Feds Must Ask County Permission But Fbi Officials To Ignore Order, Continue Business As Usual

If FBI and other federal agents want to follow a case into Okanogan County, they’ll have to get the sheriff’s written permission first, according to a new county resolution.

However, the head of the FBI’s Eastern Washington region said his agents will ignore the order and continue business as usual.

“What they’re asking is unconstitutional. How would we ever investigate public corruption?” Jeff John, FBI supervisory special agent for Eastern Washington, said Friday.

The resolution, passed unanimously on Aug. 14 by Okanogan County’s three commissioners, also grants the sheriff final jurisdiction over any federal law enforcement activity.

“We don’t want another northern Idaho or Waco or even another smaller scale thing going on here,” Commissioner Ed Thiele said in a phone interview from Okanogan on Friday.

Thiele was referring to the FBI’s siege of the Branch Davidian complex at Waco, Texas, and the agency’s 1992 siege at the home of white separatist Randy Weaver on Ruby Ridge in Idaho.

The agency has come under fire for its handling of the siege at the Branch Davidian compound. A fire broke out as tanks were firing tear gas into the compound, and 81 bodies were found in the ashes.

In addition, several top FBI officials have been censured or demoted over the handling of the Ruby Ridge case.

Thiele said Okanogan County wouldn’t condone a siege similar to Ruby Ridge, in which an FBI sniper killed Randy Weaver’s wife, Vicki.

The shooting occurred the day after Samuel Weaver, 14, and deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan were killed in a gunfight during a marshals’ reconnaissance mission. Agents had been conducting surveillance of Weaver’s cabin because he had failed to appear for a February 1991 trial on an indictment for selling sawed-off shotguns to an undercover informant.

“If it’s a minor violation like Randy’s was, I personally - if the sheriff wouldn’t do it - I’d go out and stop it,” Thiele said.

The resolution cites the 5th Amendment’s “right of the people to be free from deprivations of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

County Sheriff Jim Weed laughed when told about the resolution, The Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle reported.

“The reality is, very little federal law enforcement ever comes to the county,” Weed said.

Weed was not in his office Friday, and no one else there was authorized to speak about the resolution, the sheriff’s office said.

The FBI’s John said he turned the resolution over to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Spokane for legal action.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Ohms did not immediately return a phone call for comment on Friday.

John said his agents will continue to coordinate with the sheriff’s office, but will not give away any jurisdiction or share any more information with the sheriff than is necessary for specific cases.

Thomas O’Brien, spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle, said the resolution would make little difference to his agency.

“We’re always working cooperatively with our state and local counterparts,” he said.

Agents often serve alongside local officers on special drug task forces, O’Brien said.

The resolution does not apply to U.S. Customs Service or U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents performing routine duties.

“We work with them day in and day out,” Thiele said. “We know what’s going on there.”