[tense music]
- The marshals were there to arrest Randall Weaver
for failure to appear warrant.
- This guy is in like this isolated cabin up
on a mountaintop in the panhandle of Idaho.
- You know, he's putting suppressive fire down
and ends up killing Sammy.
[tense music]
- The intensity of the protests
at the bottom of the hill are getting worse.
- Are you proud of yourselves?!
- It's beginning to get more and more aggressive.
- One of the most intense situations
you ever had to put yourself in. This is one of them.
- He was going to surrender. - Mm-hmm.
- But his daughter's talked him out of it.
- I've got my rifle over this rock
and I'm praying to God, I don't want to kill
this teenage kid. Please don't make me do this.
- So if that little girl is standing there
with a long weapon pointed at me,
I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do.
[narrator]: In the FBI, we make a lot of headlines.
Drug busts, mob stings.
Terrorist takedowns.
[indistinct shouting]
We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.
- Mark it. - Freeze!
- FBI. - FBI.
- Action!
[narrator]: But they don't know the half of it.
What really goes down?
We save that for each other,
when we're talking agent to agent.
This is FBI True.
[tense music]
- I think we all were struck with how the situation
was ratcheting up considerably with this discovery.
I just didn't know who had actually shot him.
But I assumed it was the marshals.
- Right. - And he was armed that day
with a high-powered rifle.
And I thought, well, maybe he's the one that killed
Marshal Degan.
I didn't know. I did not know.
- What happened there was the marshals
were actually leaving for the day,
when Stryker found them. - Charlie. Who's Stryker?
- Stryker is Sammy's little dog. A yellow lab.
- And he was chasing... - The marshals.
Sara even said in later statements
that they saw Stryker go initially,
and Sammy and Kevin went after him,
and they all thought that Stryker had perhaps
hit on a bear or a cougar.
- And the dog's catching up to them.
And so, the marshals turn around,
one of them anyway, shoots the dog
because it's almost on them.
Well, Sammy, hears the shot.
And he starts shooting at the marshals
in their direction.
Now, Marshal Degan comes into contact
with Kevin Harris, and he gets shot.
And when Deputy Cooper...
You know, he's putting suppressive fire down
and ends up, unbeknownst to him, killing Sammy.
None of them knew they had done that.
- When you get to the base camp,
are you learning about giving an update to the press
that Sammy was passed?
- They had to tell people.
[reporter]: Federal officials have just announced
Randy Weaver's 13-year-old son
died during the initial shootout Friday.
- The intensity of the protests
at the bottom of the hill are getting worse.
- Shame on you! Shame on you!
Shame on you!
- It's beginning to get more and more aggressive.
More and more people are showing up
from different groups
[reporter]: Protesters and neighbors are apparently
not taking the news well.
- Bastards! Are you proud of yourselves?
- It was some white supremacist groups.
- You're a disgrace to the white race!
Disgrace to the race!
- It was also sovereign citizens.
Some of these constitutionalists.
Some people I think, they were probably
genuinely concerned, maybe neighbors,
but others were not. They were there to start trouble.
- The people that were down there,
ATF, marshals, controlling the perimeter.
They were getting nervous. - Baby killer!
You're a baby killer!
- You're a traitor to your race and your country!
- Everybody has guns.
Now you have not only a threat from within,
but you have an outer perimeter threat.
And it's really a perimeter that you cannot contain,
even if you wanted to, because it's so vast around you.
They could have come in from any direction.
If they were hellbent on coming in and getting us,
they could have.
[reporter]: Five neo-Nazis
were arrested nearby,
and charged with carrying in a small arsenal
of concealed weapons
[Rasner]: We need to get a resolution urgently.
- What is the FBI planning at this point?
- Everything stopped and we went straight
to a negotiation strategy. 100%.
- We've got to find out why they're not talking to us.
We've got to find another alternative
because what we're doing now is not working.
- At any point, have we communicated
into the cabin like, "This is the FBI,
you need to come out with your hands up?
Or you need to surrender"?
[soft music]
- Oh, yeah. On a bullhorn.
The negotiators are talking on a bullhorn.
- They don't have phones, right, in the cabin?
[Rasner]: Nothing. [McGee]: No.
[Kottis]: Do we give them a device
so that they can communicate back?
- We put a throw phone on a robot
and took it up there, and we told them
what it was and, we asked them to come out
and take the phone. [McGee]: But there's really
no movement from the cabin and there's no communication.
- What are the commands that they're saying
to the Weaver family at this point?
- They're just asking them to come out.
They're offering them breakfast.
They're saying, "Come on outside.
We have breakfast out here.
We can work this out peacefully."
- We are taking every step we possibly can
to, through the use of a phone,
affect a surrender.
- No response? - Nothing. Crickets.
- Jim, so all of our attempts to negotiate,
talk to, reach out to, have been negative.
What does the FBI do at this point?
- The negotiators decide to go with a third party
intermediary. They bring in Bo Gritz, a Colonel.
- Bo Gritz he was running for president, right?
- That's right. - I'm Bo Gritz,
and I'm your candidate for president in 1992.
- He's a former Green Beret.
Highly decorated.
And they think that Randy Weaver,
he's going to have respect for Bo Gritz.
And Bo had a good reputation
within the Aryan Nation community as well.
He was considered sympathetic to their cause.
- Don't tell me that together,
with an army of 11,000 patriots,
that we can't take Capitol Hill
back from District of Criminals
and restore our government
where now "the" government exists.
- In my experience, when they start to bring in
a third party intermediary,
they're losing control of negotiations,
because they're not going to really be able to control
what that person says or does during the negotiation process.
- We, as citizens of the United States,
and under the Constitution of the United States,
do hereby present this citizen's arrest warrant
for Gene Glenn.
- We are entering the realm of a three-ring circus
at this point, in my mind.
- So we're going to do a TPI.
He doesn't hike up. - No, no, no, no...
- So, he gets driven up.
[tense music]
He gets out of the APC? Does he yell out,
Randy, it's Bo Gritz here.
- I mean, pretty much, yeah.
- Weaver! This is Bo Gritz!
- How'd that go? - They started to pick up communications.
- What are some of the things that we're hearing
coming from the cabin? - We found out
that his wife Vicki had been shot.
[Kottis]: What are some of the things we're hearing
coming from the cabin?
[McGee]: We found out
that his wife Vicki had been shot.
[ominous music]
- And that was the first words uttered by Randy Weaver.
That was the first time anybody had said anything.
- When he said it, the negotiator said,
"Did you just say your bride is dead?"
And that was the first indication
that I had that she was dead.
- Did you believe him?
- We didn't have a choice. Why would you lie about that?
- And the way he said it? Yes. He was....
- Emotional. - We now have been told
that Vicki Weaver was shot at some point
and was deceased inside the cabin.
And Kevin Harris is wounded severely.
With a round in his chest that's probably fatal
if it doesn't receive medical attention at some point.
And then Randy Weaver, of course, has been shot.
- Kevin...
is alright,
but he did suffer a wound.
Unfortunately,
Vicki is dead.
[gasping]
- He apparently has a radio that operates,
he says, I want to hear, tonight,
that you have made the announcement
that my bride was killed on Saturday.
[man]: We're going to war!!
You're nothing!
Don't touch me!
[shouting]
- Never will you take another woman down!
Never!
- My partner Lon was asked to come down
to the base camp.
[Kottis]: Do you go with him? [Monroe]: No.
- And does he ever come back up?
- Oh, yeah. He came up and...
he wasn't the same guy that went down.
- Yeah. He was shook up. - He was.
He's just ashen.
And then when he came over, he told me
what they suspect happened.
- What does he say to you?
- Well, that, you know, Vicki was dead,
and it looks like it was an accidental shooting.
- Now you're going back to the Day One
when you guys went up to the perimeter
and two shots were fired?
[Monroe]: Yeah, because the door opened as the second round
was fired. It ended up going through the plexiglass window,
which I never saw that. I thought it was a solid door.
- What you're saying is that Lon comes back,
and what he shares is that the shot was fired,
went through the plexiglass,
went through Vicki Weaver's skull,
exited and hit Harris.
- Yes, the intended target.
- This is such a big moment.
Dale, what are you thinking?
- Well, I have no idea. No clue.
How could that happen? I mean, I saw one round
go into Randy, and I was pretty sure
I saw the round go into Harris. That's all I saw.
- So now, we've got the three adults
inside the cabin, one deceased,
and two possibly, you know, critically wounded.
This can't go on much longer.
So the plan was made for Bo Gritz
to enter the cabin and have face-to-face communications
with Randy Weaver. And that's what happened.
They were expecting him and he made entry into the cabin
and now he's out of sight. And so we're going to have
to set up some sort of emergency assault option
in case things start to get bad inside.
So, Bo Gritz is briefed that if things
start to get really bad
and you feel like your life is in danger,
you need to say the word "Alaska".
- And when someone says the code word...
- That's when the emergency assault team
is going to make entry and rescue the TPI.
Later, throughout my career, people ask me what...
what is one of the most intense situations
you ever had to put yourself in?
This is one of them. Because I said
to the guy behind me, look, I was a fullback,
you know, Division one. I said, I'm wearing my helmet
and I'm going through the door.
It's a goal line stand.
When I get through that door, I'm not stopping
until I get to the opposite wall.
You make sure you're my tailback right behind me.
So you take care of any business that I don't.
Once I make entry into that room
and Randy, Kevin, and then these three girls,
at least one of them who's a teenager
and who has been participating in these ready action drills
and has been trained with a long weapon,
I don't want to have to defend myself and kill her.
- You have kids. How many?
- Four girls.
- Yeah, I... You know...
And so now you're gonna...
- Yeah. And I just thought, you know,
I've got to get my mind right here
because I'm going home when this is over with.
And so, if that little girl
is standing there with a long weapon pointed at me,
I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do.
[Kottis]: Yes
- Unbelievably, Bo Gritz is inside,
we're in the line of march,
and here comes "Alaska." He says the word.
[ominous music]
Behind me, my number two guy is kind of
giving me the squeeze on the countdown.
Five, four, three.
I'm like, you know, getting ready to run
the hundred meter, in the blocks,
ready to take off. At one, it's...
"Abort, abort, abort!" - Oh!
- And I'm like... [sighs]
You know, beads of sweat coming down your forehead
and thinking, okay, thank goodness that's over.
And sure enough, he says it again.
Alaska.
[tense music]
Again, they count it down all the way to one,
and, "Abort, abort, abort!"
And we stand down again. [sighs]
And I wonder if Bo Gritz understands that,
you know, there's eight guys out there willing to risk
their lives to save him.
- Why did we abort after the TPI
said twice, the code red word?
- I never heard an explanation.
There's a lot of speculation.
- Possibly, Bo Gritz...
wanted to use this team
to make him...
"Look what I did. I ended the whole thing,"
because it would have ended the whole thing,
but, you know, not the way anybody wanted.
And so, that's why the next time he went in,
it was Jack McLamb that took over and established rapport.
- Who's this guy? - He was a retired
Phoenix police officer.
But he certainly established a good rapport
with Randy that Gritz couldn't.
- Who goes in? - Gritz an McLamb.
- Go back in.
- Jack kept telling them
you know, that their friend Kevin Harris
needs some help there. Gangrene sets in
and he's going to die.
[ominous music]
And so, Kevin was the first one to surrender.
He came out and he was taken into custody
- And then, right after that, they carried out Vicki's body.
- So Jimmy, at this point, Kevin Harris is gone.
They've taken Vicki Weaver's body.
What happens next?
- Well, now we're trying to get Randy Weaver
to surrender along with his daughters
and to bring his infant child out.
The negotiations were continuing.
- I'll just say this. Negotiations concerning
the final resolution to this matter are still ongoing.
- We thought this is going to be a good day for it,
'cause his buddy's gone, his wife's, you know, out now.
It's just him and the girls and he was going to surrender,
but his daughter's talked him out of it.
- How does a 16-year-old tell the adult?
- He said he was going to surrender and then he said,
"Nah, my daughter said... said not to surrender.
So I'm not surrendering."
- Vicki wore the pants in that family.
Vicki's gone. Sara, their daughter,
assumes that role. Sara had long guns.
She had been on video carrying a long gun.
She was a very strong-willed young woman.
She'd lost her brother, she'd lost her mother.
She'd just seen this family friend leave.
You know, she sees her mother carried out in a body bag.
Her state of mind is not stable.
So she was my biggest concern at that point.
- But the next day, the door opens.
Randy Weaver was carrying his baby in his arms. And
he had Rachel on one side of him
and Sara on the other side of him.
- And I was, like I said, concerned about Sara
because she was the one that didn't want to come out.
She was the last holdout. And so I'm zeroed in on her.
I've got my rifle over this rock
and I'm praying to God, I don't want to kill
this teenage kid. Please don't make me do this.
And I just, like, squeeze it.
And then suddenly, she just...
they just gave up.
And it was... - Yep.
- Then it was over.
- It ended the way we wanted it to end.
- Right. - From the beginning.
But it didn't happen for ten days
- A white supremacist who held off scores of police
and federal agents is being held this morning
at a lockup in Boise, Idaho.
44-year-old Randy Weaver surrendered yesterday,
with his three surviving children.
- Tell me about the flight home back to Quantico.
What does that feel like?
- The aftermath of it initially for us
and the team was nothing. We went on to the next mission.
- The mission was handled. Yeah. At the end of the day,
we got on the C-141, headed back to Quantico.
Job done.
[ominous music]
[reporter]: It all started with a bloody shootout
at the Idaho mountain top cabin
of radical white separatist Randy Weaver.
Today, a federal jury found Weaver and co-defendant,
Kevin Harris, not guilty in the death of the marshal.
Their attorneys called it a "clear case of self defense."
Critics say the government botched the case.
- When people started digging into his true background
that he was actually just a truck driver,
not SF, Special Forces, not the Rambo.
- In 1994, when all this came up,
All of a sudden, it's being looked upon
like we are overreaching law enforcement
and we're... What's the term that...?
- Jackbooted. - Jackbooted thugs,
et cetera, et cetera. And then it brings in
investigation after investigation
after investigation.
- Congressional oversight hearings,
DOJ, inspector general, FBI.
What is it like to testify before Congress?
- Well, that was one of the worst days of my life.
[Spence]: Mr. Monroe, if you would proceed...
- I would like to correct something said last week
in this hearing.
Mr. Spence said we were trained killers.
We are not.
We are trained to save lives.
In my 10 years as an agent,
I've never shot nor killed anyone,
and in the 12 years of HRT's existence,
and the dozens of operations responding to violent crises,
a firearm was discharged on only four occasions.
The trained killer accusation is unfair
to all dedicated agents
and to the widow of United States Marshal
William Deegan.
Thank you.
- Wasn't this case investigated for,
I believe, almost ten years?
- Oh, forever. - Yeah. But my partner,
Lon, also received...
a multitude of death threats.
And as a result of that, he had to go on the run.
He couldn't stay here.
And he did go on the run for about a year.
- Who are some of the people that were targeting Lon?
- Well, Timothy McVeigh had his photo,
you know, with him.
- I understood, you know, based on information
that I obtained, that he was taking the picture to gun shows
and rallies and things of that nature
and passing out Lon's home address,
everywhere he went, anywhere we went.
- The worst outcome was the Weaver family
getting 3.1 million dollars.
- The Justice Department says it has agreed
to pay more than three million dollars
to a white separatist, Randy Weaver, and his family.
- I think for me personally,
my sympathy was then and remains
with Marshal Degan's family.
Because no one was ever held accountable for his murder.
- It's true. If Weaver had done the right thing
from the get-go, wouldn't have had to call us,
wouldn't have lost his son, wouldn't have lost his wife,
but at the end of the day, we accomplished the mission
and the perpetrator was brought to justice by us.
We did our job.
We were sent to resolve
an assault on a federal officer case...
and we did.
- There's a tendency to sensationalize
these stories, especially if they have
that potential to be a political football,
if you will, for, you know, whichever side.
We're apolitical. I mean,
we have a job. We have a mission.
In this case,
it was... a United States deputy marshal
had been murdered, and in the course
of performing his legal duties. So we're going to respond
to that and try to take into custody
the people that are suspected of doing it.
I mean, that's where it begins and ends.
- Yup.
[soft music]
[tense music]
Subtitling: difuze