LDS Church involvement with LaVoy's death

[F-35]

This story was taken from another forum.

by Mangus MacLeod » September 26th, 2021, 11:16 am

Hello, it's me again. And I'll have to be honest, although Brother Faith did well with his one main installment here this week (I could barely understand the second one), I am otherwise disappointed in his recent production on this thread. After building up expectations based on apparent resolution of previous defugalties, the train has simply not covered as much ground this week as one might have thought it should. But, I can see he has other distractions. And perhaps they are more pressing.

But, in light of all that I’m feeling even more pressure to try to come up with something that might help hold things together here. Although I can’t compete with Bro. Faith's revelations and discussion earlier this week about LDS folks apparently connected to CIA dark ops, etc., I am going to dig pretty deep, and at least come up with some similar themes and information that may be new, interesting, and/or thought-provoking, etc.

To do that, I am again going to turn to my own roots on the Arizona Strip. Have you noticed that Arizona seems to have some common connection to much of this? Although, as I mentioned before, there is no railroad on the Arizona Strip, I will talk about another railroad later.

Just curious, how many here have heard of Mt. Trumbull, Tuckup, or Cane Beds? Well, Cane Beds is probably the biggest geographical nexus in this story. Why? I hope to show you. So, here goes.

Burns, Oregon, wasn't even on LaVoy Finicum’s radar until December 31st, 2015, when he got a call from a friend, inviting him to join a small group of local Utah and Arizona “patriots,” who would be making a quick trip to Burns for a rally in support of beleaguered Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. The plan was then to turn around and come straight back home.

It wasn't until LaVoy and his party got to Burns that they heard anything about the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge or any discussion about a possible longer-term protest rally, including physical occupation of the Refuge. Despite a complete lack of planning or preparation for such a scenario, when LaVoy heard about Ammon Bundy’s proposal to take a “hard stand” at the Refuge, he was all in. Consequently, his plan quickly changed from heading straight back to Arizona to staying in Oregon as long as it took to try to help get things straightened out in terms of how the federal government had been treating ranchers in Southeast Oregon.

When LaVoy got to Oregon and learned federal oppression of ranchers in Harney County, Oregon went well beyond the Hammonds – he fully embraced the idea of physically occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge as a form of ongoing peaceful protest against institutionalized federal injustice. LaVoy himself later explained, “I realized that when I crossed the Blitzen River and entered the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, I was crossing the Rubicon, and there would be no going back in terms of what we were setting out to do.”

People may b!tch all they want about the Bundys, for whatever their favorite reason, but it was actually pretty tough to find very many serious holes in Lavoy Finicum. He was a very credible, principled, and stand-up guy. Let me just mention a couple things in that regard. First of all, he raised 14 kids - 8 of his own, and 6 of his second wife, Jeanette's. Okay, so he had been divorced, so there's that, and there will obviously be those who will make every attempt to read everything that can possibly be read into that. But LaVoy was awarded sole custody of the kids. What does that tell you? And even all Jeanette's kids referred to and treated LaVoy as “Dad.”

As most people know, within a month of LaVoy’s arrival in Oregon, he was killed by the FBI and Oregon State Police. If you want to know more about that story, the following video would be a good place to start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLIUDBrU9Cs

But everything up to this point public information that is readily accessible, and if a person is willing to look, canfind it. It is what Bro. Faith would call “background” information. But, this next part is actually the real story, that I have come to call “Approaching the Impenetrable Fortress,” that I don’t think I have ever shared publicly before. So, it would probably take some fairly deep digging to find most of this information just floating around. For that and other reasons, I am going to use pseudonyms for most of the rest of the people in this part of the story. And, just to help put it all in better context, timeframe-wise, I’m going to outline a little timeline.

On one side of the time line, the Malheur Refuge Occupation started on Saturday, January 2, 2016.

On Monday, January 4, 2016, the LDS Church issued a very strongly worded statement harshly condemning the occupation and it's participants.*

*Footnote: Bundys and Finicum were completely blind-sided, and wounded by the Church's statement. Despite the fact that they are not luke-warm, milquetoast, mainstream fence-sitters, they are blue-blooded brethrenites who have always given the Church and the Brethren every possible benefit of the doubt. So they were further upset the following day, when they started receiving calls and messages from their local church leaders back home, requesting that they return home to meet with them.

On the other end of the time line, on Tuesday, January 26, 2016, without a warrant, the FBI and Oregon State Police stopped and arrested the Bundys, and killed LaVoy Finicum. Again, I repeat, there was no warrant or probable cause for the stop. And once again, I will make reference to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLIUDBrU9Cs

In the meantime, based on my fairly unique background in a variety of ways, including my connections to the Arizona Strip, on Wednesday, January 6th, I was caught off guard by an earnest plea and personal solicitation to join a unique group of people, some of whom I knew, who were planning a quick, special trip of their own to Oregon, seeking to size- up the situation and see if they might be able to help defuse it. Given the fact that many of the people involved were complete strangers to me, and I was pretty apprehensive about everything that was going on at that point anyway, and wanted at least one personal around who I knew I could count on, I said that I would not go unless one of my good friends, who I’ll call Paul, was willing to come along. By way of background, among other things, Paul is a direct descendant of one of the more famous early LDS church apostles. And let me just say that his blue-blooded church genealogy and credentials are a whole lot cleaner than mine are.

Anyway, when we arrived at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge early in the morning on Friday, January 8th, an impressive young man, about the same age of my children, whom I had never seen before, introduced himself, and voluntarily spelled his unique last name for me, which in this case was code for the fact that he was actually from a small town near where I had spent some time both growing up, and over the years since then, not all that far from Cane Beds, where LaVoy Finicum and his family were from. He said that he had heard I was coming, and he had been expecting me and was relieved that I was there. I'm going to call him Ben. Ben Baron'el.

Based on this common link, we visited for a few minutes, and I learned that Ben was actually serving as Ammon Bundy's primary bodyguard. Among other things, Ben had been a high school state champion wrestler, served in the military, and let it suffice to say that he could handle himself. And I later learned that unlike the Bundys and Finicum, Ben had long since become disaffected with Church, and no longer considered himself to be a member, and lived accordingly, if you know what means.

At one point, though, Ben asked me if I would mind calling and talking to his dad. He said his parents were quite worried about him. So I did call and talked to his dad.

Based on that conversation, etc., and the fact that I could tell that after a week of the 24/7 pressure he was under (in addition to near continuous drone activity, some people thought an FBI raid was imminent at any moment), the strain of it all was starting to get to Ben, including his own internal personal conflicts with what he was seeing and experiencing, so the next morning (Saturday, Jan. 9), I mentioned to Ben that it looked like we were going to be leaving later that day, we had room, and he was welcome to go with us, if only to take a temporary break, go on "leave" so to speak, and clear his head a little. Later that day Ben told me that he wanted to take me up on my offer. As it turns out, he had a brand new vehicle for which he only had temporary tags, and he needed to pick up the permanent plates in Utah.

One of the things I learned while I was there was that the whole Militia thing can actually have some reality and organization to it. At the refuge itself I didn’t really observe much noticeable militia presence — except in the dormitory/kitchen area, where the militia’s material support structure was fully in place — cooking meals, organizing donations, cleaning toilets, making sure that everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — was adequately clothed, sheltered and fed. In the kitchen/lounge area there was food everywhere. There were always at least two people who looked like they knew what they were doing cooking. At one point, there were two women cooking. One of them was youngish, with a pistol on her belt, stirring a gargantuan pot of chili. So I spent some time talking to her. She was a nurse from Seattle, affiliated with the material support unit of the PPN — Pacific Patriot Network. She had been called out, and responded to the call. She was there in a support role. Since they didn’t need her skills as a nurse, she was cooking. Otherwise, although some people at the wildlife refuge may have been carrying sidearms for their own personal protection, no offensive weapons and battle rattle are visible, if on-site at all. But there was no question, PPN was not far away, and they are always watching. If anything, they claimed to be there on a peacekeeping mission — in their words “to make sure the Feds don’t try to pull another Waco — without consequences.”

I had never even heard of the PPN before I got there. But I got some education about who and what they are, and what they do. And here is the railroad connection. While I was there, I learned about something known as the Patriot Railroad. PPN would simply put out word on the Patriot railroad about what they needed — stuff like mattresses, bedding, winter clothing, etc., and within about 24 hours, the stuff they needed and requested would start rolling in — from as far away as the East coast.

But aside from the material support presence, the only time I saw any real militia — and the only time I saw any rifles or offensive weapons at the refuge -- was when the PPN and Idaho 3% Leaders came to meet with Ammon Bundy, in broad daylight, with their security detail. The leaders were completely unarmed, but their security detail was fully armed with rifles and battle rattle, and looked like they meant business. Those leaders presented Ammon with proposed articles of resolution. But after they met with Ammon, their whole convoy and contingency turned around and left the refuge area. It was my understanding that they went to have the same conversation with the FBI.

But after spending two days there, and having many meetings with all kinds of people, it was past time for us to leave, and we ended up getting a very late start. It was starting to snow, and was after 9 p.m. by the time we hit the road. But we were hoping to make it to Boise that night. Something that I neglected to mention earlier was that by then, Paul and I were basically afoot. We had been chauffeured to Oregon with a group of people (again, as I said, mostly strangers), in a very fancy vehicle, etc., but based on how everything had turned out, and the fact that some of those folks had left earlier, so return transportation turned out to be a whole lot bigger adventure, and one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

In that vehicle were Paul and I, with essentially a bunch of strangers. There was the driver, who I am going to call Mike, and I did have some acquaintance with Mike, but I'm not even going to get into anything about him at this point. Then there was Ben Baron'el, and by complete surprise, a New York Times reporter that I'm going to call Jeff, who was deeply imbedded in the whole Bundy/militia "organization," and, who, completely unbeknown to me, Ben had unilaterally invited to come along for the ride.

How could a NYT reporter like that get embedded in a situation like that you might ask? The simple answer is that this was not his first rodeo. He had written about militia stories before, had done what seemed like a reasonably fair and balanced job of it, and had earned some street cred with some of the players involved. But now Jeff was embedded with Ben, Ammon Bundy’s body guard, who was now going on leave, to chase whatever story he might get from that angle.

The bottom line is, it ended up being a very, very strange mix of strange bedfellows, all trapped in one vehicle for one very long ride home. I'm so glad that my friend Paul was there to experience the whole thing with me. It is something we have talked and laughed about repeatedly over the years since then.

I am not even going to attempt to go into any detail about the trip other than to summarize by saying that we all got into an epic argument (the biggest, loudest, longest, worst argument I have ever experienced in my life), which included Mike, the driver, turned around, looking backwards, and yelling at the occupants of the back seat (Jeff, Paul and myself), while he was driving 90+ mph down the road. It's no wonder we got lost (for hours) in the middle of the night, somewhere around the Idaho/Oregon border, but we blew right past Boise, drove all night, missed an important turn, ended up going through Pocatello, and finally ended up pulling into the Salt Lake Valley just as it was getting light on Sunday morning, January 10, 2016.

None of that is really all that important to this story. But what is important is that we drove right on through SLC, and were supposed to drop Ben and Jeff off at some of Ben's relatives in Utah County. But when we got there, Ben wouldn't get out. He was insistent that he wanted to go back to SLC, that Sunday morning; he wanted us all to go with him, and; he wanted us to demand a meeting with the First Presidency, and he thought somehow, between all of us, under the circumstances, we would be able to make that happen.

By that point in my life I had enough experience and had grown cynical enough that, as a realist, I didn't give it a snowball’s chance, and didn’t believe for a second that it could happen. Paul shared my sentiments. But by then Ben was in tears, pleading, and somehow Mike had completely flip-flopped from his positions in our epic argument (that he articulated mostly by shouting, as he was looking backwards at the passengers in the back seat, as he barreled down the freeway -- no wonder we got lost, and missed turn-offs, etc., and it's a wonder we didn't get killed), and Mike was now completely onboard for attempting to assault the LDS Church fortress on a Sunday morning, and demand a meeting with the First Presidency. In fact, he was absolutely convinced that he could single-handedly make it happen. And of course Jeff, the NYT reporter was visibly salivating over all of this, and about what it might turn into -- probably beyond his wildest imagination.

By the time we arrived at temple square everybody (except Mike) voted that Mike needed to stay with the vehicle for a quick getaway, if necessary, and that my initial role needed to be to stay with Mike, and try to keep him somewhat stable and under control, because, they concluded, I was the only one who stood any kind of a chance of actually being able to do that. In the meantime, Ben, Jeff, and my friend Paul were going to make the first attempt to approach the fortress. I should note that although Paul and I were very apprehensive about the prospects, once it was determined this is what was going to happen, we were fully committed and all in. If we were in for a dime, we were in for a dollar. But our little advance party were immediately confronted by close to a dozen dark-suited security officers. The head of that detail was embattled former FBI agent/stake president, Richard Bretzing, who exited the bureau under a cloud, to become chief of security for the LDS Church. He was also the father of Oregon FBI Special Agent in Charge, Greg Bretzing, who was instrumental in planning the assassination of fellow Church member, LaVoy Finicum. Paul explained that they had just come from the Malheur Occupation, which they knew the Church seemed to be interested in, and they wanted an audience with the First Presidency.

Of course, among other things, including whether or not they were armed, the security detail wanted to know exactly what the objective of the meeting would be. Paul said that Ben had been serving as Ammon Bundy’s body guard, and had an idea for how the Church might get involved in a way that might actually help resolve and diffuse the occupation rather than the opposite.

Because their first attempt seemed to land on deaf ears, they called and summoned me to see if I couldn't be more persuasive. I didn’t quite know what to do with Mike, so I grabbed all of my stuff and Paul’s out of the vehicle, just in case, and started trying to get buckled up for whatever might come next.

Despite the fact that I never thought for a second that it could work, mostly for Ben's sake, as I mentioned before, by then I was committed to the effort, and was willing to bring everything I might have to bear to the table. This time, between Paul and I, we seemed to make some headway, and they finally said that they would call us in about an hour to let us know the verdict. In the meantime they were also going to be completely vetting us through our local church leadership. I could only imagine the uproar that would have caused at the stake offices in my stake that morning.

While Paul and I were working on all that, Ben and Jeff had persuaded Mike to take them to breakfast, while trying to keep him under control and somewhat connected to reality. By then Mike had been up for about 30 hours straight, had driven all night, much of it yelling into the back seat, and in the Denny's Restaurant, where they were eating breakfast Mike was convinced that every other soul there was with the FBI, and that they were going to be arrested any second.

About the time Paul and I finally made it (walking) to the restaurant, and tried to take a turn with Mike, we got the call. We were supposed to come to the top floor of the JSMB at 1 pm. Oh boy, here we go.

But we still didn’t know what do with Mike. The meeting was going to require all hands on deck, and Jeff was not about to miss anything, so we were going to have to leave Mike unattended. So we told him to just drive around and be ready to pick us up when we called. He ended up being almost an hour late because he was so busy leading would-be FBI agents (that were supposedly tailing him,) on a wild goose chase all over Northern Utah, as he sought to permanently evade them.

In the meantime, we ended up having almost a two hour meeting on the top floor of the JSMB. With the First Presidency? No, it was a bait and switch. Instead we got Scott Trotter and all the top dogs from the Church PR department.

They wanted to know what we wanted. I explained that really, in light of the Church’s statement, etc., what we were really trying to see if the Brethren would be willing to consider following the parable of the lost sheep, and stick their necks out, leave the 99 securely in the fold, and reach-out to the Bundys and Finicum with a compassionate personal message to them, demonstrating that there was any care or concern for them, as individuals under the circumstances, versus the image of the Church. Ben was convinced that if the First Presidency would be willing to send a kind, compassionate, personal message back with him to Ammon Bundy, that Ammon would respond in a positive way. Trotter wanted to know if Ammon and company had seen the Church's statement? What, Trotter wanted to know, was there to be said beyond the statement?

By then, my fuse was starting to get quite a bit shorter. So I asked them to please identify any General Authority who had actually been involved in the preparation of the statement. “Just give me a name,” I said. “We can't do that,” they said. “We have no idea what you might do with that information.”

They just kept coming back to the statement, and saying "what message are you looking for that can't be satisfied by reference to the statement?" “A personal touch,” I said. “Demonstration of a willingness to leave the 99 and reach out to the one. We're just looking for any evidence we might share with them that the church cares as much about them as individuals, even as lost sheep, as it does about its image to the world."

When it became obvious that the meeting was going no where, I got up and said we were done. “But what are you going to do?” They wanted to know. “Well, whatever it is, we know we're on our own,” I said.

When Mike eventually did return from supposedly leading the FBI on wild goose chases, the first thing we did was put someone else behind the wheel, and get out of SLC as quickly as possible to collect our thoughts, before Ben collected his permanent license plates, and he and Jeff eventually returned, temporarily, to the Malheur wildlife refuge.

Just over two weeks later, LaVoy Finicum was trapped and killed, and the Bundys we're arrested without any warrant or paperwork. The whole thing was planned by FBI SAIC, and fellow member of the Church, Greg Bretzing, who subsequently lied about everything that happened. Bundys were fully acquitted about 10 months later. And Bretzing retired in disgrace from the FBI. But it is highly unlikely that there will ever be any justice in this lifetime for LaVoy Finicum's killing.

And in my next installment(s), I may explain part of the reasons why there will never be any earthly justice for what happened to LaVoy, and/or or talk about what happened behind the scenes, following LaVoy's funeral, that led to Cliven Bundy's subsequent arrest, by Greg Bretzing and company, as Cliven was getting off a plane in Portland, Oregon.