On January 26, 2016 – LaVoy Perished in a hail of unprovoked
bullets from the FBI and Oregon State Police. The shooting was so egregious
that FBI Agent Joseph Astarita is on trial for trying to cover-up his part for
shooting LaVoy. LaVoy’s wife Jeanette
Finicum has filed a wrongful death lawsuit which so far seems to be
moving forward.
Justin Smith effectively memorializes the unjust murder as a
warning that there are crooked FBI personnel willing to circumvent the
Constitution for their own version of law enforcement. Be wary President Trump.
JRH 7/27/18
***********************
The Finicum Family's Fight Is America's Fight
In Pursuit of Justice
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 7/26/2018 8:57 PM
Updated: 7/27/2018 3:21 PM
Nothing in the pursuit of justice will ever restore
the Finicum Family's joy and happiness, that they experienced, with LaVoy
Finicum home and alive with them, but Jeanette Finicum has pursued justice from
the day her husband was so unnecessarily shot down on a lonely stretch of
Highway 395, due to his role as one of the leaders of the occupation of the
Malheur National Wildlife Preserve.
Posted by LaVoy Finicum
Published on Feb 9, 2018
Her perseverance has resulted in the trial of Joseph
Astarita, the FBI agent who fired the shots and ignited the
hailstorm of bullets that ended LaVoy's life, an ignoble act by the FBI and law
enforcement who took part in the ambush, reminiscent of their action against
Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge.
His trial underway as of this July 24th, Astarita
stands accused of falsely denying that he fired two shots at LaVoy,
and he is charged with three counts of making false statements and two counts
of obstruction of justice. However, through scientific methods and aerial video
of the ambush, it has been determined that it was Astarita who fired the first
shots, as LaVoy exited his truck, something Astarita's lawyers still refute.
They state a belief that it was one of the Oregon Highway Patrol, who fired
those first shots.
Robert LaVoy Finicum led a small band of protesters,
including Cliven Bundy's sons, Ryan and Ammon, American Patriots, who understood
that the federal government and the Bureau of Land Management were consistently
and constantly acquiring or simply taking land unconstitutionally, from farmers
and ranchers across America. These men and women were standing firm for
property rights under Our Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, when they
occupied Malheur, near Burns, Oregon, on January 2, 2016 and began a stand-off with the FBI and
other law enforcement agencies, that lasted forty-one days, detailed
by Les Zaitz in The Oregonian, that lasted forty-one days.
Since they had left the refuge before without incident, they
expected this day, on January 26, 2016, to be no different. Imagine their
shock, when the ambush and shooting occurred soon after LaVoy, Ryan and
Ammon Bundy and Shawna Cox and Victoria Sharp, along with several others,
started on their way to meet peacefully with Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer
in John Day County. They had viewed their act of civil disobedience as a simple
demonstration, much less severe and dangerous than other protests generated by
Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, who were destroying entire cities
without any real consequence from law enforcement.
After successfully evading the first road block, LaVoy told
his friends, "Better understand how this thing is going to end. I'm going
to be laying down on the ground with my blood on the street, or I'm going to
see the sheriff. We got people en route."
Posted by OPB
Published on Mar 8, 2016
According to Robert Cary, Astarita's lawyer, it was at this
point that one Oregon State Patrolman radioed ahead to "Officer 1"
and stated, "We're going to have to shoot LaVoy Finicum."
At the second roadblock, shots rained down on LaVoy's truck
before he ever stopped, forcing him to plow into a snow bank, allegedly just
narrowly missing an FBI agent. And, as he jumped from the truck, to draw fire
from his friends, with his hands raised above his head, two shots rang out, one
shattering the driver's side passenger window and striking Ryan Bundy in the
shoulder.
In Shawna Cox's video of the ambush, one hears the police
telling him to "Get down" and LaVoy yelling, "You're gonna
have to shoot me". Cox is heard asking, "Damn it, are they shooting
him? ... You assholes."
Jeanette Finicum
The April 24th 2018 amendment (see
page 51, number 269) to Jeanette Finicum's current lawsuit for
the wrongful death of her husband speaks volumes:
"The FBI, OSP and other
defendants have publicly defended the deliberate ambush and murder of LaVoy on
January 26, 2016, by alleging that after he exited the vehicle, and after he
had been shot with at least five lethal rounds (as well as unknown number of non-lethal
rounds), and after he repeatedly placed his hands on top of his head in a
surrender position; that he appeared to be reaching into his jacket."
One of the most damning points within Mrs.
Finicum's complaint, found on page 33, highlights the fact that at
the time of the so-called "traffic stop", there was still no sworn
affidavit or probable cause statement or indictment against LaVoy or any of his
friends accompanying him. Neither was there any arrest warrant for anyone
involved.
Witnesses are on record noting that Astarita's face was
contorted after the shooting, and he was loud and "so amped up" that
a supervisor had to calm him down. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Sussman also noted:
"Only one guy (Astarita) stood in just the right spot. ... Only one guy
aimed right at Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum's pickup [and] fired two shots in rapid
succession."
Astarita's trial follows a growing resentment among American
patriots for a federal bureaucracy that is out of control, even to the point of
committing sedition, possibly treason, against a sitting U.S. president. It
also doesn't help that the FBI has a long history of arbitrary, tyrannical
actions, detailed
by Leah Sottile, such as witnessed in 1992, when an FBI team
descended on Ruby
Ridge and the home of Randy Weaver,
a U.S. Army Special Forces Veteran, and a sniper murdered Vicki Weaver,
as she stood in the cabin doorway holding the couple's baby.
Just before stepping from LaVoy's truck, hands raised, Ryan
Payne looked out and saw LaVoy lying in the snow. He turned towards Shawna Cox
and Victoria Sharp and said, "LaVoy is dead."
It doesn't really matter, in the end, whose bullets killed
LaVoy, because it shouldn't have ended like this anyway. LaVoy had time and
again stated a desire to make sure that the stand-off ended peacefully, and up
until the day of the ambush, there wasn't any reason to believe that it
wouldn't, since LaVoy had been in constant contact with Sheriff Glenn Palmer,
who was quite sympathetic to the cowboy's cause. These men weren't
"anti-government"; they were anti-tyranny.
During the 2016 trial that acquitted Ammon Bundy and six
other defendants, the FBI and Oregon Highway Patrol both testified they could
not have identified specific legal reasons for the stop. This can only mean
that had law enforcement not escalated the situation, LaVoy Finicum would have
also been acquitted and alive and well at home with his family.
Robert Lavoy Finicum was willing to die for his ideas, the
Constitution and freedom, and as we rise to a new sun each day, we must work in
this America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, to ensure that
not any future Democrat led administration, or any administration, can ever
target conservative protests in such an egregious manner, impeding liberty each
step of the way and executing us at will. The Finicum's fight to hold the
federal government accountable for its arrogant lawlessness, dishonesty and
violence is America's fight.
LaVoy was a good man, gunned down in cold blood. And
whether or not any degree of justice comes out of this trial, God's accounting
awaits each of us one day. I pray to God justice be served and the Finicum
Family finds peace of mind and heart.
By Justin O. Smith
______________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Text embraced by brackets and
source links are by the Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
