Randy Weaver, the white race that has become a hero of the modern militia movement, has died after 11 days of confrontation with federal agents in Ruby Ridge.
The 74-year-old died Wednesday, according to a Facebook post by Weaver’s daughter, Sarah Weaver.
Sarah Weaver, who lives in Marion, Montana, did not share details of her father’s death and could not be reached for comment. The Flathead County Sheriff, who is doubling up as the coroner’s office, said there was no information about Weaver. Logan Health Medical Center, the largest hospital in the region, did not answer questions about whether it was a patient.
Weaver, an Iowan resident who moved to northern Idaho with his family in the 1980s, became famous in August 1992.
U.S. marshals tried to arrest him after he failed to appear in court on charges of manufacturing and possessing illegal rifles. Weaver refused to surrender and hid in the family’s hand-built hut on top of Ruby Ridge, near Naples in Boundary County.
On August 21, six marshals watching Weaver’s cabin encountered him, his 14-year-old son Samuel, and his friend Kevin Harris. The clash led to a shootout and the deaths of US Deputy Marshals William Degan and Sammy Weaver.
After the incident, hundreds of federal agents flocked to a remote location and began an 11-day siege.
The violence continued on August 22, when FBI sniper Lon Horiucci shot and killed Weaver’s wife, Vicki Weaver.
“It was a tragedy on both sides,” said Tony Stewart, one of the founders of the Kutenai County Human Rights Working Group on Human Relations. “There were no winners.”
The confrontation conquered the nation. Millions of Americans watched the event on television and in print until August 31. Weaver was arrested and taken to Boyce while his daughters went to live with relatives.
The federal government has charged Weaver and Harris with a list of crimes, including the murder of Degan, but a 1993 jury acquitted the men of almost all charges. Weaver was convicted on only two minor counts of weapons.
The Department of Justice disciplined 12 federal agents for their actions in Ruby Ridge, and in 1995 the agency paid Weaver $ 3.1 million for the deaths of his wife and son.
Thirty years after the disastrous opposition, Ruby Ridge remains a unifying cry for anti-government extremists.
John Alison, a Spokane lawyer who covered the siege as a KXLY television reporter, said Ruby Ridge had shown the public that anti-government extremism was real and more widespread than people thought.
“I think that was really a wake-up call for the nation,” Alison said. “It was certainly the case for me and us in the Northwest Pacific, the extent to which there was a faction of people who were very distrustful and angry with the government.
Former reporter for review spokesman J. Todd Foster, now editor of The Cleveland Daily Banner in Tennessee, covered Ruby Ridge for the paper alongside Bill Morlin and Jess Walter. He said Weaver left behind a two-sided legacy.
“He is a racist, although he called himself a white separatist,” Foster said. “He is also an example of excess of power.”
After Ruby Ridge, federal law enforcement acknowledged that they had handled the siege terribly. The tragic confrontation, along with the siege of Waco, Texas, six months later, changed the way law enforcement handles the confrontation with refugees.
Law enforcement agencies have begun to place more emphasis on de-escalation and waiting for refugees to give up.
Walter, whose 1995 book “Every Knee Will Bow” is often called the final description of the opposition, said in an interview with The Spokesman-Review in 2017 that neither Weaver nor the government are flawless. The book was later republished as Ruby Ridge.
“There were so many mistakes in this case that it’s really a textbook on what not to do in law enforcement,” Walter said. “It’s also a textbook on how paranoia can put a man at risk and lose two members.
Weaver remained popular with Caucasians and far-right extremists in the years after the siege. He is often seen selling his book, The Federal Siege of Ruby Ridge, at gun shows and survival shows.
He remains an icon: 30 years later, his death has inspired an outpouring of grief on social media.
Alison covers Weaver’s trial of Boyce just as the transition from journalism to law began.
He said he remembered listening to the arguments of Gary Spence, Weaver’s lawyer. Alison said Spence’s defense brought to his attention many problems with excessive government reach.
“Somehow the government is gaining the distrust that many people have,” he said.
Alison said she believes Ruby Ridge needs to learn an important lesson.
“I think we all need to keep listening to people who are angry,” he said. “We need to try to understand why and put it in the right perspective, not reject this anger or distrust it.”
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