Two people who reportedly witnessed the shooting of LaVoy Finicum are using social media to tell their story. Almost as soon as Finicum was shot, word began to spread among militia-types of his death, with many claiming that he was unarmed and had his hands up. While Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Ryan Payne and Shawna Cox were arrested at the scene, the man driving Ammon Bundy—Mark McConnell—and others were eventually released from the scene. As rumor began to spread that Finicum was not resisting arrest when he was shot, Mark McConnell took to his Facebook page to dispel the rumor. In the video he says that Finicum was driving the second vehicle and when they were stopped, one person got out and was handcuffed. At that point Finicum took off in the truck with passengers still in the truck. McConnell explained it was foolish for Finicum to take off in the truck and was an act of aggression. He relays what Ryan Payne and Shawna Cox, passengers in Finicum’s truck, told him: Payne and Finicum got in an argument, Finicum tried to drive around the road block and got stuck in the snow bank and Finicum charged at law enforcement. Below is video of him relaying what he knows to his friends on Facebook.
A third passenger in the car has been identified as Victoria Sharp. The 18-year-old Kansas woman arrived at the refuge last weekend with her mother and 6 of her 9 siblings. The whole family was also part of the standoff at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. She gave her account of the shooting to a woman named Linda Kirby, who uploaded it to YouTube. Her account differs slightly. She claims LaVoy Finicum told law enforcement he was going to see (militia-friendly) Sheriff Palmer in Grant County.
He was like, I’m just going to drive. I’m just going to talk to the sheriff. And he’s like, either shoot me now or just leave us alone. (inaudible) They said, “Get your hands up!” And he decided to just drive. So we all got down on the floorboard and he drove off and they all started firing at us. Started shooting at us a bunch of times and they had a roadblock set up. And he ran into a snow bank and they were like riddling the car with bullets. And when we crashed, he stopped for a second. He got out of the car and he had his hands in the air and he’s like “Just shoot me dead! Just shoot me!” And they did. They shot him dead.
LaVoy Finicum did tell NBC News he'd never settle for jail:
Asked if he would rather be killed than be arrested — were the occupation to turn violent — 54-year-old occupier LaVoy Finicum, said: "Absolutely ... I have no intention of spending any of my days in a concrete box."
"There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them," he said. "I'm prepared to defend freedom."
Both video and audio accounts can be seen below.