the real fight, and not helping the real fight to limit government in any way or stop the continued land grab in recent bills.
A wonderful post over at Red State, I will excerpt it a bit here:
…Some have said he his lost balance. I don’t know. All I can say is that I find it very hard to criticize the men at the roadblock. And yes, Finicum was armed. He carried a concealed pistol on his left side. And he had several more weapons in the automobile. The weapons on Finicum and in the auto are not, per se, illegal but context is everything. In the context of the general temper of the standoff and of Linicum’s own statements, assuming that he had made the decision to go out shooting is not all that unreasonable.
I generally agree with the description given by the FBI supervisor at the scene:
“Finicum leaves the truck and steps through the snow,” Bretzing said. “Agents and troopers on scene had information that Finicum and others would be armed. On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket. He did have a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic handgun in that pocket. At this time, OSP troopers shot Finicum.”
I am generally sympathetic to the struggle of ranchers in the American West and Southwest in their struggle with the federal government. As I’ve said before, if you live in the eastern two-thirds of the United States, your impression of federal land ownership is largely battlefields and forests. Out West, the story is different:
Nothing happens in a vacuum [this was Dean Koontz’s point] and it is no coincidence that the increasingly high stakes standoffs between landowners and federal agents are rooted, in great part, in the overweening arrogance and petty tyranny exhibited by the agencies that “manage” America’s public lands.
In addition to bad policy, the BLM has attracted managers who look upon the federal lands as their personal fiefdoms to do with as they see fit. BLM managers have used the Endangered Species Act as a cudgel to curtail or forbid off road recreational activity and ranching is large areas. In 2004, the BLM aggressively pushed to have law enforcement authority on highways that passed through federally owned land rather than having that function performed by state and county police. This would not only have wildly increased the power of the BLM but it would have created a new revenue stream for them—fines from traffic violations.
General sympathy for ranchers who are being crushed by federal agencies, though, doesn’t translate into support for every knuckle-headed thing some of these people, specifically the Bundy clan, do….