LaVoy Finicum’s Family Questions Shooting Despite FBI Video

By Jason Sickles. The FBI’s aggressive move to release video evidence which they say shows anti-government protester LaVoy Finicum reaching for a gun before being shot and killed by police apparently did little to persuade the dead man’s family.

“LaVoy was not ‘charging’ anyone,’” his survivors said Friday afternoon in a statement released through their attorney. “He appears to have been shot in the back, with his hands in the air.”

Their comments, first reported by Reuters, come a day after the FBI took the unusual step of making a 26-minute surveillance video public two days after Finicum was killed. The aerial video, which the bureau published to its YouTube page, had more than 1.5 million views in less than 24 hours.

A state trooper shot Finicum, 54, Tuesday when a team of law enforcement officers set up a traffic stop to arrest several leaders of the month-long protest over federal control of ranch lands. (Read more from “LaVoy Finicum’s Family Questions Shooting Despite FBI Video” HERE)

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FBI Releases Video Footage of LaVoy Finicum Shooting

By Kelly House. As state troopers trained their guns on Robert “LaVoy” Finicum along a secluded eastern Oregon highway, he reached twice for a pocket that police say contained a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.

That’s when they fatally shot Finicum, a video released Thursday by the FBI appears to show.

(Editor’s note: As you watch the video, keep in mind that LaVoy Finicum wore his pistol on his right hip, as depicted here)

The federal agency played the video in an attempt to dispel rumors about the circumstances of Finicum’s death two days earlier as he and other leaders of the armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were driving to a meeting.

Conflicting accounts of his shooting fueled outrage among supporters of the refuge occupiers and prompted the leader of a Northwest militia group to issue a call for members to report to Burns.

Greg Bretzing, a special agent with the FBI, said the footage provides an “honest and unfiltered view” of what happened. (Read more from “FBI Releases Video Footage of LaVoy Finicum Shooting” HERE)

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