On August 21, deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) came to arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant for his failure to appear on federal firearms charges after he was given the wrong court date.

[1] The charges stemmed from Weaver's sale of a sawed-off shotgun to an undercover federal informant, who had induced him to modify the firearm below the legal barrel length.

At the end of Weaver's trial, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility formed the Ruby Ridge Task Force (RRTF) in an attempt to investigate Spence's charges; their report raised questions about all of the participating agencies' conduct and policies.

It issued a report in which it called for reforms in federal law enforcement in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the losses of life at Ruby Ridge and to restore the public's confidence.

The law enforcement's response at Ruby Ridge and during the Waco siege roughly six months later were both cited by Timothy McVeigh as his motivation to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing with Terry Nichols.

[19]: 21, 24 In January 1985, the FBI and the Secret Service launched an investigation into allegations that Weaver had made threats against Reagan and other government and law enforcement officials.

[5]: 63–65  The Secret Service had been told that Weaver was a member of Aryan Nations (an antisemitic, neo-Nazi, white supremacist terrorist organization) and that he had a large weapons cache at his residence.

[19]: 13, 25 In October 1989, the ATF claimed that Weaver sold the informant two sawed-off shotguns, with the overall length of the guns shorter than the limit set by federal law.

His distrust grew even further when Hofmeister erroneously told him that if he lost the trial, he would lose his land, essentially leaving Vicki homeless, and that the government would take away his children.

These problems rendered it difficult for other law enforcement officials to assess the Weaver case accurately without the benefit of first-hand briefings from persons who had continuing involvement with him.

[37]: 33  A later memo circulated within the Justice Department opined that: The assumptions of federal and some state and local law enforcement personnel about Weaver—that he was a Green Beret, that he would shoot on sight anyone who attempted to arrest him, that he had collected certain types of arms, that he had "booby-trapped" and tunneled his property—exaggerated the threat he posed.

Marshal Wayne "Duke" Smith and FBI HRT Commander Richard Rogers in drawing up the Ruby Ridge rules of engagement on August 21–22, 1992.

[57] The Justice Department's Ruby Ridge Task Force (RRTF) report to the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR, 1994) states: The evidence suggests, but does not establish, that the shot that killed Samuel Weaver was fired by DUSM Cooper.

[5]: 390 In 1997, Boundary County Sheriff Greg Sprungl conducted an independent search of the "Y", and his investigator, Lucien Haag, discovered and confirmed that a bullet found in that search matched DUSM Cooper's 9 mm Colt submachine gun and contained fibers that matched Samuel's shirt, conclusively proving DUSM Cooper shot Weaver in the back as he retreated.

After taking cover, Cooper stated that he saw Samuel flee and radioed OP team member Dave Hunt, reporting that he had either wounded or killed Harris.

[71] In the aftermath of the gunfight on August 21 at 11:20 am PDT, DUSM Hunt[71] requested immediate support from Idaho law enforcement,[72]: 518  and he also alerted the FBI by notifying it that a Marshal had been killed.

[71] Following Hunt's phone call, the Marshals Service Crisis Center was activated under the direction of Duke Smith, associate director for Operations.

Per Glenn's direction, the FBI's Standard Deadly Force Policy replaced the ROE to guide the law enforcement personnel that were to be deployed to the cabin perimeter.

[87][89][90] The RRTF report to the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) of June 1994 stated unequivocally in conclusion (in its executive summary) that the rules that allowed the second shot to have been made did not satisfy constitutional standards for legal use of deadly force.

[92] The DOJ's RRTF report said that the lack of a request for surrender before Agent Horiuchi's second shot was "inexcusable", as Harris and the Weavers were running for cover at the time and did not pose an imminent threat.

[102][103] Weaver and Harris were charged with a variety of offenses;[99][104] their trial in U.S. District Court in Boise began in April 1993,[105][106] and it was presided over by Judge Edward Lodge.

The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information held fourteen days of hearings on these incidents and allegations of misconduct, ending on October 19, 1995.

"[128] The major change was that agencies required a law enforcement agent to have reasonable belief of an "imminent" danger of death or serious physical injury in order to use deadly force.

This brought all federal LEA deadly force policies in line with the U.S. Supreme Court rulings Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 18 (1985) and Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), which applied to state and local law enforcement agencies.

[129] In 1997, Michael Kahoe, the chief of the FBI's violent crimes section, pled guilty to obstruction of justice for destroying a report which was critical of the agency's role at Ruby Ridge.

[5]: 382f In 1997, Boundary County prosecutor Denise Woodbury indicted FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi for manslaughter on state charges, just before the statute of limitations for this crime expired.

[136][137][138] Boundary County prosecutor Brett Benson, who had defeated Woodbury in the May 2000 primary and won the November election,[139] decided to drop the case.

[145] American domestic terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols claimed that their desire for revenge for the federal government's poor handling of the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges motivated them to perpetrate the Oklahoma City bombing.

On April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the fire that ended the Waco siege, they detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building during business hours.

Tara Westover, in her memoir Educated (2018), referred to this incident, noting her own family's preparations to defend their isolated home against a potential siege by "the Feds".