RUBY RIDGE

THE CLAIM

That federal agents operated under unlawful shoot-on-sight rules at Ruby Ridge, killed an unarmed woman holding an infant, and that the agencies then obstructed the investigation of their own conduct.

THE THEORY, AS ITS PROPONENTS TELL IT

Very little of this requires advocacy, because the government's own reviews established most of it and the Treasury paid for the rest.

The standoff arose from a firearms charge stemming from a sale to an ATF informant, and from a missed court date caused in part by an incorrect date on the summons. During the initial surveillance, a firefight killed Randy Weaver's fourteen-year-old son Sammy, shot in the back, and Deputy Marshal William Degan.

The FBI's Hostage Rescue Team then deployed under rules of engagement modified for this operation, stating that armed adult males could and should be shot on sight. A Senate subcommittee later found those rules unconstitutional. Sniper Lon Horiuchi fired twice; the second round passed through the door of the cabin and killed Vicki Weaver, who was standing behind it holding her ten-month-old daughter.

The aftermath is the part that generalises. An internal Justice Department report criticised the operation heavily. Copies were withheld, an FBI official was later convicted of destroying documents relating to the incident, and the Bureau disciplined a number of personnel. The government settled with the family for $3.1 million rather than litigate.

WHAT IS KNOWN

The deaths, the modified rules of engagement, and the settlement are all established fact.

The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information held hearings in 1995 and reported that the rules of engagement were unconstitutional. That is an official finding by a legislature about its own executive.

Randy Weaver was acquitted at trial of the most serious charges, including murder, with the jury accepting a self-defence account of the initial firefight. He was convicted only of failing to appear.

E. Michael Kahoe, an FBI official, pleaded guilty in 1997 to obstruction of justice for destroying a report on the incident, and served eighteen months.

EVIDENCE FOR

• A Senate finding that the rules of engagement were unconstitutional.
• A $3.1 million settlement paid to the family of the deceased.
• A federal conviction for destruction of documents relating to the incident.
• An acquittal at trial on the murder charge, on a self-defence theory the jury accepted.

EVIDENCE AGAINST (THE STRONGEST READING)

• No evidence indicates that Vicki Weaver was targeted deliberately. The sniper's account, accepted by prosecutors, was that he fired at a man he believed was about to shoot at a helicopter and did not see her behind the door.
• A federal manslaughter charge against Horiuchi was brought by a county prosecutor and dismissed on supremacy clause grounds, and no court has found the shot itself unlawful.
• The initial firefight remains genuinely disputed as to who fired first, and a marshal died in it.

ASSESSMENT

Confirmed as to the essentials, and one of the few files here where the government investigated itself, found against itself, and paid. Rules of engagement authorising deadly force against armed adults on sight were written for this operation, a legislature found them unconstitutional, an unarmed woman holding a baby was killed by a federal sniper, and an official went to prison for destroying the report about it. Nothing in that requires a theory. Read with OSA-132, which followed six months later, it explains a great deal about American distrust of federal law enforcement that is usually discussed as though it were free-floating.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE THE GRADE

• Confirmed and officially found: a Senate subcommittee held the modified rules of engagement unconstitutional, the government paid $3.1 million to the family, and an FBI official was convicted of destroying a report on the incident.
• Not established: that Vicki Weaver was deliberately targeted. The sniper's account, that he fired at a man he believed was about to shoot and did not see her behind the door, has not been disproven.
• Genuinely unresolved: who fired first in the initial firefight that killed Sammy Weaver and Deputy Marshal Degan. The jury accepted self-defence, which is not the same as a finding of fact about the sequence.

FURTHER READING

• Ruby Ridge · Wikipedia
• Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information, hearings and report (1995)
• Jess Walter, Every Knee Shall Bow (1995)