On January 2, Ammon Bundy had an idea.
He would use the (re)incarceration of Dwight Hammond and his son Steven as a pretext for the takeover of a remote wildlife refuge. Then, once the facility was “secured,” the occupants would refuse to leave until the Hammonds were released and until Washington made concessions on state’s rights and land usage.
It would be a grand rekindling of the “Sagebrush Rebellion” and Ammon would make his father Cliven (who became a kind of folk hero after staging a jailbreak for his cows who had been imprisoned by the federal government for bovine trespassing) proud.
Of course we all know how Ammon’s "coup" turned out.
He and his compatriots camped out in a snowy shack for a month and Robert "LaVoy" Finicum ended up getting shot by police on the side of the road. Meanwhile America either didn’t understand the cause or else simply didn’t care because when asked to send “supplies” to the aggrieved occupiers the nation sent sex toys and penis-shaped gummy candies. That's not an editorial comment on the merits of the cause - it's just a straightforward account of what happened.
Anyway, there was still some controversy surrounding the death of “LaVoy” despite the fact that authorities released footage which pretty clearly shows Finicum reaching into his pocket, not once, but twice as police closed in. Officials would later say that in that pocket was this loaded 9 mm:
On Tuesday, county prosecutors ruled the shooting “justified and necessary” despite the fact that Finicum was shot three times in the back.
Here's the autopsy report showing the three shots in Finicum #OregonStandoff pic.twitter.com/CQn7COKzkL
— Simone Del Rosario (@SimoneReports) March 8, 2016
Here is footage from inside Finicum's truck synced with footage from police. We will leave it to readers to determine whether the shooting was indeed "justified and necessary."
Finally, here are excerpts from The Oregonian's account of the dramatic events that led to Finicum's death:
As Robert "Lavoy" Finicum powered his Dodge pickup over Devine Summit on the state highway north of Burns, he spotted the police van idling on a U.S. Forest Service road.
Finicum glanced over at the state trooper in the driver's seat as he went past.
He pointed a finger at him, as if to say "I see you" and kept going.
That likely was the moment Finicum realized he and his group wouldn't make the community meeting planned that evening in John Day.
Less than 30 minutes later, Finicum was dead and four other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover were in handcuffs.
Police knew the leaders planned to travel to John Day in Grant County to the north on the only direct highway there – U.S. 395.
They devised a traffic stop by state troopers to allow FBI agents to arrest the group on federal conspiracy charges. By midday, some members of the arresting team positioned themselves on Forest Service Road 2820, which branches east off the state highway toward a snow park near the summit of
Devine Ridge. Another team set up roughly two miles north on the highway, prepared to act as a roadblock.
"The sheriff is waiting for us," Finicum yelled out the driver's window to the officers and agents staged behind his truck.
He puts his hands out the window and invited police to shoot.
"Back down or you kill me now," he said.
He repeated twice more that he was going to meet the sheriff.
Ryan Bundy, 43, of Mesquite, Nevada, seated behind Finicum with a .38-caliber pistol and two rifles within reach, yelled out the window: "Who are you?"
Finicum echoed him.
"Yeah, who are you?"
"Oregon State Police" came the reply.
"I'm going over to meet the sheriff in Grant County," Finicum said.
Police continued demanding Finicum turn off the truck and surrender, according to officer statements to investigators. But they didn't move against those in the truck as they waited for a trooper posted at McConnell's Jeep to bring a launcher with multiple pepper spray rounds.
Those in the truck talked about what to do next.
"If we duck and you drive, what are they going to do?" Cox asked Finicum. "Try to knock us out?"
He noted they still had "50 ass miles" to go to reach John Day. He turned up the volume on country music that had been playing on the radio.
"Who can we call?" Bundy asked.
"Sheriff Palmer," Finicum responded.
As Bundy and Cox tried to get a cell signal, Finicum continued yelling at police.
"You want a blood bath?" he asked. "I'm going to be laying down here on the ground with my blood on the street or I'm going to see the sheriff."