randy weaver trail day this was posted to the firearms politics mailing list hi folks thursday april marked day of the trial this day marked the first testimony of the trial deputy u s marshal larry cooper took the stand for the prosecution the short version is that his testimony was consistent with the opening statements for the prosecution cooper testified that he had arrived in spokane washington on august to participate in a surveillance operation with five other deputies near the weaver cabin the team was using night vision equipment for surveillance and split up into two teams of three people the six later met at an observation point above the cabin after this deputies cooper william degan and arthur roderick began a descent to scout further possible surveillance sites cooper told the court that roderick threw two large rocks into a gully to see whether the weaver family dogs would respond striker the weaver s yellow lab started toward them barking loudly roderick led the three in a run from the area they ran through some dense woods into an open area called the fern field with the dog in pursuit by this time kevin harris and samuel weaver had joined the chase the surveillance team had reached a y in the road cooper decided that they should take cover in the woods because otherwise they would be an easy target and might be shot in the back as degan reached the y he spotted randy weaver coming down the road from the cabin ahead weaver was startled but did not fire at this moment striker reached degan and cooper had to fend him off with his gun it is unclear whether this means he clubbed the dog or shot the dog both cooper and degan then took cover in the woods according to cooper kevin harris and samuel weaver continued walking down the road apparently not noticing the two after they had passed by on the road degan got up on one knee raised his gun and shouted stop u s marshal harris then brought the weapon around at hip level and fired he didn t bring the weapon up to eye level i saw bill s arm going back and i knew he had been hit cooper fired at harris and harris went down cooper then brought his weapon to bear on samuel but did not fire at this point cooper then heard two shots to his right samuel weaver looked in the direction of the shots yelled you son of a bitch and ran toward them cooper then realized that shots were coming at him from directly ahead so he fired a three round burst at the cabin at this point he then saw samuel weaver running toward the cabin when cooper reached degan he placed his first two fingers on degan carotid artery counted two or three beats and then his heart stopped shortly thereafter roderick and the other three marshals joined him they then all heard a large burst of gunfire from the area around the cabin on cross examination david nevin questioned the point of throwing rocks into the gulley asking you wanted to lure that dog out so you could shoot that dog didn t you nevin also pointed out that in last september s testimony cooper had claimed that he spotted weaver after the dog had left him cooper claimed that he had gone over the events in his head and decided that thursday s account was correct nevin continued the cross examination by asking what cooper would have done had an armed man dressed in full camouflage jumped out of the woods at him no answer was available friday april marks continued cross examination of cooper notes there was no coverage of protestors drew ron phillips crphilli hound dazixca ingr com senior customer engineer intergraph electronics east evelyn avenue voice mountain view ca fax
