LaVoy Finicum Shot, Killed
On January 26, at around 4:30 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time), LaVoy Finicum, an Arizona rancher and spokesman for the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, was shot dead at a roadblock by troopers of the Oregon State Police. He was driving a pickup truck with four passengers, including two women, all of whom were arrested and taken into custody. One of Finicum’s passengers, Ryan Bundy, a son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, was wounded, reportedly in the shoulder, during the arrest. Ammon Bundy, another son of Cliven Bundy and a leader of the occupation, was arrested, along with an additional passenger and the driver of a second vehicle. They were traveling with Finicum from the wildlife refuge to the town of John Day, Oregon, where the occupiers intended to meet with the Grant County sheriff and local ranchers.
Was LaVoy Finicum “murdered” while his hands were extended in the air, as two eyewitnesses have claimed? Or was he “charging” the police, as another witness claims?
Although various news accounts have referred to the shooting as a “gunfight,” according to the eyewitness testimony of Victoria Sharp, an 18-year-old woman who was in the back seat of Finicum’s truck when the shooting occurred, no occupants of the vehicles fired any weapons; the only shooting that occurred was on the part of the police and FBI. Sharp’s audio account of the shooting has been posted on a number of websites and social media. After being arrested with the other survivors of the shooting and taken to Burns, Oregon, for questioning, she was released. The other female passenger, Shawna Cox, 59, was released three days later, on January 29. Her testimony is similar to Sharp’s.
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