BURNS, Ore., (Reuters) – The FBI yesterday released a video investigators say shows one of the occupiers of an Oregon wildlife refuge reach for his jacket pocket before he was shot dead by law enforcement after speeding away from a traffic stop where the group’s leader was arrested.
Authorities said 54-year-old Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher from Arizona who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, was armed when he was stopped by police and killed on Tuesday afternoon.
The aerial video taken by law enforcement helicopters showed Finicum speed off in a white truck from FBI and Oregon state police and nearly strike a law enforcement officer while trying to evade a police barricade before barreling into a snowbank and exiting the car.
The grainy aerial footage shows Finicum raise his hands in the air and then turn and flail his arms moments before he is shot by an officer the FBI identified as a state trooper.
Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Portland office who narrated the video for reporters, said Finicum can be seen reaching for his jacket pocket. But a lack of focus in the video makes Finicum’s precise movements prior to the shooting difficult to discern.
