The Weaver Execution
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <10/31>

      I have taken a while to write on the Senate hearing on the Ruby Ridge incident. If you followed it there was quite a bit to obscure the crucial salient issue. Vickie Weaver was executed.
      Through all of the detail and all of the facts of the case and all of the speculation surrounding it one thing is clear. There was an execution.
      Discarding all of the material that has no relevance to this central issue, the FBI showed up, attempted to execute two people and in the process executed a third. Although the FBI had plans to announce their presence, they had not done so. Although the FBI had plans to demand a surrender, they had not done so.
      They got in place and without telling the Weavers they were there, opened fire.
      Given the way the press covered the story you would imagine there was the kind of scene you expect on TV and in the movies. Someone with a bullhorn saying something like, "This is the FBI. You are under arrest. Come out with your hands up."
      Rather events at Ruby Ridge were like the police getting behind their cars for protection and opening fire. If the word execution does not fit, then try assassination. That there was a sniper doing the killing with a rifle makes it all the more appropriate.
      There is no practical difference between what happened at Ruby Ridge and the police shooting a suspect in the back without attempting an arrest. Good intentions are fine. There is a rather famous road paved with them.
      The FBI and the Senate panel did their best to put a different spin on it. They treated it more like the expected TV scenario had actually taken place, or that the intention was good enough, and failed to address the missing action. That is after the fact complicity in the spin doctoring.
      There is a purported police assassination squad operating in Los Angeles. A movie was made on the theme a few years ago. This is no different unless good intentions can excuse identical actions and results. This is not Dirty Harry Callaghan; this is Paul Kersey's Death Wish, except it was done by the police.
      Perhaps it is a mixture of TV and the movie "justice" of those characters that makes this palatable. The excuses for this execution are in the "he asked for it" style. It is the "blame the victim" or "she was asking to be raped" mindset.
      This country walks a very crooked line in its concept of justice and law. In the common mind, what the person deserves depends upon the allegation. A man never leaving a monestary since he was 14 should the shot if accused of child abuse. We can try the corpse later.
      Child abuse worked in Waco even though never proved at the time and still having only one questionable allegant to this day. At Ruby Ridge the claim was that a marshal was murdered while an arrest was attempted even though there was no arrest attempt. That is enough to tip public opinion in favor of a Paul Kersey style execution. Never mind there was not enough evidence of it to stand in court.
      The framework within which facts are viewed is more important than the fact themselves. "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him," turned the crowd against the man who singlehandedly ended the democracy of Rome and lead the way to centuries of tyranny by emperors. In Ruby Ridge, ignore the facts. Think of it as dealing with a cop killer.
      Of course there are always extenuating circumstances but there were none given in any of the testimony that would relate to showing up and shooting without the crucial announcement of being there intervening. The nearest claim is that there was an attempt to fire on a helicopter, a quite strange thing for a Special Forces, Vietnam veteran to even think about. But even then, that makes only one person a target until he stops shooting. It is not carte blanche to kill everyone in sight.
      In any event, taking away all the excuses and all the finger pointing, what we have is a federal execution. It is not a pleasant thing to realize but then murder is never pleasant.