The siege at Ruby Ridge

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Randy Weaver was a white separatist in Idaho in the north-west United States who was wanted by the government on firearms charges. When government agents approached his remote cabin on Ruby Ridge in August 1992, it was the start of an eleven day siege involving hundreds of police officers – which ended with the deaths of Weaver’s wife and teenage son, along with a US marshal. The incident would become a touchstone for the far right and a rallying cry for the American militia movement. Lucy Burns speaks to journalist Bill Morlin, who covered the siege for the Spokesman-Review newspaper. Picture: Randy Weaver (C) shows a model of his Ruby Ridge, Idaho cabin to US Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, during Senate hearings investigating the events surrounding the 1992 standoff with federal agents (PAMELA PRICE/AFP via Getty Images).

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	Hi and thanks for downloading witness history from the BBC World Service.
0:37.0	I'm Lucy Burns and today I'm taking you to the Pacific Northwest of America in August 1992 and a standoff between a
0:45.7	fugitive and the federal government which ended in an 11-day siege and three people
0:51.2	dead. It was an incident which would become a touchstone for the
0:55.0	far right and a rallying cry for the American militia movement. This is the
0:59.8	story of Ruby Ridge. Ridge. If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would make different choices.
1:10.1	I'd come down from the mountain for the court appearance. If I could change, believe me, I'd come down from the mountain for the court appearance.
1:13.0	If I could change, believe me, I'd give my life to have my son and wife back.
1:18.0	Randy Weaver was the man at the center of the siege at his cabin on a mountain rage in Idaho called Ruby Ridge. the with his wife from Iowa to Northern Idaho basically thinking the end times were near and
1:35.9	he and his wife were overly religious I guess and they wanted their own enclave away from
1:42.0	what they viewed as the troubles of the world.
1:44.3	This is Bill Morlin.
1:45.6	He's been a journalist for more than 50 years specializing in right-wing extremism.
1:50.5	And he covered the Ruby Ridge story for the spokesman review newspaper.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.