Officials Decline to Charge FBI Sharpshooter
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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has decided not to bring criminal charges against the FBI sharpshooter who shot and killed the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver during a 1992 standoff in Idaho.
Deval Patrick, head of the department’s civil rights division, decided that there was no evidence that FBI agents willfully used excessive force, a law enforcement source said Thursday.
The siege began Aug. 21, 1992, when U.S. marshals went to Weaver’s mountain cabin to arrest him on a weapons charge. A marshal and Weaver’s son were killed in a shootout, and Weaver, his wife, Vicki, and others remained holed up in the cabin.
The FBI hostage-rescue team encircled the Weaver cabin the next day. An FBI sniper, Lon Horiuchi, wounded Weaver when he and another man emerged from the cabin. The sniper fired again as the two retreated, but the bullet struck and killed Vicki Weaver, who was standing unarmed in the doorway.
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