Ruby Ridge was the site of an eleven-day siege in August 1992 in Boundary County, Idaho of a cabin occupied by the Weaver family. It began on August 21, when deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) came to arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant after his failure to appear on federal firearms charges. During a surveillance operation, Weaver's dog was shot by one of the officers, Art Roderick, leading Sammy Weaver, Randy's son, to fire at the team. Sammy was then shot and killed, causing an exchange of fire in which Kevin Harris, Randy's friend, shot and killed Deputy U.S. Marshal William Francis Degan. Weaver, Harris, and members of Weaver's immediate family refused to surrender. The Hostage Rescue Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI HRT) became involved as the siege was mounted.[1] In the standoff, Weaver's wife Vicki was shot by Lon Horiuchi, an FBI sniper, while she was holding her baby daughter - the only casualty of the siege itself. The conflict was ultimately resolved by civilian negotiators. Harris surrendered and was arrested on August 30; Weaver and his three daughters surrendered the next day.
Extensive litigation followed Ruby Ridge. Initially, Randy Weaver and Harris were tried on a variety of federal criminal charges, including first-degree murder for the death of Degan. In the successful defense, Weaver's attorney, Gerry Spence, made accusations of criminal wrongdoing against the agencies which were involved in the incident, in particular, the FBI, the USMS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) for Idaho. Harris and Weaver were acquitted of all of the siege-related charges, and Weaver was only found guilty of violating his bail terms and of failing to appear for a court hearing, both related to the original federal firearms charges.[2][3][page needed] The Weaver family and Harris both filed civil suits against the federal government in response to the firefight and the siege. In August 1995, the Weavers won a combined out-of-court settlement of $3.1 million; Harris was awarded a $380,000 settlement in September 2000. In 1997, a Boundary County prosecutor indicted Horiuchi for manslaughter of Vicki, but after a complicated procedural history, the county's new prosecutor controversially closed the case, judging he would be unlikely to secure a conviction.[4][5]
