Approximately 3000 people showed up to pay their respects.

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heart breaking...

LaVoy Finicum's Family Remembers Him As A Man Driven By Family And Faith

by Amelia Templeton OPB | Feb. 5, 2016

Mourners showed up in droves to pay their final respects to Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, a leader of the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

More than a thousand mourners poured into Kanab, Utah, a tiny town on the border with Arizona, to celebrate the life of a rancher who died in a traffic stop in Oregon.

Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was among the men occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. He was shot and killed by police during an attempt to arrest the leaders of the movement on Jan. 26.

Finicum lay dressed in white in an open wooden coffin built by his family. An American flag was placed across his chest. Spurs, boots and photos of Finicum taken at the refuge were on display in the Kaibab Stake center, the large Mormon church where the funeral was held.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” and other books about U.S. history and the Constitution were placed on a table, along with a note that read: “Dad’s light reading.”

Many of the mourners wore jeans and boots, and held their cowboy hats in their hands as they paid their respects. The funeral drew people from Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon and Kentucky. Patriot group members were also in attendance from the Oath Keepers and the “3%” movement.

Finicum’s brother Jody Finicum let out a “holy smokes,” as he looked out across the crowd.

He described LaVoy as a deeply competitive person with an irreverent side, who grew up playing golf and leading potato gun fights in the sagebrush. He said LaVoy once rode his horse into the family’s living room just to see if it would fit through the door.

“What I most appreciated was his example in the things that really mattered: God, family and country,” Jody Finicum said.


Each of Finicum’s 11 children also spoke. They remembered him as a loving father who taught his daughters to ride horses and brand cattle alongside his sons. He studied scripture every night and encouraged his children to be active in the Mormon church.

After the funeral, Finicum’s oldest daughter, Thara Tenney, questioned the FBI’s account of his death.

“We are calling for a private, independent investigation to find out exactly what happened to our dad in an ambush on a lonely desolate stretch of highway in the dead of winter in eastern Oregon,” she said.

The FBI released a video of the traffic stop and has said Finicum twice reached for a gun in his pocket. The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office is leading an investigation into the incident.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy was among those who attended the funeral. “I’m here to honor a great man,” he said, sitting horseback behind the Finicum family. “He was basically crucified.”

In 2014, LaVoy Finicum participated in the armed standoff between Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management over Bundy’s unpaid grazing fees. In fall 2015, Finicum followed in Bundy’s footsteps and chose to stop complying with his lease contract with the Bureau of Land Management, in spite of a long, positive relationship with the agency.

After the funeral concluded, men and women riding horses and mules lined a half-mile stretch of the road outside the church, and then rode out alongside the hearse that carried Finicum’s coffin.

Finicum’s brother, Guy Finicum, said he had initially struggled to understand why his brother was participating in the occupation of the Malheur refuge.

“I didn’t have any clue what’s going on up there. I love my brother, and I was concerned. The news made it awfully scary and it didn’t fit with who my brother was. So I had to go up there and find out,” he said.

Guy Finicum said he came away from that meeting believing that LaVoy Finicum was sincerely trying to help people in Harney County.

“He told me, as long as there is one person up here that says ‘please stay and help me,’ I won’t come home. And how could I ask him to do otherwise?” he said. He said his brother was deeply motivated by his faith in God.

“He believes that this life is just one step, and it’s temporary for all of us. He has absolute confidence that he will be with his family again. He believes that as much as he believes the sun will rise. And that’s what gave him the ability to do what he did, he always looked at a higher goal,” said Guy Finicum.

Supporters Memorialize LaVoy Finicum, Seek Unifying Message

by Rob Manning OPB | Feb. 6, 2016
Burns, Oregon

Pacific Patriots Network co-founder B.J. Soper, right, helps rebuild the roadside memorial to deceased militant LaVoy Finicum.


There are still deep ruts in the snow where LaVoy Finicum’s truck careened off the road. There are footprints into the nearby forest. And most of the time, there are flags, a cross and flowers.

It’s become a gathering place for angry supporters of the right-wing militia movement. Lucas Lynch drove nine hours overnight from Tacoma, Washington, with a few friends to see the roadside memorial for Finicum. Based on the FBI video and other accounts, Lynch said he feels he can recreate the scene.

“[Finicum] made it, maybe a total of twenty feet — you can’t be sure which footprints are his,” Lynch said while looking at footprints and reddish-brown smudges in the snow, which he claimed were blood.

Accounts of what happened to Finicum differ. This much is clear: he was driving one of two vehicles north to John Day, when they were confronted by law enforcement on Highway 395. Some eyewitnesses have made public statements, some of which conflict with police accounts. There’s a video the FBI released, but it’s from overhead and isn’t always clear.

Finicum’s supporters said he was giving himself up, and raising his hands over his head in surrender when he was shot. The police said Finicum reached twice for a loaded weapon in his jacket when officers fired on him.

At Finicum’s funeral on Friday in Kanab, Utah, one of his daughters called for a private investigation into the killing of her father.

Some are calling LaVoy Finicum a martyr in a battle that is far from over. Others argue he wasn’t cooperating with police directions.

The memorial of flowers and flags was stripped to a bare wooden pole sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning. It’s not clear who did it. Spokespersons with the Oregon State Police and the Oregon Department of Transportation said neither agency played a role in the destruction, according to the Associated Press. Dozens of locals and visitors showed up Saturday afternoon to restore the memorial.

When it came time to make statements, the event turned from remembrance and rebuilding to a political protest.

Standing next to a cross, festooned with red, white and blue, Pacific Patriots Network co-founder B.J. Soper called on the gathered crowd to continue the militants’ work.

“LaVoy’s time ended right here, his message stopped right here,” Soper said. “And I think it’s our duty and ability to continue it down this road — and that road and that road,” Soper said pointing around the forest, as the gathered crowd cheered.

“They think they’ve stopped us by using force. I think they’ve started it! I think they just opened a can of worms!” yelled militia supporter, Kevin Fieguth, of Josephine County.

Shouts of “martyr” and “LaVoy’s our inspiration!” answered Fieguth

But there are signs the Pacific Patriots Network is far from rallying an army.

The Network tried to rally hundreds of militia supporters to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to help the four remaining militants escape. But by Friday, the group’s web site issued a “stand down” order, directing them to gather at the roadside memorial, instead.

Not everyone at the memorial supported the refuge occupation. Tom Wagner said he traveled two hours from Christmas Valley with his family to show his respects to Finicum. Wagner said he met Finicum and other members of the occupation when he visited the refuge, a few weeks ago.

“I was at the refuge for a day,” Wagner said. “I went there, and the atmosphere there and I fully respect the things that they’re fighting for. The way they went about doing it wasn’t for me, so I left after a day.”

Still others came to the memorial less out of politics than sympathy for a person who died in the area.

Julie Perkins drove south from Dayville, when her daughter told her the flags and flowers were gone.

“My daughter went to a basketball game today in Crane, and she texted me from Burns, and they were disappointed that everything had been removed,” Perkins said. “She’s 14. She was disappointed and confused.”

She added, “I think that regardless of what a person’s views are, a person did lose their life here. Whether a person’s opinion is justified or not, respect should be given.”

Other eastern Oregonians were likewise focused on rebuilding the memorial “bigger and better” as Burns resident Joshawa Boerem put it.

“There’s so many more people here today than there was yesterday,” Boerem added.

Boerem was one of several men who hoisted a wooden cross 20 feet up a pine tree, where they nailed it to the trunk with two long nails.

They said it would make for a more lasting memorial.

It’s the hope of the Patriots Network that the ideology behind Finicum’s death and the illegal, armed takeover he was part of, will last, too.

But the organizers and leaders didn’t ask anyone to take up arms against the government, or seize a federal building, as Ammon Bundy and his followers did, 50 miles south of the memorial site.

Sam Hill with the III-Percent Defenders of Liberty told the gathering to work within the democratic process.

“We need to bring this all together. Whatever counties you guys are from, go there, and say ‘we have a problem,’” Hill said.

Hill is from Yamhill County, Oregon. He said he got a receptive ear from his county commissioners.

Good luck with The Democratic Process ! Don't hold your breath ! Just keeps getting worse !

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