This post had been updated.
The family of an Oregon occupier who was killed in an encounter with law enforcement last month is now accusing the government of engaging in a “cover-up” of the man’s “unjustified” death,” The Oregonian reported.
LaVoy Finicum’s family released a statement Tuesday claiming new information from another standoff leader — who was at the scene of Finicum’s death and has since been released from federal custody — led them to believe that the FBI and the Oregon State Police are “seeking to manipulate and mislead the media and the American public about what really happened.”
The family said it based its claims on the account of fellow occupier Shawna Cox, who was among those arrested Jan. 26, when the authorities confronted a group of occupiers traveling to a community meeting dozens of miles away from the federal wildlife refuge they had taken over. Cox has emerged as a key witness to the shooting. She gave an account of what happened during the encounter in a web-based talk show last weekend. Another occupier, Mark McConnell, who was present for the initial traffic stop but not for the shooting, has claimed that Cox told him Finicum “charged” the police before he was shot. The family in its statement dismissed McConnell: “[A]t this point it seems fairly obvious that McConnell was either an undercover agent who was helping to orchestrate the whole thing, or he was bribed somehow.”
In the statement, the Finicum family said it believes that law enforcement began firing on Finicum before he exited his vehicle. Finicum was driving a white truck that authorities said fled officers after the initial stop. Aerial video released by the FBI showed the white truck plowing into a snow bank after it encountered a road block further down the highway. The family’s statement suggested that once he did leave his truck, his gesture towards his waistband that appeared to be him possibly reaching for a weapon was actually an “involuntary physical reflex.” The statement said that Cox also told the family that the authorities made no serious effort to treat Finicum’s gunshot wounds, and would not let Cox — who said she was an EMT — administer care herself.
Days after the shooting, the FBI released video of the encounter, in order, agency officials said, to counter the alternative accounts — “some of them inflammatory” — emerging about Finicum’s death.
The Finicum family, in its statement Tuesday, accused the FBI of “preemptive efforts to manipulate public opinion under the guise of transparency” and is demanding further evidence from Finicum’s death be released, including an audio recording from Cox’s phone, dash-cam video and images of Finicum’s truck.
Even IF the OSP (NOT the FBI, they were not at the roadblock) fired on Finicum after he exited the vehicle, he exited the vehicle after attempting to run a roadblock and had to be assumed to be armed and dangerous. IT would STILL be a righteous and legal shoot in such a case.
Of course. Claiming a vast conspiracy is the only way to keep the donations coming…
The only “cover up” around here is when you’ll be throwing dirt on his coffin. I hate to be so cold, but I hate even more these self-righteous militant gunned-up traitorous goons who insist on more and more handouts from the rest of us who think they can draw down on law enforcement without consequences.
This ain’t an episode of Gunsmoke. If you arm yourself against the Feds, shit gets real really really fast. The unfortunate thing is that your self-righteousness will prevent you from learning the lessons this incident offers. Such is the plight of the anti-intellectual right.
they forgot to mention the Men in Black and the Black Helicopters providing air support…
Their alternative is to say “Yeah, our brother/father/husband was a dangerously violent jerk.” Which is something of a step in the immediate aftermath of a patriarch’s death. How long the denial/anger phase will last is anyone’s guess.