Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

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Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Dominus Atheos »

An FBI agent accused of lying about firing two shots at Oregon standoff spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum faces a five-count indictment, charging him with three counts of making a false statement and two counts of obstruction of justice.

W. Joseph Astarita, 40, dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, white dress shirt and red-and-blue striped tie, made his first appearance on the indictment Wednesday in a packed federal courtroom, with heightened security inside and in the corridors of the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse.

A lawyer standing beside Astarita entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to all charges. Astarita will remain out of custody pending trial.

Astarita is accused of firing twice at Finicum but missing him as Finicum emerged from his white truck after swerving into a snowbank to avoid a law enforcement roadblock on U.S. 395 in Harney County.

Finicum had sped away from a state police and FBI stop moments earlier as authorities tried to arrest leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation on Jan. 26, 2016. As he crashed in the snow, Finicum's truck nearly struck another FBI agent, police said.

The indictment says Astarita, who served as a member of the elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team, "falsely stated he had not fired his weapon during the attempted arrest of Robert LaVoy Finicum, when he knew then and there that he had fired his weapon.''

Astarita is accused of lying to three supervisory FBI agents, concealing from Oregon investigators that he fired his weapon and failing to alert the FBI's Shooting Incident Response Team about his shooting as required.

"Defendant acted with the intent to hinder, delay and prevent the communication of information from the Oregon State Police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation relating to the possible commission of a federal offense,'' the indictment says.

The criminal indictment stems from an 18-month-long investigation by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Defense lawyer Alison Clark represented Astarita during the two-minute hearing but told the court that Astarita expects to obtain his own local attorney. U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart set a trial date for Aug. 29. Assistant U.S. Attorney Pamala Holsinger estimated a trial would last a week.

The indictment will likely cast a shadow on the highly trained FBI Hostage Rescue Team and fuel Finicum supporters and groups fighting government control of public land.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, working with the Deschutes County Major Incident Team, conducted the investigation. A Deschutes County sheriff's detective who was involved in the investigation attended the court hearing.

Oregon's U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams held a news conference after the hearing, standing with Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson, Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton, Special Agent-in-Charge Michael Tompkins of the Office of the Inspector General and Holsinger, the U.S. Attorney's Office chief criminal prosecutor.

Williams said Astarita's alleged actions don't call into question earlier investigation findings that Oregon State Police were justified in using deadly force against Finicum.

Sheriff Nelson credited his investigators for "going where the evidence led'' and discovering the the FBI shots. Nelson, though, said he was "disappointed and angry'' that the FBI Hostage Rescue Team's actions "damage the integrity of the entire law enforcement profession.''

The sheriff also criticized the FBI for failing to place the agent and his fellow Hostage Rescue Team members on paid leave after he and investigators traveled to FBI headquarters over a year ago. They briefed the FBI's then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, now acting director, about their findings and potential criminal liability, he said.

"Today's indictment will ensure that the defendant and hopefully any other HRT members will be held accountable through the justice process,'' Nelson said.

The FBI agent's bullets didn't hit Finicum, 54, an Arizona rancher who was one of the leaders of the Jan. 2 takeover of the federal bird sanctuary near Burns.

Moments later, state troopers shot Finicum three times after he emerged from his white truck at the roadblock and reached for his inner jacket pocket, where police said he had a loaded 9mm handgun. Bullets struck him in the back and one pierced his heart, an autopsy found.

The FBI and state police had moved in on Ammon Bundy and other key occupation figures as they were driving from the refuge to a community meeting about 100 miles away in John Day.

Oregon investigators concluded that Astarita fired twice at the truck, hitting it in the roof and missing on the second shot. A state trooper later described seeing two rifle casings in the area where the FBI agents were posted. But detectives who arrived later at the scene to investigate didn't find the casings, police reports indicated. None of the members of the Hostage Rescue Team acknowledged the shooting, the investigators said.

The indictment follows two federal trials against refuge occupiers accused of conspiring to impede U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management employees from doing their work through intimidation, threat or force.

Ammon Bundy, his older brother Ryan Bundy and five other defendants were acquitted of conspiracy and weapon charges last fall. Two other co-defendants were found guilty of conspiracy after a trial this year. Others were found guilty of misdemeanor charges, such as trespass. Eleven other refuge occupiers pleaded guilty to the federal conspiracy charge.

"I'm encouraged. I'm thrilled that the grand jury came back with this finding,'' said Finicum's widow, Jeannette Finicum.

But she said she also has concerns about the lack of charges for the other four FBI agents at the scene with Astarita. She said she listened to the U.S. attorney's press conference and agrees that the agent should be considered innocent until proven guilty. She said she wished that same standard would apply to the Bundys and others, who have been incarcerated for more than a year awaiting trial in Nevada.

"The Finicum family applauds the U.S. Department of Justice for doing this. Nobody is above the law,'' said their lawyer, Brian Claypool. "The fact that the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in and investigated one of their own and said, 'You can't obstruct justice, you're not above the law' sends a very positive message. This is about upholding public trust and preserving the integrity of any investigation involving a death at the hands of law enforcement.''

The Finicum family has put Oregon State Police and the U.S. government on notice of its intent to file a civil claim alleging excessive force in Finicum's death. No lawsuit has been filed yet, but the agent's indictment will only serve to support the civil case, Claypool said.

Claypool said he believes that the agent didn't admit shooting at Finicum when he did because the timing of the shots wasn't justified. When Finicum crashed into the snowbank, he "was not posing a risk of serious harm'' and the shots escalated the situation, Claypool said.

Other law enforcement experts privately questioned whether the agent didn't admit he fired shots because he missed his target.

During the occupation trials, defense lawyers urged the judge to compel the government to turn over investigative records of the FBI's alleged misconduct. But U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown said the FBI's actions weren't relevant to the conspiracy, weapons and other charges against Ammon Bundy and the others.

On Wednesday, federal officials wouldn't say whether Astarita is still working for the FBI or has been placed on leave or if any action has been taken against the other members of his FBI Hostage Rescue Team at the scene of the Finicum stop and shooting. An FBI spokeswoman also declined any comment.

Hampton, the Oregon state police superintendent, said he was discouraged that the FBI agent's actions may diminish law enforcement's reputation. He said the actions, however, don't represent the FBI or hundreds of others involved in the arrests of the occupation leaders.

When the investigation of the FBI's actions was announced last year, former FBI agents and criminal justice experts said they were stunned that an agent might lie about firing his gun. That the bullets missed their apparent target drew even more disbelief.

"Here you have one of the best trained units in the FBI. They're only supposed to shoot when there's an active threat. You would hope they would be accurate in doing so,'' said Michael German, a 16-year veteran of the FBI who now serves as a national security expert and fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York University's School of Law.

"In the FBI, the most important thing is to tell the truth,'' said Danny Coulson, who served as special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon from 1988 to 1991 before becoming the agency's deputy assistant director in charge of terrorism operations. Coulson was the first commander of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team and was a deputy FBI director during the bloody 1992 shootout in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. He now runs a security consulting business in Texas.

A conviction for making false statements can result in a sentence of up to five years in prison. A conviction for obstruction of justice can lead to a sentence of up to 20 years, according to federal prosecutors.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by The Romulan Republic »

On the one hand, I believe cops should be held accountable if they act improperly.

On the other hand, I really, really don't like the idea of this shit stain Finicum being made into an anti-government militia martyr, and being used to incite further terrorism.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Dominus Atheos »



This entire incident was a clusterfuck from beginning to end on every side. It started with a wildfire, which some cowliphate members try to keep off their land by starting a "backblaze" after being told not to. The backblaze gets out of control and forces some firefighters who were battling the first fire to withdraw. The government charges the cowliphs with "terroristic arson" instead of regular plain old arson, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence.

The judge says "that's bullshit" and sentences them to less than the minimum. The prosecutor in the case appeals (I didn't even know they could appeal a verdict, only defense), and gets a ruling that the Cowliphs have to go back to prison, having been let out after completing the below minimum sentence.

So already every person involved has done something that at least qualifies as "boneheaded". Also, why the fuck was this case not appealed to the supreme court? These are great defendants for a test case striking down mandatory minimums, IE they are white and probably reasonably rich if they own a lot of land and cattle.

Meanwhile Vanilla ISIS is in nevada going
Stop
Mobilize and listen#VanillaISIS back w/ a brand new militia
BLM grab the land so tightly
Illegally graze my cattle nightly

Bum dumb dumb da da dumb dumb. Bum dumb dumb dumb da da. Vanilla ISIS baby!
Then some more members of Y'all Qaeda get involved by... "occupying" a bird sanctuary and it's gift shop. WTF? What did you think that was going to accomplish? This isn't exactly storming the Bastille here. So people mostly just write off these Yokel Haram guys.

Including apparently the FBI who just sit and wait outside the bird sanctuary/gift shop. They don't restrict travel from or even to the camp, or try in anyway to restrict supplies to the Yee-hawdists. They were driving government owned trucks up to the local kmart on grocery runs.

Finally, several months later the fbi decide to ambush some of the leaders of the Talibundy while they are driving. During the ambush one gets out and decides that he wants to get martyred so he can go to heaven and get his 72 cousins.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

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Not done, but I have to go to bed now, try to finish tomorrow.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Joun_Lord »

No sympathy for the douches who occupied the reserve. Didn't want them dead, both because killing should be a last resort and because I think making martyrs of them would make things worse, nor do I think they are on the level of AQ or ISIS but still I think they are criminals who deserve to be treated harshly by the law. But not illegally.

This FBI agent acted improperly, he lied, and needs punished for it. Finicumstain came close to running down some cops and apparently came out of his truck in a manner that looked like he was reaching for a gun. While I'd prefer cops to identify a actual threat before opening fire I ain't broken up all that much when they fire upon someone who is acting like Finicumguzzler. There seemed to be no point lying about it.

The Bundy bitches are the bad guys because they disregard laws when it suits them, they lie, they steal, they interfere with hardworking individuals because apparently they abhor hard work, and they destroy irreplaceable Native artifacts. You don't remain the good guy by stooping to their level.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Flagg »

You can appeal a sentence, not a verdict. Pretty funny how President Golftrip gets selected by Vlad And The Vodka Fueled Hacker Brigade and the Nazilla's go quiet.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Dominus Atheos »

Ok, I'm out of horrible redneck terrorist puns, 72 cousins was the last one I had. That was the main reason I stopped.

Also, the police/fbi shot Finicum way too quickly. Although that's just my opinion, and I'm probably the only person on the planet who thinks that the Finicum shooting and the Tamir Rice shooting were both equally wrong.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Flagg »

Dominus Atheos wrote:Ok, I'm out of horrible redneck terrorist puns, 72 cousins was the last one I had. That was the main reason I stopped.

Also, the police/fbi shot Finicum way too quickly. Although that's just my opinion, and I'm probably the only person on the planet who thinks that the Finicum shooting and the Tamir Rice shooting were both equally wrong.
No, the sad fact is that as much as I'm glad that fucker is dead, it doesn't mean the way they went about it was right.

And they are siblingfuckers. Cousinfuckers have a history of the pretense of class, like FDR and Einstein.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but this ruling has absolutely nothing to do with a determination of whether or not the shooting itself was justified, but simply the fact that the FBI agent in question was caught lying about the details of the shooting. Granted, it doesn't look good that the agent lied about it, but that doesn't inherently make the shooting un-justifiable in and of itself. The family hasn't even filed a lawsuit alleging such, yet, even if this may embolden them to do so.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

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I'll have to disagree that Finicum's and Rice's shootings are at all comparable. Rice was a kid playing at a park. Finicum was a militia wingnut who talked again and again about his willingness to shoot it out with police. He then fled a felony motor vehicle stop at a high rate of speed before almost ramming a road block. He then exited his vehicle while repeatedly reaching for a gun. Finicum had every chance to surrender and de escalate the situation. Rice had no chance as the cops rolled up to him and shot immediately.

As to the FBI agent he should be facing the music on this. Lying is probably sending him to jail and ending his career. Missing a couple shots under high stress at worst gets him kicked off the HRT at worst but he'd then be able to continue as an agent after a career speed bump. Really stupid. It will be interesting to contrast what happens here with the case of the Chicago officers who recently got indicted for lying in their reports about the Laquan McDonald shooting.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Steel »

Raj Ahten wrote:I'll have to disagree that Finicum's and Rice's shootings are at all comparable. Rice was a kid playing at a park. Finicum was a militia wingnut who talked again and again about his willingness to shoot it out with police. He then fled a felony motor vehicle stop at a high rate of speed before almost ramming a road block. He then exited his vehicle while repeatedly reaching for a gun. Finicum had every chance to surrender and de escalate the situation. Rice had no chance as the cops rolled up to him and shot immediately.
Depending on how you read this, it puts the shooting in a slightly different light.

In the original story, it looks like he drove at police, crashed, got out with his hands up and then tried to grab a gun and is shot by police.

In the new version, it sounds like immediately upon getting out he was shot at twice, while not visibly armed. Then tries to grab a gun and is shot.

Police shooting to stop a vehicle driving at them would be ok, and police shooting someone grabbing a gun is ok, but shooting at someone who is not visibly armed and surrounded with no chance of escape is not good.

Would be interesting to see exactly how it happened with this new information.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Elheru Aran »

Steel wrote:
Depending on how you read this, it puts the shooting in a slightly different light.
[snip]

Would be interesting to see exactly how it happened with this new information.
I'm not sure that it changes -that- much. It sounds like the only real difference is now that this FBI agent popped off a few shots before Finicum decided to suicide-by-police, and after the fact he decided to try and conceal his fuck-up. I suspect that this all happened very quickly and as such, that's why it's taken a pretty good while for this to finally come out-- they had to take the time to figure out what all happened in those few moments, notice that someone from their side started shooting -before- Finicum went for his pistol, and then start tracking down the disrepancies in the various agents' reports.

Finicum and the Bundys still tried to elude the FBI, got run down, and Finicum still tried to pull a gun on them before getting shot at. The only thing this really changes is that an agent got trigger-happy, and that does cast it in a slightly different light. Perhaps if they hadn't been shot at first, Finicum would've been more likely to surrender, but his attitude during the siege and escape suggests that he wasn't willing to go out softly.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Joun_Lord »

Elheru Aran wrote: Perhaps if they hadn't been shot at first, Finicum would've been more likely to surrender, but his attitude during the siege and escape suggests that he wasn't willing to go out softly.
Considering his interviews were he says pretty much says he'd rather die then be arrest, had no intention of spending any of his days in a concrete box, thats probably accurate. Apparently you don't work for the FBI. When they first tried to arrest him he allegedly said, "You back down or you kill me now. Go ahead. Put the bullet through me. I don't care. I'm going to go meet the sheriff. You do as you damned well please."

When he finally did stop and after the FBI Stormtroopers (not because they are Nazi-ish thugs but because they display poor marksmanship commonly attributed to Imperial troopers) fired and missed a cop apparently tried to apprehend him with a taser. However because he kept reaching towards his jacket while yelling "You're going to have to shoot me!" other cops took him out to protect the taser cop.

I don't think there was any peaceful way to end the situation with Finisemen, he clearly wanted to suicide by cop.

And really other then the FBI agent lying about firing his weapon, the other agents covering his ass, and maybe waiting so long to give medical attention to Finicumswallower I think the shooting is completely justified.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Raj Ahten »

Steel wrote:
Raj Ahten wrote:I'll have to disagree that Finicum's and Rice's shootings are at all comparable. Rice was a kid playing at a park. Finicum was a militia wingnut who talked again and again about his willingness to shoot it out with police. He then fled a felony motor vehicle stop at a high rate of speed before almost ramming a road block. He then exited his vehicle while repeatedly reaching for a gun. Finicum had every chance to surrender and de escalate the situation. Rice had no chance as the cops rolled up to him and shot immediately.
Depending on how you read this, it puts the shooting in a slightly different light.

In the original story, it looks like he drove at police, crashed, got out with his hands up and then tried to grab a gun and is shot by police.

In the new version, it sounds like immediately upon getting out he was shot at twice, while not visibly armed. Then tries to grab a gun and is shot.

Police shooting to stop a vehicle driving at them would be ok, and police shooting someone grabbing a gun is ok, but shooting at someone who is not visibly armed and surrounded with no chance of escape is not good.

Would be interesting to see exactly how it happened with this new information.
The whole event from the initial stop to the shooting was captured on video by an overhead surveillance aircraft. The FBI then released this footage shortly after the shooting. The video is where I'm getting my summary of events from. Here is their edited version of he video. They also released a much longer unedited version.

Frankly everyone in the truck is lucky they didn't get lit up as they approached the police roadblock like they did. Police have been ruled justified to use deadly force to stop vehicles appearing to ram them in the past. From what I've read on this case when the truck was making its approach was when the shots were likely fired.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Dominus Atheos »

For reference, the Tamir Rice video:



I'd like to know how some people can be certain that the first video shows a justified shooting and the second video shows an unjustified shooting. Because all I see are two now-dead people who did not have guns in their hands but may have been "reaching towards their waistbands" and a bunch of trigger-happy cops who like to shoot first and ask questions never.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by The Romulan Republic »

The difference?

One was a fleeing terrorist. The other was a twelve year old child who's only crime was playing with a toy gun while black.

I'm not saying Finicum got what was coming to him, but its a lot more understandable for the police to be trigger-happy in his case.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Dominus Atheos »

The Romulan Republic wrote:The difference?

One was a fleeing terrorist. The other was a twelve year old child who's only crime was playing with a toy gun while black.

I'm not saying Finicum got what was coming to him, but its a lot more understandable for the police to be trigger-happy in his case.
Ambushed terrorist. You make it sound like he was fleeing a crime he had just committed. He was driving from the wildlife refuge visitor center he "occupied" to a meeting with a local sheriff, as he'd done several times.

I know this sounds weird, but I would actually be way more ok with it if he had died during a police storming of the refuge.

The circumstances this happened in are bullshit, and Finicum didn't have to die any more than Tamir Rice did.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Joun_Lord »

Dominus Atheos wrote:I'd like to know how some people can be certain that the first video shows a justified shooting and the second video shows an unjustified shooting. Because all I see are two now-dead people who did not have guns in their hands but may have been "reaching towards their waistbands" and a bunch of trigger-happy cops who like to shoot first and ask questions never.
The first video shows someone being shot with no hesitation, without any chance for the presumed armed individual to disarm, to put his hands, to do anything but die. The second shows someone who had eluded arrest before, fled police, attempted to run a roadbloack, refused orders to put his hands up, made possibly threatening movements, and potentially endangered a law enforcement officer.

The difference between the two should be quite obvious, one is whi.......I mean one actually showed himself to be a probable danger to the law enforcement sent after him while the other was not a confirmed danger.
Dominus Atheos wrote:I know this sounds weird, but I would actually be way more ok with it if he had died during a police storming of the refuge.
I know this wasn't directed at me so apologies to sticking my e-peen in but anyway, why exactly would it be better if he was killed at the refuge?

Think about it. At the refuge Finicumsplatter would fall in a hail of bullets that invariably would have resulted in far great death then one moronic fuck. Going after him when they did meant they were only going after a few fuckheads rather then a small army, less danger to both sides. Before he attempted to run some cops down Finijizze was not doing anything worthy of being killed. He and the rest of the Malheur thieves jerked off their evil black assault weapons but didn't actually actively threaten anyone, didn't endanger anyone, their worst crime was destruction of a peoples cultural heritage which while horrible isn't really worth getting shot over.
Dominus Atheos wrote:The circumstances this happened in are bullshit, and Finicum didn't have to die any more than Tamir Rice did.
Yeah, you are correct. But Finispooge died through his own actions, died because he was too stupid to surrender, to pigheaded and proud to stop acting like he was some modern day cowfucker cowboi.

Rice died because a cop tried playing cowboy, murdered some kid who was just sitting there. Neither should have died but Rice died because someone else was an idiot while Finipearlnecklace was the idiot who got himself killed.
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Dominus Atheos wrote:
The Romulan Republic wrote:The difference?

One was a fleeing terrorist. The other was a twelve year old child who's only crime was playing with a toy gun while black.

I'm not saying Finicum got what was coming to him, but its a lot more understandable for the police to be trigger-happy in his case.
Ambushed terrorist.
Still fleeing from law enforcement, who have every right to detain a suspected terrorist, regardless of where they happen to catch up with him.
You make it sound like he was fleeing a crime he had just committed.
Not really. You're reading something into what I said that was not intended.
He was driving from the wildlife refuge visitor center he "occupied" to a meeting with a local sheriff, as he'd done several times.
No need to put "occupied" in quotes, and I don't really care what he was doing at the time- he was not an innocent.
I know this sounds weird, but I would actually be way more ok with it if he had died during a police storming of the refuge.
The problem is that that would have probably gotten a shit load of other people killed too, as much as there are times that I think it should have happened, given what they were doing.

I can understand objecting to his death, but I find it strange that you seem to object to law enforcement "ambushing" him, as if they committed a foul or something by not going after him in the most costly and risky way possible.
The circumstances this happened in are bullshit, and Finicum didn't have to die any more than Tamir Rice did.
Object to Finicum's death if you want, but I have a real problem with portraying the two as equally unreasonable.

If you can't see the difference between a twelve year old boy who is not a terrorist, and a grown man who is, when it comes to who law enforcement has reason to feel twitchy around, then I don't know what to say to you.

And this isn’t even getting into the racial implications. While the police certainly do wrongfully brutalize or kill a white man from time to time, when they do, we can be fairly certain that its for a reason other than the colour of his skin.

I guess its just more of that good old false equivalency that irritates me so much, like how third partiers can’t ever seem to come up with a criticism of the Democrats without including some variant on “They’re the same as the Republicans” or “They’re just as bad as the Republicans”.

You can criticize two things without pretending that they are equivalent.
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Raj Ahten
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Raj Ahten »

Dominus Atheos wrote:
The Romulan Republic wrote:The difference?

One was a fleeing terrorist. The other was a twelve year old child who's only crime was playing with a toy gun while black.

I'm not saying Finicum got what was coming to him, but its a lot more understandable for the police to be trigger-happy in his case.
Ambushed terrorist. You make it sound like he was fleeing a crime he had just committed. He was driving from the wildlife refuge visitor center he "occupied" to a meeting with a local sheriff, as he'd done several times.

I know this sounds weird, but I would actually be way more ok with it if he had died during a police storming of the refuge.

The circumstances this happened in are bullshit, and Finicum didn't have to die any more than Tamir Rice did.
Did you miss the part of the video where two police vehicles came up behind Finicum and tried to conduct a stop on him which he then fled? He was not ambushed. Unless you call a traffic stop an ambush.

Also asking cops to see a weapon in hand before being allowed to take action under all circumstances is a ridiculous standard to hold them to. There are a myriad ways in which someone whose hands are hidden can kill you and it starts with shooting a gun from a pocket, which is quite possible with some firearms. Also once a gun is out and ready it takes no time at all to bring it into action and kill someone. Faster than you can reasonably react. And just because someone is shot doesn't mean they go down so if you wait for a gun to be pointed at you to act it can easily be game over.
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Lonestar
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by Lonestar »

Dominus Atheos wrote:
Ambushed terrorist. You make it sound like he was fleeing a crime he had just committed. He was driving from the wildlife refuge visitor center he "occupied" to a meeting with a local sheriff, as he'd done several times.

He also had interviewed several times stating that he planned to die before being arrested, and had some poorly written fanfiction published about him fighting off Federal Agents.

If I was one of the agents and I had read his profile before the ambush, and known what he had said and wrote, I would be incline to pop him if he so much as twitched.
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The Romulan Republic
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Re: Oregon Standoff/LaVoy Finicum shooting: FBI agent faces 5-count indictment for lying about shooting

Post by The Romulan Republic »

In that case, it sounds like the FBI gave him exactly what he wanted.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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