PORTLAND — Oregon standoff defendant Shawna Cox testified Thursday that she didn’t emerge immediately from Robert “LaVoy” Finicum’s truck when police stopped them Jan. 26 on U.S. 395 because she was afraid of getting shot.
Cox, the fourth of seven defendants to take the stand in the federal conspiracy trial, became emotional as her standby lawyer Tiffany Harris played the video that Cox took of the felony traffic stop as she sat in the back seat.
Harris showed the footage after the judge cautioned that it could be “quite prejudicial” to both Cox and co-defendant Ryan Bundy, with the risk of “underscoring to the jury that the defendants pick and choose which laws they want to follow.” The video captured Cox telling Finicum to “gun it, gun it” as he sped away from officers at the initial stop.
That day, authorities tried to stop Finicum’s truck and a Jeep with Ammon Bundy as they headed away from their occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns to a community meeting in John Day.
Ammon Bundy surrendered immediately along with his bodyguard, Brian Cavalier. Ryan Payne, who was in the front passenger seat of Finicum’s truck, got out before Finicum drove off.
Finicum ended up crashing into a snowbank at a roadblock up the highway and was fatally shot by state police after he got out. Police said Fincium reached three times for the inside of his jacket, where he had a loaded 9mm handgun.
Cox said she noticed a line of unmarked cars to the right as they were driving north on the highway and then noticed flashing lights. She said she heard Payne remark, “It’s a setup” and Finicum say, “It’s an ambush.”
Once Finicum stopped the truck, she said, Payne rolled down his window and thrust both of his hands out, his palms showing. Suddenly, she testified, she saw a red laser and heard a shot.
“He jumped back in. That freaked us out. It was very frightening,” Cox said. “It made no sense to me.”
Payne eventually stepped out of the truck and yelled there were women inside. Officers at the scene said the women should come out, Cox testified.
Asked why she didn’t leave then, Cox said she asked Victoria Sharp, who was sitting next to her in the back seat, what she wanted to do.
“She said, ‘I’m not getting out. They just shot at us.’ ‘I’m not going out either,’ ” Cox testified. “I have a lot of children and my maternal instinct is to protect them. I wasn’t about to leave her in that vehicle.”
Cox said she was perplexed why no officers approached Finicum’s driver’s window and asked for his license or explained the reason for the stop.
Harris asked, “Have you ever before in your life contemplated driving away from an officer?”
“Never,” Cox responded.
Of Finicum’s truck, Cox said, “That was our secure spot. We were afraid to get out. … We felt like we were pinned down. We felt like we were going to all be killed. In fact, we were sure we were all in a death trap.”
Co-defendant Kenneth Medenbach stood to ask Cox a question but was quickly shut down by U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown. He began: “Are you aware the jury has power to weigh …”
“Stop!” the judge demanded. “I’m not going to let a defendant ask any questions about jury nullification.”
“And the corruption continues,” Medenbach added. The judge asked if he had any other questions to ask, and he didn’t.
Prosecutors planned a cross-examination of Cox after the lunch break.
Earlier Thursday, former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, who serves as president of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, testified that Ammon Bundy asked him to call Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward about three to four weeks before the refuge takeover.
Mack did, urging Ward to “put the federal government on notice he was in charge of the Hammonds.” The Hammonds are father-and-son ranchers who were set to return to federal prison to serve out a mandatory minimum sentence for arson to federal lands.
“I asked him if he thought the Hammonds should go to prison and he said no,” Mack testified. The judge told jurors to disregard his answer, sustaining a hearsay objection.
Mack said he participated in a Jan. 2 march and rally for the Hammonds in Burns but never went to the wildlife refuge. In fact, he testified under questioning by Ammon Bundy’s lawyer Marcus Mumford, that he thought the refuge occupation was a bad idea.
“I felt it was a misguided protest,” Mack said. “I told him somebody was going to get hurt, and he needed to get out of there. I kept telling him this was not going to have a happy ending, and I was very fearful for his safety and the other occupants. I knew he was a good man and I just prayed for him and his family.”
Mack also testified that he was surprised Ward didn’t arrest Ammon Bundy when the two met on a rural road outside the refuge on Jan. 7. “I thought it was derelict of duty,” Mack said, but the judge struck that answer as well.
A former FBI agent, Charles Stephenson, also testified for the defense, saying that most of the weapons he saw pictured in photos from the refuge occupation appeared to be in an “at rest, secure” and nonthreatening position. But he acknowledged that drawing a conclusion about someone’s intent based on a “frozen” moment in time without knowing the “totality of the circumstances,” is impossible.
“Would it matter if a person were to carry a firearm in a place where they had no lawful right to be?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow.
“Yes,” Stephenson replied.
