Vol. 80/No. 12 March 28, 2016
Oregon probe whitewashes cop, FBI killing of Finicum
The killing and whitewash are an attack on ranchers and farmers seeking to protect their land and livelihood from government interference.
The report confirms key details given by Shawna Cox and Victoria Sharp, who were in the vehicle with Finicum that day and who charged that Finicum was murdered in cold blood.
Finicum was a leader of the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, organized to draw attention to the frame-up and second imprisonment of local cattle ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond and to federal policies and practices that have been driving many small farmers and ranchers off the land. Some half of the acreage in the West is controlled by Washington agencies.
On Jan. 26, Finicum was driving a vehicle, with Cox, Sharp, Ryan Bundy and Ryan Payne inside. Occupation leader Ammon Bundy and others were in another. They were on their way to a community meeting in John Day, Oregon, when they were ambushed.
Ammon Bundy and those in his car surrendered to the cops. But when Payne stuck his head and hands outside Finicum’s truck, the cops shot a 40 mm foam-nosed round containing pepper spray at him. He got out and was arrested by troopers.
According to a recording made by Cox and played at the press conference, Finicum told the cops, “I’m going over to meet with the sheriff in Grant County. You can come along with us and talk with us over there.” Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer, who was sympathetic to the campaign to free the Hammonds, was at the John Day meeting.
The recordings show that at no time did Finicum or anyone else in the vehicle make any threats or point any weapons at the police or FBI.
FBI agents shot, covered it up
Finicum drove off but came upon a police roadblock. As he approached, troopers fired three shots into his truck. The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office report said that during their investigation they discovered a fourth bullet hole in Finicum’s vehicle. Sheriff Shane Nelson said that while FBI agents denied having fired any shots, it was clear that the they had fired two, one through the roof of the vehicle.The Sheriff’s Office also found that FBI agents removed a bullet at the scene and then replaced it. Nelson said that as a result of this and other “specific actions,” the FBI agents are under investigation.
Finicum tried to get around the roadblock and crashed into a snow bank. He got out of the car with his hands up. The sheriff’s report says that the troopers were justified in killing Finicum because they feared for their lives, saying it appeared he was reaching toward his jacket as if going for a gun.
After Finicum was shot, they left him there without any medical attention for more than 10 minutes while firing an undisclosed number of “gas projectiles and flash bangs” at the pickup.
“They shot my husband,” Jeanette Finicum, LaVoy’s wife, said in a March 9 news release responding to the report. “They left him lying in the snowbank — no medical assistance, no charges, no arraignment, no preliminary hearing, no indictment, and no trial by a jury — and should they just walk free? It just is not right.”
The next day she told the press she will file a civil rights suit against the government for killing her husband.
New charges against ranchers
Federal prosecutors announced March 9 they were filing a “superseding indictment” against Ammon Bundy and 25 others accused in the peaceful occupation of the Malheur refuge.In addition to previous charges of “conspiracy to impede” federal officers, the new indictment adds charges ranging from “possession of firearms and dangerous weapons in federal facilities” to theft of federal property. One of the weapons charges carries the possibility of a life sentence.
Bundy and six others involved in the occupation have also just been indicted along with his father Cliven Bundy and others for joining a protest at Cliven’s ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, in April 2014 to prevent federal agents from confiscating 400 of his cattle.
At a March 10 hearing in Las Vegas, Cliven Bundy refused to make a plea. According to Associated Press, Bundy has “consistently denied U.S. government authority over rangeland around his 160-acre cattle ranch and melon farm” about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
With his ankles shackled, Bundy, 69, waved to about 40 supporters in the courtroom. Dozens more marched outside. The Nevada rancher believes “the states to be the owners of pubic land and not the federal government,” Joel Hansen, Bundy’s lawyer at the hearing, told the press.
Ranchers throughout the West see the frame-up of the Hammonds and persecution of the Bundys as examples of what they call federal overreach that has restricted grazing rights and driven ranchers off their land, often under the pretense of protecting endangered species.
A nonbinding ballot measure to designate 2.5 million acres of the Owyhee Canyonlands in Malheur County as a national monument — making it easier for federal authorities to deny grazing rights — was defeated 5,291 to 609 March 8.
Related articles:
Jump in charges, firings of cops in killings result of street protests
Minnesota action: ‘Prosecute cops for murder of my brother’
‘Fire NY cops who killed Ramarley Graham!’
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