LaVoy Finicum was a good man standing against governmental terrorism.
It’s a tragic day when any man loses his life, but when LaVoy Finicum was shot by federal and/or state police with his hands raised, it becomes very obvious that he stood against “governmental terrorism.”
Few people know about the “WHY”
LaVoy Finicum
and the approximately 100-150 armed militia took control of a closed Wildlife Park Headquarters in the middle of “nowhere.”
Neither LaVoy or any of the others with him, took hostages or vandalized property.
LaVoy Finicum
wanted the government to stop the harassment and criminal acts.
Why did they take over this isolated area near Burns, Oregon? They were trying to draw attention to the “extreme injustice and harassment,” and arrest of a father and son pair of Oregon Ranchers “Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr., 73, and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, 46, who are scheduled to begin five year prison sentences.
The Harney Basin (where the Hammond ranch is established) was settled in the 1870’s. The valley was settled by multiple ranchers and was known to have run over 300,000 head of cattle.
These ranchers developed a state of the art irrigation system to water the meadows, and it soon became a favorite stopping place for migrating birds on their annual trek north.
In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt, in a “political scheme,” created an “Indian reservation” around the Malheur, Mud & Harney Lakes and declared it “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds”. (It may be important to note here that President Theodore Roosevelt was very involved in the Masons, who incidentally, had possession of a “cave” close by, that was used for Masonic rituals, and still is.)
Later this “Indian reservation” (without Indians now) became the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
In 1964 the Hammond’s purchased their ranch in the Harney Basin. The purchase included approximately 6000 acres of private property, 4 grazing rights on public land, a small ranch house and 3 water rights. The ranch is around 53 miles South of Burns, Oregon.
By the 1970’s nearly all the ranches adjacent to the Blitzen Valley were purchased by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and added to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge covers over 187,000 acres, stretches over 45 miles long and 37 miles wide. The expansion of the refuge grew and surrounds to the Hammond’s ranch.
Approached many times by the FWS, the Hammonds refused to sell. Other ranchers also choose not to sell.
This Government Is The Terrorist:
During the 1970’s the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), took “a different approach” to get the ranchers to sell.
Ranchers were told: “grazing was detrimental to wildlife and must be reduced”; 32 out of 53 permits were revoked and many ranchers were forced to leave.
Grazing fees were raised significantly for those who were allowed to remain. Refuge personnel took over the irrigation system claiming it as their own.
By 1980 a conflict was well on its way over water allocations on the adjacent privately owned Silvies Plain. The FWS wanted to acquire the ranch lands on the Silvies Plain to add to their already vast holdings. Why? What reason does the government have to want all this land? (The federal government is a corporation, not a country protecting it’s citizens.)
US Government Terrorism: This Government Is The Terrorist…
Refuge personnel intentionally diverted the water bypassing the vast meadow lands, directing the water into the rising Malheur Lakes. Within a few short years the surface area of the lakes doubled. Thirty-one ranches on the Silvies plains were flooded. Homes, corrals, barns and graze-land were washed away and destroyed.
The ranchers who once fought to keep the FWS from taking their land, now broke and destroyed, begged the FWS to acquire their useless ranches. In 1989 the waters began to recede; now the once thriving privately owned Silvies plains are a proud part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge stolen by the FWS.
By the 1990’s the Hammonds were one of the very few ranchers who still owned private property adjacent to the refuge. Susie Hammond in an effort to make sense of what was going on began compiling facts about the refuge. In a hidden public record she found a study done by the FWS in 1975. The study showed the “no use” policies of the FWS on the refuge were causing the wildlife to leave the refuge and move to private property.
The study showed the private property adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge produced four times more ducks and geese than the refuge. The study also showed the migrating birds were 13 times more likely to land on private property than on the refuge.
When Susie brought this to the attention of the FWS and refuge personnel, her and her family became the subjects of a long train of abuses and corruptions.
In the early 1990’s the Hammonds filed on a livestock water source and obtained a deed for the water right from the State of Oregon.
This Government Is The Terrorist:
When the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) found out the Hammonds obtained new water rights near the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge, they were agitated and became belligerent and vindictive toward the Hammonds. The US Fish and Wildlife Service challenged the Hammonds right to the water in an Oregon State Circuit Court. The court found the Hammonds legally obtained rights to the water in accordance to State law and therefore the use of the water belongs to the Hammonds.
Hammond Family Arrested:
In August 1994 the BLM & FWS illegally began building a fence around the Hammonds water source. Owning the water rights, and knowing that their cattle relied on that water source daily, the Hammonds tried to stop the building of the fence. The BLM & FWS called the Harney County Sheriff department and had Dwight Hammond (Father) arrested and charged with “disturbing and interfering with” federal officials or federal contractors (two counts, each a felony). Dwight spent one night in the Deschutes County Jail in Bend, and a second night behind bars in Portland. He was then hauled before a federal magistrate and released without bail. A hearing on the charges was postponed and the federal judge never set another date.
The FWS also began restricting access to upper pieces of the Hammond’s private property. In order to get to the upper part of the Hammond’s ranch they had to go on a road that went through the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge. The FWS began barricading the road and threatening the Hammonds if they drove through it. The Hammonds removed the barricades and gates and continued to use their right of access. The road was proven later to be owned by the County of Harney. This further enraged the BLM & FWS.
Shortly after the road & water disputes, the BLM & FWS arbitrarily revoked the Hammond’s upper grazing permit without any given cause, court proceeding or court ruling. As a traditional “fence out state” Oregon requires no obligation on the part of an owner to keep his or her livestock within a fence or to maintain control over the movement of the livestock. The Hammonds still intended to use their private property for grazing. However, they were informed a federal judge ruled, in a federal court, the federal government did not have to observe the Oregon fence out law. “Those laws are for the people, not for them”.
The Hammonds were forced to either build and maintain miles of fences or be restricted from the use of their private property. Cutting their ranch in almost half, they could not afford to fence the land, so the cattle were removed.
The Hammonds experienced many years of financial hardship due to the ranch being diminished. The Hammonds had to sell their ranch and home in order to purchase another property that had enough grass to feed their cattle. This property included two grazing rights on public land. Those were also arbitrarily revoked later.
The owner of the Hammond’s original ranch passed away from a heart attack and the Hammonds made a trade for the ranch back.
In 2006 a massive lightning storm started multiple fires that joined together inflaming the countryside. To prevent the fire from destroying their winter range and possibly their home, Steven Hammond (Son) started a backfire on their private property. The backfire was successful in putting out the lightning fires that had covered thousands of acres within a short period of time. The backfire saved much of the range and vegetation needed to feed the cattle through the winter. Steven’s mother, Susan Hammond said: “The backfire worked perfectly, it put out the fire, saved the range and possibly our home”.
Prosecutors said the fires were set in attempt to destroy evidence that the Hammonds had been illegally hunting deer on the federal lands. (That’s what you call, “a trumped up charge.”) Trying to find something they could charge them for…
The next day federal agents went to the Harney County Sheriff’s office and filled a police report making accusation against Dwight and Steven Hammond for starting the backfire. A few days after the backfire a Range-Con from the Burns District BLM office asked Steven if he would meet him in town (Frenchglen) for coffee. Steven accepted. When leaving he was arrested by the Harney County Sheriff Dave Glerup and BLM Ranger Orr.
Sheriff Glerup then ordered him to go to the ranch and bring back his father. Both Dwight and Steven were booked and on multiple Oregon State charges. The Harney County District Attorney reviewed the accusation, evidence and charges, and determined the accusations against Dwight & Steven Hammond did not warrant prosecution and dropped all the charges.
In 2011, 5 years after the police report was taken, the U.S. Attorney Office accused Dwight and Steven Hammond of completely different charges; they accused them of being “Terrorists” under the Federal Anti terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. This act carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of death. Dwight & Steven’s mug shots were all over the news the next week portraying them as “Arsonists”. Susan Hammond (Wife & Mother) said: “I would walk down the street or go in a store, people I had known for years would take extreme measures to avoid me”.
Shortly after the sentencing, Capital Press ran a story about the Hammonds. A person who identified as Greg Allum posted three comments on the article, calling the ranchers “clowns” who endangered firefighters and other people in the area while burning valuable range land.
Greg Allum, a retired BLM heavy equipment operator, soon called Capital Press to complain he had not made those comments and requested they be taken down from the website. Capital Press removed the comments. A search of the Internet Protocol address associated with the comments revealed the origin as the BLM’s office in Denver, Colorado.
Allum said, he is friends with the Hammonds and he was alerted to the comments by neighbors who knew he wouldn’t have written them. “I feel bad for them. They lost a lot and they’re going to lose more,” Allum said of the ranchers. “They’re not terrorists”. “There’s this hatred in the BLM for them, and I don’t get it,” the retired BLM employee said.
LaVoy Finicum was right about the government!
Jody Weil, deputy state director for communications at BLM’s Oregon office, indicated to reporters that if one of their agents falsified the comments, they would keep it private and not inform the public.
To date the Hammonds have paid $200,000 to the BLM, and the remainder $200,000 must be paid before the end of year 2015. If the Hammonds cannot pay the fines to the BLM, they will be forced to sell the ranch to the BLM or face further prosecution.
Now, that’s criminal and immoral against a citizen of the U.S., but then again, everything they’ve done to this point would land anyone else in prison for life!
You can continue reading the entire history of “governmental criminal harassment” against these citizens in the (m) through (v) sections of the very well documented website, “The Conservative Tree house.”
These decent law-biding ranchers were terrorized by the very corporate criminals called U.S. government! They are NOT government anymore. They are criminals!
LaVoy Finicum was gunned down with his hands in the air. Agents fired all the shots. There was NO gun fight.
The video of the murder of Lavoy released by the FBI, was heavily limited to show him trying to drive around the barricade, getting out with his hands raised and then the agents shooting him dead. All audio was removed and only the short clip was presented and released to media outlets.
Victoria Sharp was in the vehicle and gave her first hand account of exactly what happened when federal agents murdered LaVoy Finicum. She spoke on the phone and several people posted her testimony online.
“My dad was such a good good man, through and through,” said Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, one of Finicum’s 11 children. “He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”
Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev., suffered a minor gunshot wound in the confrontation about 4:30 p.m. along U.S. 395. He was treated and released from a local hospital and was in FBI custody, authorities said.
Also arrested during the stop were his brother, Ammon Bundy, 40, of Emmett, Idaho, Ryan W. Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada, and Shawna J. Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah. They were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers, a felony.
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said that Ammon Bundy called his wife, Lisa Bundy, from the back of a police car on Tuesday night.
Who are the occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge? They’re military veterans and small business owners. Some have authored books and lost their jobs to join the cause. Who are the armed occupants of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon?
Fiore, a vocal supporter of the Bundy family, said that Ammon Bundy told his wife that Finicum was cooperating with police when he was shot.
But sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Finicum and Ryan Bundy disobeyed orders to surrender and resisted arrest. No other details were available. No details were given by the feds or media because they control what the people are allowed to hear. They only want a one sided narrative.
Finicum on Monday said an interview that “the tenor has changed” between the occupiers and federal authorities.
“They’re doing all the things that shows that they want to take some kinetic action against us,” he said.
Pete Santilli’s live stream documents moments leading up to and after his arrest. Pete Santilli was arrested while live-streaming reports of Ammon Bundy’s arrest on YouTube. Warning: this video includes strong language. The government does NOT want people to know how criminal and immoral their tactics and plans really are!
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown called for calm late Tuesday night.
“The situation in Harney County continues to be the subject of a federal investigation that is in progress,” she said in a statement. “My highest priority is the safety of all Oregonians and their communities. I ask for patience as officials continue pursuit of a swift and peaceful resolution.”
Little detail was available about the dramatic finish to the free-roaming ways of the militant leaders. State police said troopers were involved in the shooting and that one person died, another suffered non-life-threatening injuries and no police were hurt.
The militants seized the wildlife refuge on Jan. 2, insisting they wouldn’t leave until their demands were met, including the freeing of two Harney County ranchers jailed on federal arson charges.
One militant on Tuesday afternoon posted a video of Ammon Bundy talking earlier in the day with an FBI negotiator identified only as “Chris.”
The leaders were on the highway bound for John Day, where they were scheduled to participate in an evening community meeting set up by local residents. A crowd of several hundred had gathered at the John Day Senior Center and were subsequently told the the “guest speakers” would not be appearing.
The highway was blocked for a 40-mile stretch between Burns and John Day. Police were stationed near Seneca, a small city of 200 south of John Day, with long guns. They said they didn’t know how long the roadblock would be in place. Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer was there.
Palmer two weeks ago had met with Payne and Ritzheimer. He later publicly declared that Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven, should be freed from federal prison to help end the standoff. Palmer also had recommended that the FBI leave the Harney County scene and turn the matter over to local police.
LaVoy Finicum felt so strongly about this “government illegality” and denial of their “constitutional rights” that he came from Arizona to help in the effort to call attention to what the federal government was doing.
The armed militants took over the vacant headquarters compound at the refuge. They had been using refuge buildings for meetings and lodging, posting armed security guards.
The occupiers had been moving without police interference between the refuge and Burns, even attending a county-sponsored community meeting at the Burns High School a week ago.
The dramatic event came days after local and state officials had publicly complained about the apparent inaction by federal law enforcement. The governor had complained directly to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey as well as the White House.
On Monday, Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, who chairs the county commission, also publicly urged police to resolve the occupation.
Payne and Bundy have been in and out of Harney County since November, aroused by the sentencing of the Hammonds. In October, they were ordered back to federal prison to finish five-year terms for deliberating starting fires that burned federal land in 2001 and 2006.
Bundy and his followers had demanded that Harney County Sheriff David Ward protect the ranchers from having to surrender, a demand Ward rejected.
Payne and other militia met local residents in an informal meeting on New Year’s Day in Burns, vowing they had peaceful intentions.
The next day, about 300 people – a mix of militia and local residents – paraded in protest through downtown Burns, stopping at the sheriff’s office and then stopping at the home of Dwight Hammond and his wife Susan.
Besides demanding freedom for the Hammonds, the Bundy group wanted the refuge turned over to prior private owners and to the county.
The group insisted that the federal government has no constitutional authority to control land in Harney County, a county that measures 10,000 square miles.
The federal government controls 76 percent. The Bundy group also has encouraged ranchers to renounce their federal grazing permits, showcasing a New Mexico rancher Saturday at the refuge who did just that.
Contributors for this article are: Laura Gunderson, Carli Brosseau, Denis Theriault, Luke Hammill, Elliot Njus, Anna Marum, and Ian Kullgren of “The Oregonian” and Sundance of “The Conservative Tree House.”
LaVoy Finicum Proved This Government Is The Terrorist Against the Citizens of This Country!
Filthy stinking cold blooded murder…those are not police or men excused by God …that was cold blooded filthy murder. Filthy Pigs… so disgusting… Never trust government police, army, CIA FBI OR ANYTHING belonging to the deadly deep state governments of this world …they are pure evil of Satan given over to slaughter! God bless the families that survived these monster killers. To Think the worlds’ taxes are paying these monsters. England is in the same boat being taken down by the Deep State Agenda 21 and the Islamist Beast they ride.. Curse of God is upon those who call their evil good and good evil… they will face the True Judge of us all and that without right on their side.
Don’t know if this was a coincidence but after I watched this video on YT (few days ago). PBS’ Frontline showed their documentary on the Bundy/Hammond gov standoff and murder.
Didn’t watch it until the end, now wishing I had. When they got to the Hammond part, they started leaning toward gov so I turned it off.
I would have turned it off too!
As a veteran, and patriotic citizen, I find this whole situation to be abhorrent. We are definitely in the “end times”.