ANATOMY OF A DISASTER

A SETTLEMENT AVOIDS A COURT CASE, BUT THE CRISIS OVER RUBY RIDGE CONTINUES

Before there was Waco, there was Ruby Ridge. As an episode in the annals of right-wing panic, the 1992 shoot-out and siege at the Idaho cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver ranks second only to the inferno of the Branch Davidians the following year. Federal agents in body armor and black ninja uniforms, armored cars crashing up hillsides, even the fabled helicopters of militia nightmares-Ruby Ridge had all the elements of a paranoid fantasy, with the difference that it was stamped in real flesh and blood. In the 11-day standoff, Weaver's wife was shot dead as she held their 10-month-old daughter...

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