He tended herds, rather than serving the state: LaVoy Finicum, a man in full.

Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brethren; here there are states….

A state is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: `I the state, am the people.'…

Destroyers are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state….

Nietzsche, "The New Idol," from Thus Spake Zarathustra

The late rancher LaVoy Finicum sought to elude the state's armed enforcers, but he wasn't attempting to evade the law. His intent, as he explained clearly and repeatedly to OSP troopers before the lethal ambush at a roadblock on Oregon Highway 395, was to travel to John Day to meet with Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer, who could have taken him into custody, if just cause existed for that action. 

Finicum, who nurtured a winsome if misguided faith in the Constitution, entertained the hope that Palmer might be a peace officer who was willing to act in the name of the people, rather than enforcing the will of the state. 

If the objective of the FBI and the OSP on January 26 had been to arrange the peaceful arrest of Finicum and his associates, they would have reached out to Palmer. The destination of the convoy was known, as was its purpose – to convene a town hall meeting, not to commit a violent offense. 

Rather than coordinating with Palmer, the FBI and the local lickspittles in uniform deliberately ignored him, and withheld any information about the plan to interdict the convoy. This is because Sheriff Palmer is seen as a "security leak"owing to his sympathies with the ranchers and other residents of his rural county who have been driven into destitution by the federal government.

Staging a combat-grade operation – spearheaded by the FBI's official death squad, which bears the trans-Orwellian title of "Hostage Rescue Team (HRT)" – was the riskiest way to carry out an arrest. It was, however, the most effective way to exert the supposed authority of the federal government. This is also why the HRT, at some risk to the passengers in Finicum's vehicle and the OSP officers on the ground, tried to assassinate Finicum after he attempted to run the roadblock.