The widow of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum is suing the Oregon State Police, the FBI and others over her husband’s death during the 2016 armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
Jeanette Finicum filed a wrongful death lawsuit Friday, the second anniversary of her husband’s death. The lawsuit is for $5 million each for herself, her 12 children and her deceased husband’s estate, a total of $70 million plus court costs, The Oregonian reports.
LaVoy was “fatally shot three times in the back, assassination style, by one or more militarized officers of the Oregon State Police and/or FBI,” the lawsuit states. “He was deliberately executed by a pre-planned government ambush, after he had exited his vehicle with his hands up.”
WATCH: Video released by the FBI shows a cellphone video from inside the cab overlaid with footage from an FBI drone in the air. Finicum’s death comes after the 5:30 mark. WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
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Days before the shooting, Jeanette had visited her husband at Malheur, staying with him from Thursday, Jan. 21, through Sunday, Jan. 24.
“My husband took me into town for breakfast, we went to church, he was actively engaged all day with people, teaching them about the Constitution and property rights,” Jeanette told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “It was a peaceful place, quite frankly.”
Jeanette’s husband was killed that Tuesday, Jan. 26.
The plaintiffs and authorities have made a series of competing claims surrounding LaVoy’s death. The situation is made more complex by the unethical and illegal actions federal prosecutors and agents took against the Bundy family, whom LaVoy was with at Malheur, and the ongoing trial of FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita.
Astarita was a member of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and fired two shots into LaVoy’s pickup after it crashed into a snowbank. Astarita “falsely stated he had not fired his weapon during the attempted arrest of Robert LaVoy Finicum,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Pamala Holsinger wrote in the indictment, according to OPB.
Astarita had opened fire on LaVoy’s vehicle after it swerved into a snowbank to avoid hitting an FBI roadblock. LaVoy, who was driving, and three others in his backseat, including Ryan Bundy, had been trying to outrun federal authorities. They were en route to a meeting with supporters in another county when authorities pulled them over. The FBI had learned about the meeting from an informant embedded at Malheur, and set up the traffic stop to take the men into custody.
Immediately after crashing, LaVoy exited his vehicle with his arms up, but dropped them to his jacket several times as he walked away from his vehicle. Federal agents circled while LaVoy called, “Go ahead and shoot me” and “You’re going to have to shoot me.”
After LaVoy reached to his side a third time, he was fatally shot by federal agents.
Authorities report that agents shot LaVoy as he was reaching for a loaded 9mm Ruger semi-automatic handgun in his jacket pocket. Officers also found two handguns and two MP15 rifles under the back seat, according to The Oregonian.
“Mr. Finicum repeatedly and knowingly made choices that put him in this situation,” Harney County District Attorney Tim Colahan said in 2016 after the investigation into LaVoy’s death. “It was not the outcome that any of us wanted but one he, alone, is responsible for.”
Jeanette maintains that the fault lie with the FBI, police, Bureau of Land Management and others involved at Malheur.
“I hope that there is accountability and justice for my husband,” Jeanette told TheDCNF. “If LaVoy hadn’t been murdered that day, he would’ve been afforded due process, his day in court and he would be a free man right now. And he would be home with our family.”
Why only 70 million?
She can be awarded more than that if the jury so decides…
Jeanette is doing us all a favor by doing this. Why? Because of discovery. The Feds are now going to be compelled to reveal a lot of inconvenient facts around this case. I don’t expect the MSM to say anything about it, but I do suspect Wikileaks, Zerohedge and many foreign news outlets to cover the discovery revelations in to what really happened here.
God, if I had a genie, and 3 wishes, one would be to be on this jury, and involved in the deliberations and penalty decisions against the government…
If we did not have a DOJ that seems to be obsessed with pot smokers and asset forfeiture, some of these revelations would result in criminal investigations and prosecutions. One can dream….
The sad part of this is that, although the family will most likely receive a multi-million-dollar “settlement”, there will be no “admission of guilt” and those responsible will not suffer any (deserved) repercussions for their murderous actions.
There is precedence for “lack of accountability” in just about any government wrongdoing.
In both Vicki Weaver’s murder and at Waco, the government officials were given PROMOTIONS and BONUSES for their actions.
Even local “law enforcement” officers are not responsible for their actions, as they are very rarely disciplined or fired for their “wrongdoing”, but merely given a taxpayer-paid “vacation”. Those who are fired for wrongdoing merely move to another police department.
The “rule of law” has broken down to such an extent, that it is unwise to cooperate with ANY government agency, whenever possible. Stay as far away from them as possible.
Still, even a settlement will be an admission of guilt, so the lawsuit is a very good thing…
Comey’s and Obama’s FBI!!!
Randy Weaver 2.0!!!
The real horror in this sordid story is the attitude of the holi-poli. Many (most?) people and the MSM here in Oregon were delighted to hear of LaVoy’s murder. Only the few, Oathkeepers and such, seem to care there have been acquittals and an FBI agent is in the dock for his corrupt actions in this case.
Randy Weaver was paid nearly seven million dollars for his wife and son; seems like a bargain, for the killers! The only recompense for the families, friends, and admirers of these men and women of courage, will come when the rest of us find the grit to bring justice back to, “The Land of The Free.”
So Finicum set terms of “over my dead body”, that he wouldn’t be taken alive and would have to be shot, and the Fed’s accepted his terms.
The lesson is never present terms you are not wanting to be accepted, those you present them to may find them acceptable.
What the fuck is matter with you? Watch the video
It will not be justice unless the murderers are executed, preferably by a firing squad.
Even if they ‘win’ the $70 million, it will do nothing to dissuade the Jack Boots in the future. $70 million is a mere rounding error in their egregiously bloated budget. Congress would just appropriate that much more for them.
And people wonder why I rejoice when I read about a copfuk who gets shot.
Easy to feel that way Stuck…. I’d be right there with you except for my son-in law who is perhaps the most decorated cop in a major city PD. He has a medal of valor (amongst many) for taking a perp alive and getting stabbed several times for his trouble. Would have been easy to use the M-4, but he didn’t. He is a man of honor. We need to pressure TPB to hire more like him.
TPB hires cops now?
I think TPTB was intended.
“It will not be justice unless the murderers are executed, preferably by a firing squad.”
A scoped deer rifle would get the job done more efficiently.
That was rough.
Thanks so much for posting it, I needed to see it.
Any question regarding the fact we now live in a police state ! Asset forfeiture for fun and profit , badge wearing minions making demands and filing charges and arrests on citizens without any probable cause and the ultimate taking of life . The devaluation of the term HERO ! People in government service be they police , fire , or military are not all HEROs , Heroism is an individual act of bravery to protect and defend without regard of personal safety . It’s not that it does not happen and many answer the call . Waking up and putting on a uniform with a sense of duty and pride is great but don’t let it inflate your self importance and ego . The next thing you know you will be dragging a nurse out of an emergency room or shooting somebody who has reached the end of tolerance for all the injustice in our society sadly coming from people we are taught to depend on in a crisis .
This is my home ground.
I was raised in the little town just north of where this happened, and my ranch is south of Burns toward the Refuge.
I don’t trust the gov. – period. Especially the Oregon gov. Of course, this should be a wake up call, but it’s not. Pretty much a lot of shit-talking, and using this for your/theirs own agenda. Just a lot of hot air, and “Why, I woulda-“, or “They shoulda -“.
That’s why my view of coming future events is so dismal, at least in this material world.
You would be surprised how many people in this seriously secluded county STILL drink in the MSM sewage, people I personally know and who are good people.
The kick-off for this whole thing was the Hammonds being screwed. Every avenue of dialogue was shut down, every attempt to bring it to national attention was shut down. Well, the Refuge incident sure got attention.
When these things happen, to the point of LaVoy’s death, and half the county thinks he had it coming, we’re toast.
I’ve been around the world, lived overseas, lived around the U.S. of A. and this hometown of mine is about the most personally-connected, secluded, individualistic and conservative areas you will ever find. Practically everyone knows the Hammonds and thought they got the shaft. The malfeasance, corruption and control-freak shit from start to finish was blatantly obvious, from the Feds right down to local pols.
Where’s the outrage? If it happens here, it will happen in your necks o’ the woods, too.
We had convoys of 20 or 30 Fed black SUVs running all over, they took over the dinky little airport. We had a gutless sheriff. They shut down the fucking schools!, for something going on 30 miles away. But the school in Crane, much closer to the Refuge, stayed open. Took over the courthouse and put up a damn Green Zone barricade around it.
You get the idea.
If there was going to be a push-back by ‘the people’, it would’ve happened here. It didn’t. And it won’t until things get so bad, they have no other choice. And still half or more will drop their heads and shuffle off to wherever TPTB move them. For their own good, of course.
There’s a shit-storm coming, folks. Precisely because too many good people have gone too far down the rabbit hole to ever come back.
You better set your eyes on eternity, because everything else is in free-fall.
When the Aquifer under the heartland starts drying up, the Breadbasket on the central plains will become the battleground for federal overreach.
Got Water?
TS? The Feds seized a shitload of farmland, falsely claiming it to be protected swamplands in the region around the Mississippi alluvial plain. My father lost more than 15 acres of arable farmland because he’d allowed groves of trees to grow on his own land after WWII. The Feds declared the trees to be all protected swamp and now no one is allowed to farm that land. That is repeated all over by incompetent government bureaucrats who know nothing about land management and everything about kissing ass and keeping their government job.
So true Maggie , the water meter is running close to empty and where is T . Boone Pickens regarding his ownership of water ???
Thanks TS, you said more in a few words than I have heard before on this subject. The Burns occupation was not the first and will not be the last. I have been over there several times since the stand-off and have, as a stranger, listened in on the locals conversations about this subject. It is the same in Burns I think, as it is in many places throughout the land. In cafes, motels, airports, private homes-well just about everywhere- the day starts with a television leading the conversation and directing the inquiry. You are totally correct that a shitstorm is coming. I have been anticipating it since I returned from my military ‘service’ nearly fifty years ago. I can’t believe this clown show has gone on for so long! It will continue until things get so bad that the average guy is more worried about providing security and sustenance for his family than doing maintenance on the bass boat or rubbing down the Harley.