Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family

The book is both disturbing and important. It traces the tragedy of Ruby Ridge, Idaho from the very beginning, even before Idaho. It profiles Randy and Vicki Weaver when they first meant and follows through their marriage, their children and their move to Idaho. It explores their different beliefs in depth and both their problems and triumphs throughout their marriage. It explains how the U.S. Marshall Service and the ATF first noticed Randy Weaver and why they were interested in him. Did they initially set him up? It explains what the reaction of the FBI was when they were called to the scene. How the government agencies invovled escalated the problem to a new level. How the lack of communication within the government made a bad situation worse. It follows the aftermath of the seige and the shootings into the evidence gathering stage and through the trial. It follows the survivors and what they have become, their tribulations. This is a very important book for everyone to read. It is about lack of tolerance in others beliefs. About the governments miscommunications and lack of sharing information between departments. This has been going on for years, way before 9-11. It delves into the fact that government agencies don't like to admit they were wrong and will sacrifice the little guy to protect the big guy. It show that there is hard working decent people working for the government as well as complete self serving, intolerant, career mongers looking for nothing but advancement and the connections to insulate themselves from the decisions they've made. Randy Weaver and his family thought differently than many. They wanted to be left alone. And they were pushed and pushed to the breaking point. Attacked and surrounded and attacked again. The Weaver's paid the price for their beliefs but the government agents that overstepped their bounds have never been brought to justice or even held accountable with more than meager 15 day suspensions. The courts felt the government wrong enough to award a monetary settlement to the Weaver's. When will the total truth come out? This is an excellent book full of information and presented well. It is engrossing and pulls you in from the beginning. It reads well. I recommend it to everyone.

This excellent book may well be the definitive work on the tragedy of Ruby Ridge. I was prepared for another diatribe; either Randy Weaver the martyr or Randy Weaver the lawless, racist scum. Instead, Jess Walter has written a very even-handed chronicle that left me terribly sad.If Walter's facts are right, (and they're certainly believable,) this was a story without unalloyed heroes or villains. He takes us through the Weaver family's odyssey from fundamentalist Christians to - well, whackos. He takes us through the story of how the U.S. Marshalls sent to bring in an everyday, minor fugitive found the case spinning out of their control, leaving them on a mountaintop with two people and a dog dead, and the whole world watching. And he explains the inexplicable; how on earth a law enforcement officer could be in a blind with a .308 and orders to shoot on sight.This is one of the few really essential books I've read this year.

An excellent account of the shootout and standoff at Ruby Ridge that's all the more powerful because Jess Walter plays it straight down the middle, neither out to get the government nor out to belittle Randy Weaver. What we get instead is a sober laying out of the facts through great use of detail and a strong narrative. I went into the book a little skeptical and underinformed about Ruby Ridge and emerged horrified at what happened, particularly by the behavior of the feds. But Walter doesn't try to make Weaver a pure hero either, showing his eccentricities and willingly raising questions about his handling of the situation such as whether Weaver used his children as a buffer between himself and danger. The obligatory court section of the book is saved from the boring recitation of trial that often characterizes non-fiction, true crime books by an excellent portrait of lawyer Gerry Spence and very nice detail on the jury's lengthy deliberations. Walter ties Ruby Ridge, Waco and Oklahoma City together very nicely without overdoing it. He's a master of understatement, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions. He includes a very good, concise history of the Aryan Nations/militia/freemen/patriot radical right-wing movement. This is a must-read for any student of the radical right-wing movement, especially anyone open-minded enough to be willing to accept that the government has made some horrific, perhaps criminal errors ... and that some of those errors have fanned the flames of hatred more effectively than any racist demagogue.

This was a well-written and well-researched report of what happened at Ruby Ridge and it explained how the government failed in its duties to protect and serve. Had it not been so tragic -- a pre-teenage boy killed by U. S. Marshalls, a mother with her baby in her arms killed by an FBI sniper, a U. S. Marshall also killed -- one might refer to this incident as a comedy of errors. Jess Walter was fair to all sides and expressed the frustration felt by the Marshall whose duty it was to bring Randy Weaver in but who felt his hands were tied until the whole situation overwhelmed him and his team.

This is a well written book. It is as exciting and easy to read as a novel. All sides of the controversy get a fair hearing. The beliefs of the Weavers, the White Separtist Movement, Christian Identity and others involved in this controversy are explained. The author definately had his point of view but covered all points of view fairly.