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The nearly month-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge building in Oregon took a deadly turn Tuesday night as federal and state law enforcement ambushed vehicles en route to a meeting with area residents.
A group of the protesters, including Ammon Bundy, were on U.S. Highway 395 bound for John Day, scheduled to speak at an evening community meeting about the future of the area, when the ambush occurred.
Several hundred people gathered at the John Day Senior Center, waiting in vain for "guest speakers" that would never arrive.
The occupiers were invited to the meeting as a set-up by law enforcement, meant to isolate the men in a cell phone dead zone on a road that had been blocked off for 60 miles by law enforcement.Law enforcement sources have attempted to frame the official narrative as a traffic stop in which Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum and Ryan Bundy attempted to resist arrest, which resulted in Finicum's death. Eyewitness accounts provide a very different accounting of the events that unfolded on the
isolated highway.
According to a report in the
Oregonian:
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said Ammon Bundy called his wife, Lisa Bundy, from the back of a police car on Tuesday night and said Finicum was cooperating with police when he was shot.
According to eyewitness Victoria Sharps, a woman who was in Finicum's truck when it was stopped by law enforcement, there is no question about whether the rancher had his hands in the air or if he was shot unprovoked.
"He was just walking, with his hands in the air, and they shot him dead," Sharps said, adding, "His hands were still up after he was dead."Finicum was shot at least six times, three times after he fell, she said, in an account posted on Youtube and
shared by the Bundy Ranch Facebook page.
Sharps claims that Finicum exited the vehicle after his truck hit a snow bank and became stuck as he attempted to evade law enforcement. Finicum, yelled at law enforcement once out of the vehicle, telling them "just shoot me," which they quickly did, according to Sharp.
Sharp claims that the vehicle was riddled with bullets and estimated Finicum's vehicle was hit with over 120 rounds. She makes the point clearly and concisely that he was unarmed and had his hands in the air when he was killed in the ambush-style attack.
Comment: On the one hand, this is very disturbing behavior for anyone, bordering on psychopathic. On the other, it highlights the great disparity that the entire Israeli military shows between the Palestinian people and in animals. The Israeli authorities apparently see animals as more sacred than Palestinians. IDF officers can kill innocent Palestinian civilians with impunity, but they get jail sentences for shooting a camel. Something is seriously wrong with that. The comment above from the animal rights activist is interesting: ""Where did their compassion go, the mercy toward defenseless creatures?". If the activist was paying any attention at all, he would see that the IDF has long ago lost any compassion for defenseless people, so why would he expect any different behavior towards animals?