Weaver Saga An Un-American Tragedy

In his denim shirt and dungarees, Randy Weaver looked out of place in the Hall of Politicians. His hawkish face under the sweptback silver hair was bleak, his eyes wintry.

Weaver’s a tough mountain critter who’s seen and caused trouble. But not tough enough to hold back tears.

His tale of the killings of his 14-year-old son Sammy and wife Vicki by FBI snipers at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, was the most gut-wrenching testimony I’ve heard in a congressional hearing room.

I think that Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who is chairing the hearings, told a half-truth when he said, “This was an American tragedy.”

Tragedy, yes. But also a crime. Granted, we’ve yet to hear federal lawmen explain their overuse of firepower - whether incompetence or macho rules - that bloody August 1992 twilight at Ruby Ridge.

But if you believe Weaver’s story, as I do, you’ll agree with one Idaho jury member who said, “The wrong side was on trial. It should have been the government.”

Now, in the FBI’s worst nightmare, Weaver’s put the federals on trial. After hearing his chilling, tearful account, one word came to my mind: murder, clear and simple - unnecessary, coldblooded, lethal force by men sworn to uphold the law.

That’s atop the coverup as FBI honchos squirm, denying who gave the Ruby Ridge order to “shoot on sight any armed adult male.” Sure, Randy Weaver’s no All-American citizen - “no Idaho poster boy,” said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. He’s a gun-toting oddball so foreign to Eastern urbanites. He’s hung out with the Aryan Nations, calls himself a white separatist, and moved his kin to a remote cabin to arm for America’s downfall.

Pushed by Specter, Weaver said, “I’m not a hateful racist. But the separation of races, scripturally speaking, is what I believe in.”

And yes, Weaver, a logger and one-time sheriff candidate, sold two sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent for a $450 profit. Told wrongly he might forfeit $10,000 and lose his cabin, he ducked the courts.

“For that, he was treated like Saddam Hussein,” marveled Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Weaver’s daughter Sarah, 19, buried her face as her father told of the shootout - ambush, really - that left U.S. Marshal Bill Degan and Weaver’s son dead.

“Sam was 14, 80 pounds, less than 5 feet,” said Weaver. “I heard shots on the trail and our dog howl. I yelled, ‘Come home, Sam.’ His last words were, ‘I’m coming, dad.’ They nearly shot his little arm off then shot him in the back with a submachine gun. … Vicki and I went down to pick up his body. I was cussing and hollering and crying.”

Weaver dropped his flat monotone when he recounted the shooting of his wife. He choked and stopped to wipe his eyes.

“An agent popped out of the woods and yelled, ‘Freeze, Randy.’ He shot me in the shoulder. Vicki was inside the door, holding 14-month-old Elisheba. I heard a loud ‘BOOM!’ The bullet crashed through Vicki’s head. She slumped to her knees, the baby under her. The girls were screaming. Kevin (Harris, Weaver’s friend) was also hit. I picked up the baby, her hair full of blood. Vicki was like a dishrag. She was gone.”

The shot had been fired from a high-powered rifle with a 10-power scope at 215 yards by Lon Horiuchi, marksman on what is ironically called the Hostage Rescue Team.

Specter, ‘96 presidential candidate with a TV flair, had set up the door from the Weaver cabin in the hearing room. No politics, only raw drama, as Randy Weaver and Sarah demonstrated how Vicki Weaver had been shot through the half-glass door.

“You think it was deliberate?” said Specter. “It was no accident,” said Weaver. “She was visible. They wanted to get my wife. They knew she was smarter than I am.”

“If I’d taken one more step,” said Sarah, “they would have got three of us.”

The riddle of Ruby Ridge - did the government kill Vicki Weaver and who gave orders? - festered among Western “patriots.” It become a paranoid symbol like Waco. And gave Weaver a martyrdom he hates.

“I’ve said bad things, done bad things, but I’ve paid a big price,” Weaver said slowly. “I’m sick of my name being used. It won’t bring back my wife and son.”

Specter was right, despite howls of political opportunism, to open the Ruby Ridge mystery. Unlike Waco hearings where federals emerged as good guys and David Koresh as fiend, the lawmen may not walk away from Ruby Ridge.

Randy Weaver didn’t fire a shot at Ruby Ridge. He says no loudspeaker blared, “Surrender, you’re surrounded.” The $3.1 million payoff to Weaver’s family hints at an FBI botch. Iowa’s Grassley had one remedy: “The FBI should stop trying to be like the military and go back to being the FBI.”

Sure, lawmen seem under siege - Mark Fuhrman’s destruction, Philadelphia’s cop scandals, now Ruby Ridge. Plato asked the right question: “Who will guard us from the guardians?”

No politician dares say the brutal word for Ruby Ridge.

When a 14-year-old boy is shot in the back and a mother killed with a baby in her arms, that word is murder.

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