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Gary Noesner | FBI Agent on Ruby Ridge · Ryder Lee

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  Speaker 1: FBI negotiator Gary Nessner. He retired from the FBI in
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and three following a thirty year career as
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  Speaker 1: an investigator, instructor, and negotiator and FBI hostage negotiator. For
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  Speaker 1: thirty three years of his career, he spent ten years
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  Speaker 1: as the bureau's chief negotiator. In his book, Stalling for Time,
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  Speaker 1: the FBI's Chief Hostage Negotiator, takes readers on a howering
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  Speaker 1: tour through many of the most famous hostage crisis in
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  Speaker 1: history of the modern FBI, including the Siege at Waco,
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  Speaker 1: the Montana Freeman standoff, and the DC sniper attacks. Gary Nessner,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. It's an honor and a privilege
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  Speaker 1: to have you.
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  Speaker 2: Now, that's my pleasure to be with you today.
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  Speaker 1: Look at these events that were kind of leading up
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  Speaker 1: to Waco. It's very interesting the amount of distrust that's
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  Speaker 1: brewing against the FBI and government organizations in general. You
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  Speaker 1: start being with the jfk assassination November twenty second of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. The FBI totally botched that investigation, and
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  Speaker 1: the American public wanted answers that the FBI didn't or
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  Speaker 1: couldn't provide, which created a lot of conspiracy theories, and
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  Speaker 1: that might be the cause of the original conspiracy theory
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  Speaker 1: because of the distrust and non transparent nature of government institutions.
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  Speaker 1: And then we have the Cold War, which created all
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  Speaker 1: this fear and panic from an outside force. And then
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  Speaker 1: this one, which is very important to mention is the
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  Speaker 1: way cults were being portrayed and looked at around the
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  Speaker 1: time too. You know, the Satanic Panic days, Jim Jones,
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  Speaker 1: the Jonestown cult where you know, the death toll was
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  Speaker 1: reported to be over nine hundred from mass suicide. And
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  Speaker 1: then we have the Ruby Ridge event in August of
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  Speaker 1: ninety two where Randy Weaver's son Samuel Weaver was killed
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  Speaker 1: and Vicki Weaver was killed by the FBI sniper. Now,
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  Speaker 1: it was portrayed that you were at Ruby Ridge in
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  Speaker 1: the Waco docu series on Paramount, but you weren't actually there.
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  Speaker 2: Correct, That's correct, That's correct. Well, you know your comment there,
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  Speaker 2: I mean it covers a lot of territory. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: the FBI has always had a I think an interesting
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  Speaker 2: relationship with the American people. I think go back to
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  Speaker 2: the early years, and you know with Jager Hoover, he
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  Speaker 2: built something quite unique and quite special and required much
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  Speaker 2: more education and science in the application of crime. The
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  Speaker 2: organization has never been perfect and has always made mistakes
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  Speaker 2: along the way, but by and large it earned i
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  Speaker 2: think rightfully so, the respect of the American people. But
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  Speaker 2: you know, as the years have evolved, and some of
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  Speaker 2: the FBI's mistakes and it's a human organization. It's a
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  Speaker 2: great organization, great people, but it does make mistakes have
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  Speaker 2: really come to rust. And of course now currently there's
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  Speaker 2: a there's a political element to it that there are
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  Speaker 2: those who are against the government no matter what the
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  Speaker 2: government does, and they they think the government's you know,
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  Speaker 2: evil and out to get them and take away their
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  Speaker 2: rights whatever it might be. That's kind of nonsensical when
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  Speaker 2: you really know the facts. But there's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people that embrace that. And there's others today that for
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  Speaker 2: their own political gain, have decided to attack the FBI
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  Speaker 2: because the FBI is doing its job in investigating them,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, such as the case with Trump. So it's
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  Speaker 2: a it's a complex issue and when you go back
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  Speaker 2: to a Ruby Ridge or a Waco, these are very
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  Speaker 2: complex issues, and you know, people often forget that many
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  Speaker 2: prison riots and even right wing malicious standoffs that the
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  Speaker 2: FBI managed quite successfully before Ruby Ridge and Waco. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: I would I would suggest that the primary lesson learned
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  Speaker 2: from Ruby Ridge and Waco was for the FBI to
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  Speaker 2: do things again as we always had done before them.
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  Speaker 2: Those two incidents were really because of some personnel issues involved.
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  Speaker 2: We're really departures from doing things that we had gained
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  Speaker 2: a reputation of being the best in the world at doing.
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  Speaker 2: But it shows you how one one person in the
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  Speaker 2: leadership position who's not well trained or prepared can really
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  Speaker 2: create some significant reputational damage to an organization, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: and has real life consequences obviously. So yeah, so it's
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  Speaker 2: a complex issue.
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  Speaker 1: I agree absolutely. Now, did they consult you at any
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  Speaker 1: time during the eleven day standoff at Ruby Ridge or no?
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  Speaker 2: What happened with Ruby Ridge. At the time of Ruby Ridge,
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  Speaker 2: there were two full time hastas negotiators in the FBI.
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  Speaker 2: There's several three hundred four, three hundred and fifty I
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  Speaker 2: think negotiators spread throughout the field, and negotiation for them,
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  Speaker 2: as it is for the SWAT people, is a part
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  Speaker 2: time function. If there's an event the bank robbery skyjacking,
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  Speaker 2: they roll out on behalf of the FBI and respond.
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  Speaker 2: We only had two of us at Quantico at the
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  Speaker 2: time of Ruby Ridge, and we managed the program for
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  Speaker 2: all the others training guide and so forth operations. I
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  Speaker 2: was literally out of the country on a anniversary trip
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  Speaker 2: with my wife overseas and when Ruby Ridge occurred, so
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  Speaker 2: my partner was sent out to Ruby Ridge. So I
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  Speaker 2: was not there, as you suggested. The twenty eighteen Paramount
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  Speaker 2: six part mini series showed me there, And the reason
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  Speaker 2: they did that is because I was portrayed in the
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  Speaker 2: series by the actor, the great actor, Michael Shannon, and
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  Speaker 2: they needed to get him in the first episode, so
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  Speaker 2: they wrote me into that incident doing the things that
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  Speaker 2: in fact my partner actually did. And I wasn't, you know,
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  Speaker 2: particularly happy with that or comfortable with that. But one
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  Speaker 2: of the things I learned, when someone buys your book rights,
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  Speaker 2: then you have some influence, but you don't have control.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, Hollywood, I think they did a very
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  Speaker 2: good job on that series, but there's some things about
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  Speaker 2: it that I disagreed with, and some portrayals I would
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  Speaker 2: have liked to see done differently. But yeah, and one
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  Speaker 2: of the things about Ruby Ridge. As tragic as it was,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it started off between the Marshall Service trying
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  Speaker 2: to execute a warrant for atf shootout that resulted in
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  Speaker 2: Sammy Weaver being killed in one of the marshals, and
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  Speaker 2: then you know, the FBI was deployed out there with
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  Speaker 2: its blusted rescue team. It's tactical team, it's a national
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  Speaker 2: counter terrorism tactical team, and very quickly it accelerated and
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  Speaker 2: the FBI ended up shooting and wounding Weaver and one
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  Speaker 2: of his friends, and as they were running back into
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  Speaker 2: the cabin, one of those bullets went through a door
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  Speaker 2: and behind the door was Vicky Weaver, and it killed
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  Speaker 2: her while she's sitting there holding her baby. And it's
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  Speaker 2: an unbelievably tragic event. But what people forget is that
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  Speaker 2: situation was resolved peacefully through negotiations after about eight days
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  Speaker 2: whatever it was, despite a horrendous situation that the negotiators
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  Speaker 2: arrived at. It's kind of hard to make friends with
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  Speaker 2: somebody when you've shot them and their wives killed and
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  Speaker 2: their son's been killed, whether you were involved or responsible
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  Speaker 2: for that or not. In the case of the sun,
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  Speaker 2: so you know that that had not fully been resolved
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  Speaker 2: I legally or otherwise. Six months later when Waco occurred
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  Speaker 2: and we ended up having some of the same, in
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  Speaker 2: my view, deficient leadership decision making that really contributed greatly
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  Speaker 2: to the outcome.
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  Speaker 1: Would that be considered in your personal views as successful?
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  Speaker 2: No? No, I didn't mean to suggest I thought the
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  Speaker 2: incident was success. Well, I'm just saying it was successfully negotiated.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, in many respects shows the value and power
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  Speaker 2: of negotiations that, despite these horrendous conditions that had taken
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  Speaker 2: place before, communication was open. Despite that, nonetheless, negotiations were
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  Speaker 2: able to resolve at peacefully, and that accrues to my
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  Speaker 2: partner and the team he had out there. So I
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  Speaker 2: think that's just an important note to make. No success
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  Speaker 2: when I mean, when innocent lives are lost, it's never
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  Speaker 2: it's never a success.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Thanks for clearing that up. Would there have been
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  Speaker 1: anything I know this is hyperbole in conjecture. Would there
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  Speaker 1: have been anything that you would have done differently at
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  Speaker 1: the standoff Rubui Bridge if you were there were there
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  Speaker 1: negotiations between Brandy and the f during the eleven days
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  Speaker 1: at all?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, there were later on, But what I would have
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  Speaker 2: done differently is. I wouldn't have started out with a
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  Speaker 2: what we call rules of engagement that essentially said the
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  Speaker 2: FBI marksmen could shoot anybody they saw with a weapon.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, not only is that the wrong approach, but
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  Speaker 2: it's also illegal. It's unconstitutional. You know, an FBI agent,
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  Speaker 2: a police officer is allowed to use deadly force only
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  Speaker 2: to save their life or the life of someone else.
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  Speaker 2: You can't just shoot somebody because they have a gun
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  Speaker 2: or they've done something bad prior. So that I think
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  Speaker 2: was a terrible set of instructions that FBI personnel were
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  Speaker 2: given and sent up the mountain, and those conditions presented themselves,
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  Speaker 2: and sure enough shots were fired, and it just made
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  Speaker 2: an already bad situation with Sammy Weaver having been killed
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  Speaker 2: by the marshals, just made a bad situation worse. So
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  Speaker 2: I would have started out with negotiations. We always say
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  Speaker 2: it's easy to move easier to move from negotiations to
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  Speaker 2: tactics if absolutely necessary. It's very hard to start off
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  Speaker 2: with tactics that go badly and then succeed with negotiations.