La Salle Explorers

[eCat]

if you guys get a chance, you should watch the Ruby Ridge documentary on Netflix. Its a PBS thing, not some Fox News POV piece.

Its pretty balanced but in the end, even PBS pretty much admits, this thing was fucked up.

You guys have heard me rant on Ruby Ridge for years but it was educational for me. I didn't realize the role of a sniper named Horiuchi

I'll give you the slightly condensed version

Weaver lives in Iowa in the late 80's /early 90's with his new wife a devout Christian who has farming ties to the community. The farming community in Iowa is under water and Weaver is trying to scratch out a living farming and working at a John Deere factory that is threatening to have mass layoffs. Wife and him are convinced that biblical end times are near so they decide to get away from society and live on their own terms. They choose the most remote place they can think of that provides an opportunity to live and they choose Idaho, about 30 miles from the Canadian border called Ruby Ridge. They build a cabin on a mountain with no electricity, plumbing or running water and bring their 3 kids there, and the wife, Vicki gets pregnant with a 4th.

They go about living a primitive life away from society, hunting for exclusively for their meat and gardening for vegetables. The closest gathering of people is a camp down the road that is a gathering place for white supremacists - matter of fact its pretty much ground zero for the white supremacist movement in America. Weaver takes his family there for cookouts and what not, make it clear he is there because his family is basically starved for human interaction and does not believe in their rhetoric, but he is a devout christian, former green beret - so they welcome him regardless.

At one of these cookouts, an undercover ATF agent pulls Weaver aside and asks him to cut off the barrel of shotguns below the legal standard . Weaver, broke, agrees. Weaver is arrested for it, has to put his home up for bail to get out of jail and is given a choice - infiltrate the white supremacists group and wear a wire or lose everything you own and go to jail. Weaver says I am going to take option C - I'm going back to my mountain top and not ever leaving. Which he does, for almost 2 years

He ends up with a federal fugitive warrant which the US Marshalls are asked to execute. They go there, look at the mountain and then ask the locals if Weaver is the kind of guy that you can go talk to. The locals say don't go up there unless you want to get shot - which wasn't really accurate - Weaver wasn't a violent man, had no record of violence and just wanted to be left alone, but due to the "profile" the US Marshalls made of him, he was now believed to be a gun toting, government hating, white supremacist.

So instead of just talking to the him and trying to reason with him, the US Marshalls start surveiling him, setting up cameras, hiding on his land, etc.

One day, Weavers dog start barking at a group of 3 agents who were below the cabin while another 3 were on another mountain looking down on it. Weavers son, Samuel and a family friend Kevin Harris , think the dog is barking at a deer and they grab their guns and go after it with the thought of having fresh meat. The dog flushes out agent Mike Degan who jumps up and kills the dog, startled, Samuel Weaver screams at the agent (not knowing he was an agent) and shoots him dead. The other 2 agents join in the gun fight, shoot Samuel Weaver dead (in the back as he was running away). Randy runs out to meet Kevin who tells him his son is dead, they run back to the house while the agents leave. They carry Degan down the mountain while Randy, Kevin and Vicki get Samuel and put him in a shed.

The US Marshall makes a frantic call asking for every available law enforcement agent. Eventually 400 agents descend on the mountain, setup a camp and start planning on how to get the Weavers into custody. An FBI team called HRT , Hostage Rescue Team , is brought in. The name is misleading because they are actually SWAT on steroids, and because they are working under the assumption the Weavers have been given a surrender ultimatum by the US Marshalls, they have a standing order to shoot to kill.

This is where the story of Lon Horiuchi comes in. Horiuchi is a West Point grad and gung ho Sniper. He is positioned with 2 other snipers in an area over looking the shed where Samuel Weavers body is located. At some point, Randy , Kevin and Randy's oldest daughter are going to see Samuel when a shot rings out and Randy is shot, he goes down and tells his Daughter he's been shot. Kevin Harris and his daughter gather Randy and they go back to the cabin. Vicki is at the door waving them in holding their newborn baby, Eleshiba. Another shot rings out as Randy is entering the cabin and the bullet goes thru Vicki's head , thru Kevin Harri's arm and into his chest. Vicki falls to the floor with the baby in her arms dead.

Horiuchi is responsible for both shots.

Why this is important is because of the spinoff of Ruby Ridge.

Horiuchi was reprimanded in an official report saying his first shot was with procedural standards but his second shot was not.

The state of Idaho wanted to prosecute him for manslaughter but a judge intervened saying that he was acting as an agent for the federal government and as such was immune from state prosecution. This enraged local prosecutors, and citizens, both local and remote. Btw, the judge that made the decision not to prosecute was in the infamous Ninth Court that is the nemesis of everything Trump tries to do.

One of those enraged was a man named Timothy McVeigh who was part of a group that demanded the prosecution on Horiuchi. Not only was Horiuchi not penalized for his actions, he was allowed to continue to be part of the elite HRT team.

That is where the documentary ends, what it doesn't really get into is one additional piece of information -

Fast forward to Waco and the Branch Davidians. After the holdout from the initial BATF activity at the compound, the FBI setup HRT snipers in key positions. A FBI sniper named Charles Riley outed Horiuchi as firing the first shots into the compound which initiated the events that led to the compound being set on fire, with innocent women and children dying a horrible death. He later recanted saying that his misheard, but they had already found evidence of spent casings from Horiuchi to corroborate his claims

When Timothy McVeigh learned that once again, Horiuchi was involved in this, it sent him off the deep end. He printed up cards with Horiuchi's name and address in the hopes that someone would assassinate him. In the end, for whatever reason, he ultimately determined that blowing up the Oklahoma City building was a more impactful act of retribution than killing Horiuchi

[hedge]

That's the condensed version???

[aTm]

The condensed version is an ecat with his gun meme that says "Fuck the Government!"

[eCat]

The condensed version is an ecat with his gun meme that says "Fuck the Government!"

that would be me shot

[eCat]

That's the condensed version???

oh like either one of us had anything better to do

[Saint]

I have little sympathy for anyone involved in that tale.

[hedge]

Thin the herd. By which I mean to include the G-Men. Too bad some of the white supremacists couldn't have been caught in the crossfire...

[hedge]

Speaking of crossfire, I watched part of Terminator tonight, I didn't realize Reese (the guy that got sent back to protect Sarah Conner) is the same guy that played Johnny Ringo in Tombstone...

[aTm]

Did you look like someone just walked over your grave?

[hedge]

[aTm]

[hedge]

You know you liked it...

[Dr. Nostron]

Interesting stuff on Ruby Ridge - I will have to watch that

[eCat]

everyone here knows I grew up in Paducah, and back in the day they had this nasty strip club called Regina's House of Dolls. It was a dive but nobody got hurt, they had pitchers of cold beer for $7 and the girls were all 5's. I remember dancing with one that was 6 months pregnant one night.

Anyways, on facebook there is this group called "you know you're from Paducah when..." and 99% of the posts are "anyone remember...." and then someone goes on to mention a grocery store or restaurant or some mundane thing that like 6 people actually care about.

So one of my friends and I have made this ongoing gag to insert Reginas House of Dolls as an answer to those questions just to get a response. We don't do it all the time , maybe once every 3 months but it always cracks us up. He sent me a screen shot of this group of women talking about one of the nicer restaurants in town that was in this old victorian home, prided themselves on coastal cuisine and charged out the butt for it. It went out of business 20 years ago.

I think I get more pleasure out of the "wtf is wrong with you" responses that anything else I read online lately.

[hedge]

WTF is wrong with you?

[eCat]

I get alot of enjoyment eliciting that response from people

just not my boss

[eCat]

may have mentioned this on another thread, I've been planning a vacation for a year now driving to New Orleans in two weeks. We have a room reserved with a balcony in the quarter and I was really looking forward to just a 3 day drunk with my wife.

Now the atmosphere around here is compelling me to stay home even though I don't want to. I will see what she wants to do - I really don't see much difference in going to a restaurant in shitty Ohio or a restaurant in crazy fun New Orleans.

But if I catch that virus at home, its just bad luck, I catch it in New Orleans getting drunk and I'm a horses ass and irresponsible.

[Jungle Rat]

This closing everything shit is getting way out of hand.

[eCat]

Rogan talks to an infectious disease expert

on trajectory of 480K deaths in 7 months

[hedge]

"Rogan talks to an infectious disease expert

on trajectory of 480K deaths in 7 months"

Nope, it's just the liberal media trying to make Trump look bad...