Court Blasts FBI Actions at Ruby Ridge

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday excoriated the FBI for the conduct of its agents during the deadly August 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, saying the “shoot to kill” policy that agents used was “a gross deviation from constitutional principles and a wholly unwarranted return to a lawless and arbitrary Wild West school of law enforcement.”

In a unanimous decision written by Los Angeles Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the special rules that led to the death of the wife and 14-year-old son of white separatist Randy Weaver and the severe wounding of their friend Kevin Harris “violated clearly established law, and any reasonable law enforcement officer should have been aware of that fact.”

A three-judge panel reached these conclusions while rejecting the contentions of 13 FBI agents and U.S. marshals that they were entitled to qualified immunity for their conduct at Ruby Ridge.

The decision Thursday in Harris vs. Horiuchi paves the way for a $10-million civil rights case filed by Harris against the agents to go to trial unless the ruling is reversed by a larger panel of 9th Circuit judges or the U.S. Supreme Court. None of the attorneys for the agents returned telephone calls seeking comment. Justice Department and FBI officials declined to comment.

Harris’ lawyer, David Z. Nevin, of Boise, Idaho, said he was pleased about the 9th Circuit’s decision. “We’re looking forward to getting this case to trial and airing these issues. This is one step in an extremely long road,” Nevin said.

Thursday’s ruling represents the latest of many black marks against the FBI stemming from the Ruby Ridge incident, an event that became a rallying symbol for many anti-government activists, including convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh.

In October, E. Michael Kahoe, former head of the FBI’s violent crime unit, pleaded guilty to obstructing justice by shredding an internal agency report on the incident. Four other agents were suspended, including FBI Deputy Director Larry Potts. But in mid-August, federal prosecutors concluded that they had found insufficient evidence to prosecute them. Nonetheless, an internal Justice Department inquiry of the incident is continuing, department officials confirmed Thursday.

Nearly a year earlier, in December 1995, a U.S. Senate panel that investigated the event concluded that there were “substantial failures” by U.S. law enforcement agencies.

“The events at Ruby Ridge have helped to weaken the bond of trust that must exist between ordinary Americans and our law enforcement agencies,” the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism said in its report on the incident in which a deputy U.S. marshal died along with Weaver’s wife and son.

The siege began when U.S. marshals seeking to apprehend Randy Weaver on a weapons charge came upon Harris, Weaver, his son Sammy and the family dog Striker at the intersection of two roads near the Weaver property, according to the 9th Circuit. A marshal shot and killed the dog, prompting Sammy to fire at the marshal. Soon thereafter, another marshal shot and killed Sammy and in an ensuing gun battle, U.S. Marshal Michael Degan was shot and killed. Not long afterward, a team of FBI sharpshooters from the agency’s Hostage and Rescue Team arrived at the area, and the next day one of them, Lon T. Horiuchi, shot and killed Weaver’s wife.

There continue to be disputes about what happened at Ruby Ridge, including sharp disagreements among FBI officials about who was responsible for changes in the agency’s normal shooting policies that resulted in the death of Vicki Weaver and the couple’s son.

Normally, the hostage team operates under the FBI’s standard rules of engagement, which provide that “an FBI agent may kill a person with whom he or she comes into contact only when the person presents an immediate risk of death or great bodily harm to the agent or another person.”

However, as Thursday’s decision emphasized, a group of FBI and Marshals Service officials created special rules for Ruby Ridge after the Aug. 21, 1992, shootout just a day before Vicki Weaver was shot. The special rules provided that “any armed adult male observed in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be killed.” No FBI official has ever been willing to accept responsibility for the change in policy.

On Aug. 22, after being told to follow the special rules by Richard Rogers, the head of the Hostage Team, several members of the team took positions on a hill overlooking the Weaver cabin, according to the decision joined by Judges Sidney Thomas of Montana and John W. Sedwick of Alaska.

A few hours later, Weaver, his daughter, Sarah, and Harris walked out of the cabin and headed for a shed to prepare Sammy’s body for burial, according to the 9th Circuit. Soon thereafter, Weaver was shot by FBI sniper Horiuchi.

Weaver and the others began to run back to the cabin. As his wife held the door open with one hand and held their infant daughter, Elisheba, in her other arm, she was shot in the head and killed instantly. The bullet passed through her and hit Harris in the upper arm and chest.

Harris’ suit contends that Horiuchi intended to kill him and Vicki Weaver. Horiuchi told a Senate committee in 1995 that he killed Vicki Weaver inadvertently, while aiming at Harris, who, according to Horiuchi, was attempting to shoot at FBI personnel in a helicopter. Harris’ suit contends that this is untrue, and he alleges that other law enforcement personnel lied about other matters as well.

In August, Justice Department officials said that their two-year criminal probe of the Ruby Ridge incident determined that willfulness on Horiuchi’s part in the killing of Vicki Weaver could not be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Willfulness is an essential element to proving a federal criminal civil rights violation.

However, on Aug. 21, an Idaho county prosecutor charged Horiuchi with involuntary manslaughter for killing Vicki Weaver.

On Thursday, the 9th Circuit panel said that “examining Horiuchi’s actions from the perspective of a reasonable law enforcement officer faced with the need to make on-the-spot decisions, it is plain to us that his actions were not objectively reasonable.”

The judges added: “Horiuchi and his fellow officers were safely ensconced on the hill overlooking the Weaver cabin. No threatening movement was made by Harris with respect to Horiuchi or anyone else, even after Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver.”

As for the other 12 defendants, the judges said Harris’ allegation that they actively encouraged Horiuchi’s actions through the formulation of the special rules of engagement was sufficient to state a valid claim under applicable federal court precedents.

Harris and Weaver surrendered after spending eight days in the cabin following the shootout. In 1993, a federal court acquitted them of murder, conspiracy and other charges related to Degan’s death, while convicting Weaver of unrelated firearms charges.

The next year, the two men filed federal civil rights cases against the FBI and U.S. marshals stemming from the siege. In 1995, the government settled Weaver’s case for $3.1 million.

But government officials asked that Harris’ case be dismissed on the grounds that they had qualified immunity because they had acted properly in their official capacity. A federal trial judge in Boise rejected most of their arguments, setting the stage for an appeal that led to Thursday’s ruling.

Harris’ next move, his attorney said, is to ask a state court judge in Idaho to dismiss first-degree murder charges filed against his client by Bounty County prosecutor Denise Woodbury in August for the murder of Degan. The lawyer contends that the charges should be dropped on double jeopardy grounds.

Harris is free on $5,000 bail on the Idaho charges and is working as a welder in Republic, Wash.

Times staff writers Robert L. Jackson and Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.