Guys, I love that we're all so passionate, but every once in awhile, it leads us down the wrong road. Doesn't anybody have anything to say about the fact that the defense you all castigated Horiuchi for using was NOT the one he used?
On the other hand, there is still a connection. Horiuchi claimed he was trying to kill Kevin whatsisname and Randy Weaver as they ducked inside the door, accidentally hitting Vicky Weaver instead only because she was behind the door. He claimed the curtain on the door's window was closed and that he didn't know he shot Vicky Weaver until days later. Indeed, he sure didn't tell anyone that whether he knew or not--the siege was probably lengthened, because negotiators on bullhorns tried to appeal to Vicky's concern for her children and the people inside assumed they were taunting them about their mother's death--and sending the message that no one would be allowed out alive.
The point is, even if Horiuchi's story is true, he was still firing at fleeing people who posed no threat, so the order SHOULD have been debated. As several people have pointed out, he was wrong and criminal to have followed it. More disturbingly, in Randy Weaver's trial, a key piece of evidence was discovered after having been withheld, supposedly accidentally, by the FBI. Supposedly they withheld it even from the prosecutor, which enraged him, of course.
The evidence was a sketch of the door Horiuchi made the night of the shot on his hotel stationery. It clearly shows the curtains drawn open and two heads through the window. Now it's possible that Horiuchi did make the mistake he says he made even if the window was open, but if so, lying about it was a bad idea. (Or maybe it wasn't.
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Finally, there's the matter of Horiuchi's initial defense, which was that Kevin whatsisname and Randy Weaver were firing at a helicopter behind him when he took the first shot, wounding Weaver in the arm at the shed out back, and then tracked them back to the cabin, where Vicky was killed. The problem is that it was proven by the FBI's own logs and witnesses that no helicopter was in the air at that time and Weaver was not observed to fire by anyone else on scene. Horiuchi and the FBI withdrew that one early on, but to me it indicates a sort of "drop gun" mentality--no one will be looking too close, their word against ours, just make up whatever you have to, we'll look out for our own.
