Burns Chronicles No 59 – Ryan Bundy Holds the Key
Burns Chronicles No 59
Ryan Bundy Holds the Key
Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
August 30, 2017
On January 26, 2016, several people, in two private vehicles were on their way to a scheduled meeting John Day, Oregon. While in a forested area, with extremely poor, if not non-existent, cell phone coverage, they were set upon by modern day highwaymen (highwaymen were people who stopped travelers and robbed them). The driver and passengers of the second vehicle submitted to the demands of the heavily armed interlopers, at gunpoint, to leave the vehicle and sit on the side of the snow-covered roadway.
The driver of the second vehicle, a white pick-up truck, following the exit of one of the passengers, sped away, seeking the assistance of a peace officer, Sheriff Glenn Palmer, of Grant County, Oregon. However, within a couple of miles they found that the highwaymen had set up a barricade across the road, barring passage. The highwaymen, hidden behind their vehicles, began firing shots at the white truck. This forced the truck off the road, where some rather adept driving may have saved one of the highwaymen’s life, by swerving, at the last moment.
The truck then came to a stop, and the driver, LaVoy Finicum, exited. In the back seat were three people; Shawna Cox, Victoria Sharp, and Ryan Bundy. Bundy sat on the left and Cox on the right.
Having already been shot at, there was concern for the safety of the party. Finicum, in an effort to draw fire away from those still in the truck, began moving towards the rear and away from the truck.
There were lots of loud noises. Some from 40 mm projectiles of rubber bullets and tear gas (OSP recovered 13 40 mm casings), others from flash-bang type grenades. Included, however, were two shots that came from the left-rear of the truck. One hit the top of the truck and one broke the driver side rear window. The round that broke the window may well have hit the side of the truck, pressuring the window to break, and deflecting into the shoulder of Ryan Bundy. This is the more logical explanation, as the velocity of the bullet, absent any other external resistance, should have penetrated much further than the fleshy part of Bundy’s shoulder.
Now, this gets interesting since the Oregon State Police (OSP) had to account for shots fired, though they could not account for two shots. Shell casings were missing, and the rather perplexing task resulted in speculation regarding the bullet impact on the driver’s side of the truck. Their conclusion was that it must have come from the shooter that fired three shots as the white truck approached the highwaymen, as shown in this OSP exhibit:
The government tried to attribute the shot at the rear door to the three shots fired as the vehicle approached the barricade. However, this does not quite work, as if you look at the yellow line in the third image. You see that if it did hit the truck, it would be a glancing strike. It would have been deflected upon impact, and the initial point of impact would be the most damaged. Any additional damage would have been less, as the bullet was deflected away from the truck body. As you can see, the greater impact was on the right side of the gap between the door and frame.
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