The Martrydom Of LaVoy Finicum: What The Newest ‘Patriot’ Sainthood Means For The Rest Of Us
[Cross-posted at Orcinus.]
They came carrying signs Monday last week in Burns, Oregon.
“FBI Go Home – LaVoy Can’t”
“Peace Can’t Be Achieved Through Murder”
“LaVoy’s Voice Lives On”
“Federal Supremacists Murdered An Innocent Man”
“YOU Murdered LaVoy!”
They came, a couple hundred strong, from around the interior West – from Idaho, and Washington, and Montana, and Utah. The hotels in Burns had all sold out of rooms, and few had places to stay except area campgrounds. So many of them came prepared for winter camping, replete with canvas tents and their own supplies of firewood.
In their minds, the cause was worth the trouble and discomfort. They came to protest on behalf of a man killed at a police checkpoint less than a week earlier, on Jan. 26.
His face – a skinny, bespectacled and pale man with a cowboy hat – adorned some of the signs that the protesters carried, mixed in with the American flags they carried, and a yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag or two. His name: Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.