Ruby Ridge was the site of an 11-day siege in August 1992 in Boundary County, Idaho of a cabin occupied by the Weaver family. It began on August 21, when deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) came to arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant after his failure to appear on federal firearms charges. During a surveillance operation, officer Art Roderick shot Weaver's dog, leading Weaver's son Sammy to fire at the team. Sammy was then shot and killed, causing an exchange of fire in which Weaver's friend Kevin Harris shot and killed Deputy Marshal William Francis Degan. Weaver, Harris, and members of Weaver's immediate family refused to surrender. The Hostage Rescue Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI HRT) became involved as the siege was mounted. In the standoff, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Weaver's wife Vicky while she was holding her baby daughter - the only casualty of the siege itself. The conflict was ultimately resolved by civilian negotiators. Harris surrendered and was arrested on August 30; Weaver and his three daughters surrendered the next day.
Extensive litigation followed Ruby Ridge. Initially, Randy Weaver and Harris were tried on a variety of federal criminal charges, including first-degree murder for the death of Degan. In the successful defense, Weaver's attorney Gerry Spence accused the agencies that were involved of criminal wrongdoing, in particular the FBI, the USMS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) for Idaho. Harris and Weaver were acquitted of all the siege-related charges, and Weaver was only found guilty of violating his bail terms and of failing to appear for a court hearing, both related to the original federal firearms charges. The Weaver family and Harris both filed civil suits against the federal government in response to the firefight and the siege. In August 1995, the Weavers won a combined out-of-court settlement of 3.1million;Harriswasawardeda380,000 settlement in September 2000.
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Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist who perpetrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured 680, and destroyed one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It is one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. A Gulf War veteran, McVeigh sought revenge against the federal government for the 1993 Waco siege as well as the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident and American foreign policy.
In the United States, domestic terrorism is defined as terrorist acts that were carried out within the United States by U.S. citizens and/or U.S. permanent residents. As of 2021, the United States government considers white supremacists to be the top domestic terrorism threat. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines domestic terrorism as violent, criminal acts which are committed by individuals and/or groups in order to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
In the United States, the patriot movement is a term which is used to describe a conglomeration of non-unified right-wing populist and neo-fascist nationalist political movements, most notably far-right armed militias, sovereign citizens, and tax protesters. Ideologies held by patriot movement groups often focus on anti-government conspiracy theories, with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describing a common belief that "government has been infiltrated and subverted" and is no longer legitimate.