The Randy Weaver Family: Ruby Ridge (Part One)
The Randy Weaver Family: Ruby Ridge (Part Two)
Ruby Ridge was the site of an 11-day siege in 1992 in Boundary County, Idaho, near Naples. It began on August 21, when deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) initiated action to apprehend and arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant after his failure to appear on firearms charges. Weaver said he would not surrender, and members of his immediate family, and family friend Kevin Harris, resisted as well. The Hostage Rescue Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI HRT) became involved as the siege developed.
Randy Weaver, a former Iowa factory worker and U.S. Army Green Beret, moved with his wife and four children to northern Idaho during the 1980s so they could "home-school his children and escape what he and his wife Vicki saw as a corrupted world." In 1978, Vicki, the religious leader of the family, began to have recurrent dreams of living on a mountaintop and believed that the apocalypse was imminent. After the birth of their son, Samuel, the Weavers began selling their belongings and learning to live without electricity. They bought twenty acres (8 ha) of land on Ruby Ridge in 1983 and began building a cabin; the property was in Boundary County on a hillside on Ruby Creek opposite Caribou Ridge, northwest of nearby Naples, Idaho.
In 1984, Randy Weaver and his neighbor Terry Kinnison had a dispute over a $3,000 land deal. Kinnison lost the ensuing lawsuit and was ordered to pay Weaver an additional $2,100 in court costs and damages. Kinnison wrote letters to the FBI, Secret Service, and county sheriff alleging Weaver had threatened to kill Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan, and Idaho Governor John V. Evans.
In January 1985, the FBI and Secret Service began an investigation of allegations that Weaver had made threats against Reagan and other government and law enforcement officials. On February 12, Randy and Vicki Weaver were interviewed by two FBI agents, two Secret Service agents, and the Boundary County sheriff and his chief investigator. The Secret Service had been told that Weaver was a member of the white supremacist group Aryan Nations and that he had a large weapons cache at his residence. Weaver denied these allegations, and the government filed no charges.
The investigation noted that Weaver associated with Frank Kumnick, who was known to associate with members of Aryan Nations. Weaver told the investigators that neither he nor Kumnick was a member of Aryan Nations and described Kumnick as "associated with The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord." On February 28, Randy and Vicki Weaver filed an affidavit with the county courthouse alleging that their personal enemies were plotting to provoke the FBI into attacking and killing the Weaver family. On May 6, Randy and Vicki Weaver sent Reagan a letter claiming that Weaver's enemies may have sent Reagan a threatening letter under a forged signature. No evidence of such a letter surfaced, but the 1985 letter was cited by the prosecutor in 1992 as Overt Act 7 of the Weaver family conspiracy against the federal government.
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