The Prime-Time Police State

by R.W. Bradford

The Prime-Time Police State

By R.W. Bradford

Justice flickers as America adjusts its reception.

As customary, September marked the hyper-hyped beginning of a new television season, this one with over 40 new programs on the six broadcast networks alone. But it was not the mass debut of new sitcoms about single people sharing apartments, or new "dramas" about police or physicians or single people sharing apartments, or even the return of old, well-established hit programs along those lines, that provided the most compelling television. Indeed, the best television was not even to be found over the airwaves.

No, the best television was found on an obscure channel available only to cable subscribers and satellite receivers. I refer to C-Span, the non-commercial network created and funded by cable operators to cover the affairs of government, in hopes that by showing the tedious speeches of congresspeople, regulators, and bureaucrats, somehow their industry will minimize congressional interference, regulatory intervention, and bureaucratic meddling.

The affairs of state are usually as dull as Saturday night in Villisca, Iowa, so most C-Span programming is boring beyond tedium: politicians sloooowly reading uninteresting speeches or witlessly evading reporters' questions, droning conferences staged by special interest groups, and worse. Consequently, C-Span's viewers are normally pretty much limited to politicians' mothers and girlfriends, reporters realizing their bosses won't know they covered a dull press conference by watching it from the comfort of their apartment, and a few hopeless fans of politics.

By marvelous coincidence, just as the new fall television season began, a Senate subcommittee began hearings on the events surrounding federal marshals' attempt to arrest Randy Weaver for failing to appear in court on a gun law violation.

You'll recall that the affair resulted in the killing of Weaver's wife -- whose head was blown off as she held their infant child in her arms -- and his son, a boy less than five feet tall, weighing only 80 pounds, plus the wounding of Weaver and a houseguest, the death of the family dog, and (not incidentally) the death of one federal marshal.

You know the rest of the story. Bo Gritz, the former gung-ho Green Beret, agreed to act as a negotiator. Gritz had credibility with Weaver, and the FBI reluctantly accepted his services. Weaver and Harris surrendered and were charged with all sorts of crimes, ranging from violations of gun regulations to murder. The U.S. attorney sought the death penalty. In due course, Weaver and Harris were tried by a jury of their peers. Harris, who had fired the bullet that killed U.S. Marshal Degan, was found innocent of all charges. Weaver was found innocent of all serious charges and of the original gun violation, but guilty of failing to appear at his court date and of violating pre-trial release conditions. He served a brief sentence, and was released.

Whether moved by zeal to defend the U.S. Constitution or hope of drawing attention to his longshot presidential candidacy, committee chair Arlen Specter was plainly not one to be haplessly manipulated by hack apologists for abusive state power. No, Specter's Ruby Ridge hearings would not suffer the fate of the House hearings on Waco. There would be no Kiri Jewell to grab headlines with incredible stories of rape, no wimpy Republicans bending over backwards to support "law enforcement," no matter how brutal, irrational, or lawless it may be.

Of course, Specter had an advantage over the GOP Waco investigators: at Ruby Ridge, despite the FBI's best attempts to insure that there would be no "long siege" (i.e., to kill everyone involved, as it would later do in Waco), several of the targets of the government assault lived to tell their story. And the "compound" at Ruby Ridge was not burned to the ground, destroying physical evidence.

Those who have watched the hearings have by now seen moments of high drama, heart-wrenching pathos, hilarious comedy, and sheer horror.

Randy Speaks

The hearings began with the testimony of Randy Weaver. By the government's account, Weaver was a monster who had plotted a war with the U.S. government for nearly a decade, hoping to murder as many innocent people as he could in the process.

The Randy Weaver who testified before the committee bore little resemblance to that monster. He was dressed in simple work clothes and spoke the humble language of the rural America from which he came, apologizing for his lack of eloquence, adding that if his wife could be there, she could explain things better. ("My wife was the smarter of the two by far," he explained. "She could speak very well . . . she could tell you like it was a lot better than I can.")

Weaver told how he had come to believe the government was out to get him, how he had been ensnared by his own poverty and the blandishments of a professional informant into selling two shotguns whose barrels he had shortened, how he had refused a government offer to let him off on the misdemeanor charge if he would only "turn snitch" and try to entrap his friends. With little embellishment, he told how he came to be arrested on a misdemeanor charge and had not appeared for his trial.

He spoke simply, emotionally, plainly. He told how he withdrew to his mountain cabin where he tried to live in isolation with his family, only to be the subject of extensive government surveillance involving videorecorders hidden in the forest, helicopters flying overhead, and even the government's tracking the menstrual cycles of his teenaged daughter.

He spoke of the events of August 21, 1992, when heavily armed men in camouflaged clothing surprised him and his son and their friend Kevin Harris as they followed their barking dog in search of game, how one of the men shot his dog, and how they then turned their machine guns on him and his family. He told how Harris and Weaver's 14-year-old son had fired back at the armed intruders and tried to escape to their shack, and how his little son was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the back, as he vainly retreated for safety. He told how his family retreated to their cabin, trying to understand what had happened.

Tragic as the events of August 21 were for Weaver and his family, the following day was worse. Late in the afternoon, he and his daughter and Harris left their cabin to go to the shed where his son's body lay. As Weaver went around the shed and was about to open its door, he was shot without warning, from behind, by an FBI sniper. As he ran back to his home, the FBI sniper shot again, this time killing his wife Vicki, who was standing behind the front door, and seriously wounding Kevin Harris, who was going through the door. He wept openly as he told of prying his infant daughter from the arms of his wife, who lay on the cabin floor with her head blown off.

He spoke sincerely, even pathetically, about the terror of the next few days, as he and the surviving members of his family lay on the floor of their cabin, next to the rotting corpse that had been his wife and their mother, fearful that if anyone stood up, federal agents would see them through the windows and shoot them dead too. He told how FBI agents sent a mechanical robot armed with a sawed-off shotgun to bring him a telephone, and how he had refused to be killed by such a transparent ruse, and how FBI taunted him and his family. In a particularly pathetic moment, he admitted that he had felt his only hope to come out alive was for Jesus Christ to return to Earth and perform a miracle.

Weaver made no attempt to hide or sugarcoat his unpopular political and religious views, admitted to past mistakes, expressed regret that he had refused to appear in the first place -- a decision that, in conjunction with the zeal of ATF, the Marshals' Office, and the FBI, ultimately resulted in the deaths of his wife and son. He came across as utterly guileless. Even Dianne Feinstein, who at first seemed intent on defending the law enforcement authorities by discrediting Weaver, softened and seemed even to sympathize a bit as the hearing wore on.

Send in the Cops

Things were different the following day, when the ATF agents testified. Herb Byerly, the ATF agent in charge of the case against Weaver, was one very sweaty guy, palpably evasive when questioned by former prosecutors Specter, Patrick Leahy, and Fred Thompson, all of whom seemed to smell entrapment and suspect an outright frameup.

Thompson questioned Andrew Vita, assistant director of enforcement for ATF, about the quality of the initial case against Weaver, pointing out that the case depended completely on the testimony of a single undercover agent. Somehow, the undercover agent had neglected to record key conversations that he claimed established Weaver's guilt, though he recorded many other conversations with Weaver. Worse still, the agent's payment was contingent on helping ATF prove its case, giving the undercover agent a motive to misrepresent this conversation. Vita was glib, slickly evading questions. Thompson was no fool -- observing at one point that Vita was "begging the question" -- and the senator was clearly frustrated.

Thompson turned his attention to Byerly. Thompson wanted to know about the letter Byerly had written the U.S. attorney, stating that Weaver had a long criminal record. He wondered whether this claim was true. Byerly admitted that it was not. Thompson noted that this false information was contained in a letter requesting that the U.S. attorney prosecute Weaver. "Of course, the U.S. attorney's office sometimes declines minor cases even though they're clear violations of laws, don't they?"

"Yes," Byerly admitted, "they do."

"Do you think your telling the U.S. attorney that he had other convictions in the plural, that he had more than one other conviction, might have had something to do with their determination to prosecute this case?"

"No sir, I don't. That letter, ah, is a typographical error, error. Ah, I had been in, ah, telephone, ah, contact with the assistant U.S. attorney, ah, before that, on several different times, and discussed this case with him. The, ah, that was a cover letter which accompanies the criminal case report. The case had been discussed with the U.S. attorney's office prior to the submission of this letter and the case report."

"Well, I don't know what you just said. But it says here that he was convicted of activities . . ."

Thompson's allotted time was up, but Specter took up the issue.

"Well, Mr. Byerly, on that point did you tell the U.S. attorney that that letter was incorrect, that he had been convicted or had prior convictions?"

"No sir, what that, that letter, ah, is, is somewhat of a synopsis of what was contained in the case report. There is a, one of the exhibits in the case report is a record of criminal history, ah, and that record of criminal history was showed definitely to the U.S. attorney that Mr. Weaver had no prior convictions."

"Well how do you know that that was shown to the assistant U.S. attorney?"

"I don't know that, sir."

"Well, did you take any affirmative steps to correct your letter which said that he had prior convictions?"

"I had telephone conversations with the assistant U.S. attorney concerning, ah, Mr. Weaver's, ah, criminal background, he was certainly aware of it, the, ah, telephone conversations."

"Well, just a moment ago you said you hadn't told the U.S. attorney that the letter was incorrect. Now what's the case?"

"I . . ."

"Excuse me. Had you told the assistant U.S. attorney that the letter was wrong when it said Mr. Weaver had prior criminal convictions?"

"I don't recall. I don't know if I did or I didn't. But I know I discussed the case with the assistant U.S. attorney, who knew that Mr. Weaver did not have a prior criminal history."

"Well, how did you know that the assistant U.S. attorney knew that Mr. Weaver had no prior criminal history?"

"Because I discussed the case with the assistant U.S. attorney."

"But did you discuss the fact that your letter was wrong and in fact Mr. Weaver had no prior convictions?"

"I don't know, sir."

Specter's time was up, so he turned the floor over the Sen. Leahy, who took another tack. "I'm somewhat troubled by all of this. For what it's worth, I own a lot of weapons: handguns, revolvers, semi-automatics, long guns. I do a lot of shooting, target practice . . . I also, like Sen. Thompson, have prosecuted cases and used informants. I say that because I sit here listening to all these little things that just jangle wrong in my mind as I hear this testimony. . . . We have a U.S. marshal, Marshal Degan, who's dead, leaving behind a widow and two orphan children. We have two members of Randy Weaver's family dead. We have millions and millions of dollars spent. We have the humiliation of some of our top and best law enforcement agencies in this country. We have careers being ruined, some through mistakes and some apparently through intentional -- I'd call it malicious -- action. And all this comes from somebody who sold two shotguns that you or I could buy at Sears Roebuck and spend an extra 15 bucks for a hacksaw, cut them off, and if we have any ability at all at woodworking put the pistol grips on them and so on. I was thinking of this over and over again, how anything could come so tragically wrong. Agent Byerly, you said that you wouldn't have done anything different up to the time of Mr. Weaver's arrest and arraignment. Would you have done anything differently after that part? After the arrest and arraignment."

Byerly looked left, then right, then down, then swallowed hard, then blinked. Eventually he said, "I'm not sure I understand your question."

Leahy repeated the question.

Byerly again seemed stumped. He began to answer several times but each time stopped before the first word was fully formed, looking around the room like a trapped animal. Finally, he summoned an answer to this softball question. "If I could have done, or if I could do anything, to bring back the lives that were lost, of course I would."

"So would we all. What I'm thinking about are the procedures."

"I've thought about this a lot, Senator. I believe in my heart that what I pursued, the techniques that I used, were proper. I discussed the case with the assistant U.S. attorney's office. I made my recommendation that he be prosecuted. The U.S. attorney's office looked at the cases and the U.S. attorney's office pushed the case forward. There was, ah, information that, ah, I provided to the U.S. attorney's office concerning various, various facets. I explained to the U.S. attorney's office concerning the, ah, 1985 investigation ah of Mr. Weaver. I made them aware of all the information that I had, and they, they stated that they wanted to take the case."

Leahy changed the direction of his questioning. "Well, let's get a little bit into how you get the information you had and what information refers to things that were actually there and things that were prompted by the government's own action. I assume the ATF has guidelines for dealing with organizations like the Aryan Nations where some members might engage in criminal acts while other members' sole interest in the organization is to protect constitutionally protected speech. . . . Do you have such guidelines?"

"Ah, yes."

"Are they written down?"

"Ah, yes."

"Do you offer training or guidance to agents or informants on how to conduct surveillance on things like the Aryan Nations?"

"We provide instructions as to entrapment, as to, ah . . ."

"What I'm saying is, if you're talking about organizations where some members may be there just because they want to express their views, hateful though we may find them, and you have other members who might be there engaged in criminal activity. Do you have training on that?"

"To provide to informants?"

"Yes."

"No, sir."

"To agents?"

Byerly again looked around the room, apparently unaware of whether he had ever had such training himself or administered it to others. At this point, the other witness piped up, giving a long-winded, clich?-laden answer that Leahy could not understand.

And so it continued: Vita long-winded and slick; Byerly acting like a liar fearing discovery; both of them as evasive as Weaver had been forthright the previous day.

Specter was well-prepared, even brilliant. Before the hearings were over, he had proven that the ATF's case against Weaver was a sham -- a case of entrapment, plain and simple -- and that the government had not even attempted to make a prima facie defense against entrapment when Weaver was ultimately tried in federal court. Specter mopped the floor with the ATF agents, reducing the sleazy Byerly to claims of a failing memory and the smarmy Vita to babbling incoherently about how he is "working very hard to restore the public trust."

. . . And the Second Time as Farce . . .

On September 13, the hearings turned to comedy. Kenneth Fadeley, the undercover agent who had entrapped Weaver on the gun law violation, insisted on testifying from behind a screen with his voice altered to sound like Daffy Duck. Perhaps the funniest moment came when he explained that although he had on four separate occasions during the Weaver trial admitted that he would be paid for his undercover work only if he came up with evidence that would convict Weaver, in fact, ATF offered him no incentive at all. He had simply been confused at the trial, he explained. He had tried to explain his error to the U.S. attorney, but had been unable to find his office. (One wonders whether his confusion at the trial resulted from having to appear without the protective screen or the Daffy Duck disguise.)

The hearings became theater the next day, when the U.S. marshals who were "doing surveillance" on the Weavers on August 21, 1992 testified. The dramatic highlight was Marshal Larry Cooper's claim that he had not killed little Sammy Weaver, despite all the evidence to the contrary, but that the real killer was Randy Weaver. His theory was that, as Randy Weaver ran for his life up the mountain to get away from Cooper's murderous machine gun fire, Weaver stopped, turned around, and took a wild shot down the mountain, accidentally killing his son. When Specter pointed out that the shot that hit Sammy in the back was moving on an upward trajectory, and therefore had presumably come from below, Cooper suggested that Randy Weaver had perhaps stopped to shoot wildly from a depression further up the mountain. Another bizarre moment occurred when the marshals suggested that the Weaver family had ambushed them -- despite the fact that it was the marshals who surprised the Weavers after surreptitiously entering their property, clad in camouflage, armed with machine guns and silenced weapons.

On September 14, the hearings changed genres again, this time to a horror story. Lon Horiuchi, the FBI sharpshooter who shot Mr. Weaver, gravely wounded Kevin Harris, and killed Mrs. Weaver refused to testify on grounds that his testimony might incriminate himself. This was no surprise. At the trial, he had testified that as he fired at the fleeing Harris, it appeared that Harris "was trying to hold the door open or moving someone out of the way," making it clear that he knew there was someone behind the door and had fired through it anyway. And after the event, he made a sketch of a door with a window with two circles that look a lot like a woman's head and a baby in just about the same position as Vicki and her baby daughter Elisheba. So there was powerful evidence that he had willfully shot a person who posed no immediate threat to anyone and who had not even been accused of committing any crime; that is, that he has committed second-degree murder.

But the other eight FBI "sniper/observers" who accompanied Horiuchi the day he shot Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris, and Vicki Weaver were there to testify -- and testify they did, in horrifying detail.

The snipers were members of the FBI's elite "Hostage Rescue Team," created to respond to violent situations where hostages are held. Before proceeding to Ruby Ridge, the snipers had met with superiors. Richard Rogers, head of the HRT, told them that this would "be no long siege," that the family was to "be taken down hard and fast."

Rogers gave the snipers rules of engagement (ROE) that limited the conditions under which they could shoot their weapons:

(1) If any adult in the area around the cabin is observed with a weapon after the surrender announcement had been made, deadly force could and should be used to neutralize the individual.

(2) If any adult male is observed with a weapon prior to the announcement deadly force can and should be employed if the shot could be taken without endangering any children.

By all accounts, the ROE were extraordinary. The usual FBI policy requires that the target of deadly force "pose a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or others . . . [and] possess an immediate threat to the safety of others." The ROE at Ruby Ridge authorized deadly force against "any adult male observed with a weapon," whether or not he was acting in a threatening matter, immediate or otherwise. It went even further, saying that deadly force "should be employed" (emphasis added). The FBI snipers understood what they were there to do:

"We had a green light to use deadly force against an armed adult male." (Agent Monroe, August 31, 1992)

"My understanding of the ROE was that if I saw an armed adult outside the residence, I was to use deadly force against that individual." (Agent Winger, August 28, 1992)

"The ROE were that if before the occupants of the cabin were notified that they were to surrender a male adult occupant were seen carrying weapons that deadly force could be used." (Agent Whitcomb, August 31, 1992)

Agent Dale Monroe began by reading a statement: "I would like to correct something said last week in this hearing. Mr. Spence said we were trained killers. We are not. We are trained to save lives." Before the day was over, viewers had strong reason to reject that claim.

Monroe, who had been the partner of the killer Horiuchi, then took questions. The purpose of their mission that day, he explained, was to "observe and report." This was too much for Sen. Herb Kohl, who noted a powerful distinction between "observe and report" and "green light to use deadly force." Clearly, the snipers were not getting off to a good start with the investigators.

Not surprisingly, the questions turned to the issue of whether the shots Horiuchi fired that killed Vicki Weaver and wounded Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris were justified. This was not a surprise to anyone, given Horiuchi's testimony cited above at the trial of Weaver and Harris, the testimony of the other snipers, and the simple facts that no one from the Weaver cabin had fired a weapon or even aimed one at anyone since the FBI took over the case, that Weaver had been shot in the back as he was moving away from the FBI snipers and the helicopter, and that Harris and Vicki Weaver had been shot when Harris was racing into the cabin and Vicki was holding nothing more threatening than a little baby.

Sen. Specter wanted to know about the special rules of engagement: Were they permission to use deadly force?

"They were an authorization to use deadly force only as long as the requirements for the overall policy is met," responded Agent Monroe. "That is, that a threat has been shown to myself or another, and a threat of grievous bodily harm or death. And I only interpreted those rules of engagement within and under that umbrella. They were advisories."

Specter was stunned by this assertion that the shooting of Vicki Weaver was justified even under normal rules of engagement, which require an immediate threat of bodily harm. "Well, Mr. Monroe," he asked, "if the rules of deadly force were to be used, or deadly force was to be used where there's threat to yourself or another, then can you explain to the subcommittee what the justification was for Mr. Horiuchi's shot which ended in the death of Mrs. Weaver?"

"Well, first of all the actions of the subjects the previous day," responded Monroe. "We knew that there was a propensity for violence; they had already exhibited that. However, the reason for the shot was because in my opinion, the helicopter crew was in danger by the conduct of the individual, adult males, with the rifles shortly after they came out of the cabin."

"Was the helicopter crew endangered, in your opinion, at the time Mr. Horiuchi fired the shot which killed Mrs. Weaver?" asked Specter.

Monroe paused. "I believe as long as the helicopter is airborne and it contains individuals that could be harmed, and at any time there are individuals out that have exhibited propensity for violence and shown that, I believe that the helicopter at all times was in danger. And I also believe that whether the individual, whether the threat was outside the cabin, whether the threat to the helicopter was outside the cabin or inside the cabin. . . . Actually, in my opinion the threat was heightened with the individuals inside the cabin because the rules of engagement were restrictive; they were not broadening of the deadly force policy. We knew there were children inside that cabin. The individuals exhibiting threat could go inside the cabin and from any point they could fire."

Specter: "Are you saying then it was to prevent them from going inside the cabin and taking positions to fire at the helicopter?"

Monroe: "Well, I definitely feel it was to prevent, to stop the threat and prevent the threat that was being exhibited and ongoing."

Specter: "Mr. Monroe, law enforcement necessarily has latitude in the use of deadly force. And I've seen a fair amount of it from experience that I've had. But there are the constitutional bounds, and I think you have articulated them well: the threat of deadly force against you or another or grievous bodily harm. But what we want to understand is, and we don't have Mr. Horiuchi here, and you were beside him, so you're the closest person to the event, and we're asking you for your interpretation. Although you cannot give Mr. Horiuchi's interpretation, you are as close as we have at the moment. So is what you are saying that even though there was not a threat at that moment, as these three people were running into the house, of grievous bodily harm or death to anyone, that the shot was taken to prevent them from being in a position subsequently where there would be a threat of death or grievous bodily harm to others, including the people in the helicopter? I'm trying to understand what you really mean here . . ."

Monroe: "Yes, in my opinion, the threat, the threat of death had been exhibited, had been, their conduct, it was continuing . . ."

Specter: "But was there a threat of death to anyone or grievous bodily harm at the precise moment that the shot was fired which killed Mrs. Weaver?"

Monroe: (pause) "I believe a weapon can be fired from any position. Previously we were told that Marshal Degan had been killed and I did not think that his death was the result of a highly planned shot. And even though the individual was running into the cabin, our position, specifically Mr. Horiuchi's and mine, could possibly have been known by the individuals knowing where that first shot had come from."

Specter: "Mr. Monroe, are you aware of the conclusion of the Department of Justice that the second shot, the one that killed Mrs. Weaver, was fired in violation of constitutional standards?"

Monroe: "I'm aware that the Department of Justice did come to that conclusion and I'm in complete disagreement with that."

Specter: "Well, Mr. Monroe, you were on the field, you have standing to agree or disagree with anybody. . . . You and the others were on the firing line. And that's a very different position to be in. . . . We're interested in how you felt, and you think, about that shot. Was [it] justified under the standard for avoiding death or grievous bodily harm, even though nobody was in jeopardy at that precise moment?"

Monroe: "Yes, I believe the second shot was just as justified as the first."

Monroe's meaning was plain. He believed he and any other police officer had a license to kill anyone who had ever committed a violent act. Sen. Thompson, apparently horrified at this notion, wanted to be sure that Monroe understood what he was saying:

Thompson: "So, at any time for the next few days, if you had seen them outside the cabin armed . . . say the helicopter has made another run the next day. And they showed no movement toward the helicopter, didn't point anything at it . . . [but] they saw the helicopter. Under the standard rules of engagement, you would still be allowed to shoot them because of the danger that was still posed [because] they had the day before . . . pointed a gun at it?"

Monroe: "Senator, I don't want to get into hypotheticals, I know what I saw. I know the threat that was administered by the two adult males. And those are the conditions that met the requirements of deadly force."

Thompson: "Well, you know, rules of engagement, you know, has to do with hypotheticals. Let's say that you're chasing a fugitive. Obviously, under the standard rules, you are under immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm. But let's say he turns and runs, and you chase him. Under the standard rules, is it your interpretation that you would be allowed to shoot him in the back?"

Monroe: "If the individual has already demonstrated that he is a danger to society ? has already been involved in the killing of another, and I have reason to believe that if he gets away he will kill again, then the deadly force policy, the policy will authorize deadly force to prevent the escape."

Thompson: "And the potential that he will kill again is your interpretation of immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm under the current rules. Does everybody agree with that?" At this point he looked around at the other agents, none of whom offered any dissent. "If somebody once poses that kind of threat, then that kind of threat kind of hangs out there forever and you can shoot them on sight. Is that your idea?"

Monroe: "Senator, that was a hypothetical, and I did not--"

Thompson: "Well, I know, but it's pretty important."

Monroe: "I'm just saying if I had reason to believe that the individual continued to pose a threat. I thought that I had reason to believe that."

Sen. Leahy then asked each FBI sniper whether he agreed with Monroe. All affirmed their agreement, confirming Gerry Spence's claim that they were "trained killers," but demonstrating they were not very well trained about when to kill.

Then Sen. Specter, perhaps remembering Randy Weaver's desperate plea for permission to go to the bathroom, asked the FBI snipers whether any desired a brief break. All manfully denied any need or desire. Sen. Thompson joked, "That doesn't include counsel, right?" Specter allowed that "if counsel would like a break, we'll take a break." The FBI attorneys jumped up as one and acclaimed a need for a break.

When he returned, Monroe virtually recanted his earlier testimony, claiming that deadly force could be employed only when a direct, immediate threat was evident. He added, preposterously, that he believed Weaver and Harris were immediately threatening the helicopter even when they were retreating into the cabin, subverting his previous testimony that he had never seen the helicopter, hadn't heard it except some 10 to 15 minutes earlier, and directly contradicting Horiuchi's testimony at the trial that the helicopter was behind the snipers and that Weaver was walking away from the helicopter when Horiuchi shot him, as well as his own testimony that Weaver and Harris were holding their guns in the "port arms" position -- with their right hand on the stock and their left hand on the barrel -- a position from which it is impossible to fire a weapon. Sen. Abraham, who obviously sympathized with the FBI, summarized Monroe's new justification for using deadly force as "they might have had a chance to turn and shoot at a helicopter that might have been in the vicinity."

Even the Justice Department's review of the events at Ruby Ridge, which assumed that every statement by every government employee was true, rejected this argument, and stopped short of accusing Horiuchi of murder (or manslaughter) only because it limited its concern to whether the actions violated internal bureau policies or federal law:

"On one hand, Horiuchi believed that at least one subject was armed and had intended to shoot at the helicopter, and that the subjects now knew at least generally where a sniper was located. However, this perception must be evaluated in conjunction with the reality that the subjects were returning to their home and had not returned fire when shot upon. Thus, their actions as they ran into the cabin were not aggressive, but rather protective or defensive.

"We find Horiuchi's explanation of the threat and necessity of the second shot speculative. Based on the facts known and the actions of the subjects, we do not believe it was reasonable to perceive an immediate threat as they ran back into the cabin. Once the family was back in the cabin, the potential threat to the safety of the helicopter and law enforcement personnel was more remote than when Horiuchi had earlier believed that the armed male was about to position himself to shoot at the helicopter.

"Although we believe Harris and the Weavers knew that law enforcement personnel were present, no call out or surrender announcement followed the first shot. The subjects were never given a chance to drop their arms to show that they did not pose a threat. The subjects simply did what any person would do under the circumstances: they ran for cover."

Monroe's new testimony was clearly an attempt by the desperate FBI attorneys to mitigate his more horrifying earlier testimony, to which all the other agents had agreed.

A week later, the highest level of the FBI confirmed the FBI policy that agents in the field should be a law unto themselves, with no oversight.

Larry Potts was the direct supervisor of the FBI operation at Ruby Ridge, and later supervised the FBI operation at Waco. He was rewarded for his service by promotion to the position of assistant director of the FBI.

In a carefully prepared statement before the Specter Committee, Potts asserted: "The split-second decision of a sniper to fire, and the basis for doing so, are best known and understood by him alone, and it is unfair to condemn that decision from the perspective of hindsight."

To sum up: In the opinion of the FBI agents who laid siege to the Weaver cabin, if a law enforcement officer believes, even erroneously, that a person has committed an act of violence and is likely to do so again, he can act as judge, jury, and executioner and kill that person in cold blood. This is the conscious operating policy of an elite officer of the nation's most elite law enforcement agency. And this policy is supported by the highest officials within the FBI.

This illustrates what is most disturbing about the events on Ruby Ridge. The problem is not that a particular government agency or a particular government agent has gone astray. It is not that somehow, by some horrible mistake, Lon Horiuchi killed Vicki Weaver. It is not that some aberrant agency entrapped Randy Weaver.

The problem is that this is the way the U.S. government works today.

Behind the Veil of Secrecy

The Weaver case is an aberration, all right. It is an aberration because Randy Weaver refused to be blackmailed into going undercover after he was entrapped, and because the FBI snipers failed to kill him when they fired their high-powered rifles at his back as he moved away from them on August 22, and because the FBI committed a horrible public relations mistake when it killed his wife, and because against all odds a negotiator came on the scene who was acceptable to Weaver and who the FBI could not reject, and because Weaver obtained, free of cost to himself, the services of a highly skilled attorney to level the legal playing field against a government that spent tens of millions of dollars to put him down, and, when that failed, to convict him of murder and execute him.

If Randy Weaver had given in to the BATF's blackmail and become a government agent, he would have become part of the oppression he hated. If he had appeared for the trial for the crime for which he was entrapped, the chances that an attorney of the skills and resources of Gerry Spence would have been available to him were virtually nil, and he almost certainly would have been convicted. If he hadn't moved suddenly and unexpectedly as an FBI sniper fired at his back, he would have been killed and forgotten. If the FBI had been able to kill the people in the Weaver cabin, any investigation would have been inconclusive.

Typical television fare is contrived and imposed on the audience. The Ruby Ridge hearings offered the viewer something very different: the sort of drama that goes on frequently, but is usually hidden from sight. It was television at its very best.