Chris Jennings

So as far as the FBI planners were concerned and the subgroup of the FBI known as the HRT, the Hostage Rescue Team, which is sort of the FBI's most elite SWAT tactical unit.

They had clearly announced themselves that it had already been gunfire.

So they were writing the rules and revising the rules as if an ongoing active gun battle was happening.

And as if all of the weavers and the children, by the way, were excluded from these new rules of engagement.

That any adult who was armed...

could be shot basically because as far as the government saw it, and this was later deemed unconstitutional, but as the government saw it was the Weavers had already evidenced their willingness to fire upon and kill federal agents.

So by this point, a night has elapsed in which the family has barely slept and spent grieving their dead boy and nothing had happened.

They were starting to get a little confused.

You know, they – Kevin Harris was pretty sure he had shot and killed one of the marshals.

So why had nobody come up and demanded their surrender?

Yeah.

The reason is that the government was so terrified of what they would find up the hill that they were getting themselves as prepared as possible.

No one was going to just drive up there with a bullhorn.

So the sniper observer teams were already in place.

And this is, you know, two-man teams, one with a scope and one with a gun.

And they were there basically to provide protective cover to the negotiators who were coming.

Randy goes to check on Sam's body carrying a gun.

And as he reaches up to turn the latch to open the cabin to look at Samuel's body, one of these snipers sees him and shoots him in the arm, goes in his armpit.

And the story that the FBI tells and the particular sniper who took the shot tells is that as Randy was reaching up for the latch, they thought that he was raising his gun to fire on a helicopter.

And there was indeed a helicopter filled with FBI commanders shooting.