Source : Wikipedia
The Ruby Ridge standoff was the siege of a cabin occupied by the Weaver family in Boundary County, Idaho, in August 1992. On August 21, deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) came to arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant for his failure to appear on federal firearms charges after he was given the wrong court date.[1] The charges stemmed from Weaver's sale of a sawed-off shotgun to an undercover federal informant, who had induced him to modify the firearm below the legal barrel length.[2]
During a surveillance operation, officer Art Roderick shot Weaver's dog when it ran at them and then pointed his rifle at Weaver's 14-year-old son, Samuel, who was armed. Samuel fired back at the marshals, and was shot and killed by the team. In the ensuing exchange of fire, Weaver's friend Kevin Harris shot and killed Deputy Marshal William Francis Degan Jr. Weaver, Harris, and members of Weaver's immediate family refused to surrender. The Hostage Rescue Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI HRT) became involved as the siege was mounted.[3] In the standoff, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Weaver, then shot Harris, but the second shot also hit and killed Weaver's wife Vicki. The conflict was ultimately resolved by civilian negotiators, including veteran activist Bo Gritz, who eventually convinced him to surrender. Harris surrendered and was arrested on August 30; Weaver and his three daughters surrendered the next day.
Extensive litigation followed. Initially, Randy Weaver and Harris were tried on a variety of federal criminal charges, including first-degree murder for the death of Degan. In the successful defense, Weaver's attorney Gerry Spence accused the agencies that were involved of criminal wrongdoing, in particular the FBI, the USMS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) for Idaho. Harris and Weaver were acquitted of all the siege-related charges, and Weaver was only found guilty of violating his bail terms and of failing to appear for a court hearing, both related to the original federal firearms charges.[4][5][page needed] The Weaver family and Harris both filed civil suits against the federal government in response to the firefight and the siege. In August 1995, the Weavers won a combined out-of-court settlement of $3.1 million; Harris was awarded a $380,000 settlement in September 2000. In 1997, a Boundary County prosecutor indicted Horiuchi for the manslaughter of Vicki, but the county's new prosecutor controversially closed the case, judging that he would be unlikely to secure a conviction.[6][7]
The behavior of federal agents during these events drew intense scrutiny. At the end of Weaver's trial, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility formed the Ruby Ridge Task Force (RRTF) in an attempt to investigate Spence's charges; their report raised questions about all of the participating agencies' conduct and policies.
