Tag Archives: malheur

Birders rejoice as Oregon standoff comes to close

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http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2016/02/birders_rejoice_as_oregon_stan.html#incart_story_package

With David Fry’s surrender to FBI agents Thursday morning, birders and environmentalists breathed a collective sigh of relief.

They’d grown increasingly anxious watching as the armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife refuge that began Jan. 2 dragged on for weeks and then for more than a month. Fry was among a group of four holdouts who dug in after the departure of most occupiers Jan. 26 and 27.

With each passing day, the standoff posed a greater threat to the spring migration that draws millions of shorebirds, waterfowl and songbirds to the 187,000-acre bird sanctuary.

“This couldn’t have ended soon enough,” said Harv Schubothe, president of the Oregon Birding Association.

Spring thaw is just around the corner, and Schubothe worried what might happen if U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel couldn’t be present to direct the flow of melting water. He feared northbound swans, geese and sandhill cranes might arrive at Malheur to find dry meadows where wetlands should be. Unmanaged melt of this year’s copious snowpack could also cause flooding that might breach levies and wash out roads.

The standoff also threatened the Harney County Migratory Bird Festival, an April event that offers a major tourism boost for the county.

When the last occupier exited the refuge Thursday morning, all those threats disappeared. Their minds eased, refuge supporters turned to the formidable task of moving on and mending relationships frayed by the occupation.

“There’s a consensus that we never want this to happen again,” said Chris Gardner, who serves on the board of the nonprofit Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. “We want to make sure the refuge and Burns and the Harney County community are in partnership going forward, so it doesn’t happen again.”

For Gardner’s group, the occupation came with an upside. Bird lovers and environmentalists angry about the standoff channeled their feelings into action. The Friends of Malheur grew from 40 members to more than 700 over the course of the occupation. The group took in more than $25,000 in donations.

“Our treasurer has just gotten flooded with envelopes,” Gardner said.

The 41-day standoff began when Idaho businessman Ammon Bundy led a band of militants in an unannounced seizure of the refuge headquarters. Bundy’s insurrection fizzled on Jan. 26 when he and other occupation leaders were arrested on a highway north of Burns. LaVoy Finicum, a spokesman for the occupation, died in the encounter.

Known among birders and environmentalists as the crown jewel of the national wildlife refuge system, the vast preserve surrounding Malheur Lake is a rare source of abundant water in the arid Great Basin and a crucial point along the Pacific Flyway. Its importance to migratory birds can’t be understated, Schubothe said.

“The number of different species that depend on that oasis is just astounding,” he said.

In a way, the occupation leaders had fortuitous timing. Malheur’s wetlands are relatively empty in winter, with fewer birds present save the occasional hawk, quail, raven or owl. But the refuge comes alive in the spring as hundreds of species ranging from grebes and pelicans to warblers and finches arrive to feed and breed in its wetlands.

The standoff has likely ended with enough time for refuge staff to prepare for the migration, but cleaning up the occupiers’ mess could continue for weeks or months.

In a statement Thursday, Fish and Wildlife officials said they’ll be working to “assess and repair damages.”

In addition to the big task of managing water, refuge staff have been kept from the mundane duties of checking fish screens that keep invasive carp from tightening their grip on the refuge habitat, fixing fences and getting contracts in place for the summer.

“All that stuff that goes into making a place like Malheur function optimally, that’s stuff you can’t do on the spot,” said Bob Sallinger, conservation director for the Audubon Society of Portland. “You need to be prepping throughout the year.”

Sallinger quietly visited the bird sanctuary weeks into the occupation. Hoping to avoid the flurry of protests, counter-protests and news cameras, he brought little more than his binoculars and a bird list.

“I felt it was important to see for myself,” he said.

The swans had already arrived and the first sandhill cranes were coming in. Other waterfowl will arrive soon.

Although Sallinger was alone during his visit, other birders are planning trips to Malheur now that the occupiers have left. Hundreds have answered the environmental groups’ call for volunteers to assist in the cleanup effort.

Alan Contreras, a Eugene educational administrator and avid birder who began visiting the refuge as a child, plans to be among those returning this spring.

A lifelong Oregonian whose roots in the state go back to 1871, Contreras, 60, had taken the refuge occupation personally. He resented its out-of-stater leaders, who seemed to feel they had more right to the land than he did.

“I have asked my family to place my ashes there when the time comes,” he said. “It’s that kind of place.”

–Kelly House

Last occupiers of Oregon wildlife refuge surrender to FBI

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The Associated Press

BURNS, Ore. (AP) — Surrounded by FBI agents in armored vehicles, the last four occupiers of a national nature preserve surrendered Thursday, and a leader in their movement who organized a 2014 standoff with authorities was criminally charged in federal court.

The holdouts were the last remnants of a larger group that seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge nearly six weeks ago, demanding that the government turn over the land to locals and release two ranchers imprisoned for setting fires. For the first time since Jan. 2, the federal land was fully under the control of the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, Cliven Bundy, who was at the center of the 2014 standoff at his ranch in Nevada, was arrested late Wednesday in Portland after encouraging the Oregon occupiers not to give up. Bundy is the father of Ammon Bundy, the jailed leader of the Oregon occupation.

 On Thursday, the elder Bundy was charged in the standoff from two years ago. Federal authorities may have feared Bundy’s presence would draw sympathizers to defend the holdouts.

More: http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/occupiers-at-oregon-refuge-say-theyll-turn-themselves-in/

 

Cliven Bundy arrested in Portland

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cliven-bundy-arrested-in-portland-as-oregon-occupiers-say-they-will-surrender-thursday/ar-BBpnaMG?ocid=spartandhp

Occupiers say they will surrender Thursday

Cliven Bundy, the controversial Nevada rancher at the center of an armed standoff with federal officials in 2014, was arrested in Portland Wednesday, according to jail records and news reports.

He was reportedly on his way to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in isolated southeastern Oregon, where an armed occupation in its 41st day seemed to be coming to an end. The occupation had been organized by Bundy’s sons Ammon and Ryan, who are now in jail facing a felony charge of conspiracy to impede a federal officer.

The last remaining members of the occupation had said they will turn themselves over on Thursday morning, after the FBI appeared to close in on their encampment.

The FBI in Portland would not confirm the circumstances of elder Bundy’s arrest. But the Oregonian reported that he was apprehended at Portland International Airport after disembarking from his flight from Las Vegas late Wednesday night. The newspaper said that Bundy, 74, faces the same charge as his son in relation to his standoff with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2014. He also faces weapons charges, it said.

 

Bundy’s arrest came after federal authorities moved to surround the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Wednesday afternoon, prompting the lingering occupiers to have a panicked phone conversation with a few of their supporters, including Nevada state assemblywoman, Michele Fiore, that was broadcast over a livestream on YouTube

Initially the occupiers said they feared an armed assault by agents was imminent. But late Wednesday night local time, after a phone conversation that lasted more than four hours, one of occupiers said they planned to emerge from the refuge in the morning so long as Fiore was there to act as a witness and ensure that the occupation ended peacefully.

Mike Arnold, an attorney for Ammon Bundy who took part in Fiore’s phone negotiations and was en route to the wildlife refuge with her early Thursday, told The Washington Post that he was “extremely disappointed” by the news of Cliven Bundy’s arrest.

“It was a horrible strategic move to arrest Cliven while negotiations were literally happening over the phone,” he said. “That is not a symbol of good faith.”

But he believed that the agreement reached Wednesday night would still hold.

“We can take comfort in the incompetent strategic move by the federal government,” he said, because it showed that “if Cliven Bundy can be arrested peacefully — the lightning rod of much of the discourse on these issues — then the folks at the refuge should rest assured that the FBI will honor their promise to peacefully end this.”

Cliven Bundy’s arrest came just hours after the FBI moved to surround the spot where the lingering occupiers were camped Wednesday evening.

According to a statement issued by the FBI in Oregon, authorities made their move after one of the occupiers rode an ATV at 4:30 p.m. local time outside the enclosure where the handful of occupiers have been barricaded.

“FBI Agents attempted to approach the driver and he returned to the encampment at a high rate of speed,” the statement said.

The FBI moved to “contain” the remaining four occupiers by posting agents at the barricades in front of and behind the spot where the occupiers are camping, the statement continued.

“Negotiations between the occupiers and the FBI continue,” it said. “No shots have been fired.”

A neighbor who lives near the Malheur Refuge, 30 miles south of Burns, Ore., told The Washington Post that residents have been told to stay in their homes until the police give clearance.

Greg Bretzing, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon, gave a statement in support of the move to surround those still at the refuge.

“It has never been the FBI’s desire to engage these armed occupiers in any way other than through dialogue, and to that end, the FBI has negotiated with patience and restraint in an effort to resolve the situation peacefully,” he said. “However, we reached a point where it became necessary to take action in a way that best ensured the safety of those on the refuge, the law enforcement officers who are on scene, and the people of Harney County who live and work in this area.”

Meanwhile, occupiers could be heard yelling at what they said was an FBI negotiator, according to the Associated Press.

“You’re going to hell. Kill me. Get it over with,” yelled David Fry, sounding overwrought. “We’re innocent people camping at a public facility, and you’re going to murder us.”

Wednesday marks day 40 of the occupation. Two weeks ago, leader Ammon Bundy and several others were arrested after a confrontation with police that left one man dead. In the days and weeks since, more than a dozen people involved the in the occupation have been arrested and several others voluntarily left the remote spot in southeastern Oregon after the FBI set up a blockade.

All of those arrested have been charged with conspiracy to impede a federal officer, the same felony charge facing the four holdouts who remain.

Those occupiers are 27-year-old Fry, who has been running a YouTube live stream, married couple Sean and Sandy Anderson, and a man named Jeff Banta, according to the Oregonian.

They’ve been alone at the refuge since Jan. 26, when the rest of the occupiers voluntarily left and surrendered to law enforcement. Defying calls to stand down from Oregon officials, law enforcement, Harney County locals and even Bundy, they’ve remained holed up inside the FBI blockade. In videos streamed by Fry, the occupiers were by turns desperate and defiant and increasingly inclined toward pranky stunts. One from early this week showed Fry doing doughnuts in a U.S. government vehicle.

“I think I want to take it on a little joy ride. You know?” Fry said. “Let’s start this baby up. Now you’ve got another charge on me, FBI. I am driving your vehicle.”

But in the phone conversation broadcast over YouTube, Fiore — speaking to the occupiers from Portland International Airport — repeatedly had to call for calm, as Fry yelled incoherently and other occupiers broke into shouts or tears.

“People are watching,” she assured them, asking them to recite prayers.

But the occupiers insisted that they could not trust the FBI’s promise of a peaceful resolution, and seemed certain that the standoff would end in violence.

“They killed LaVoy,” one man yelled. LaVoy Finicum, a spokesperson for the occupation, was fatally shot by Oregon state troopers during a highway confrontation in January when Bundy and four others were arrested.

“We’re not giving them any reason [to fire],” another person said. “But my weapon is within reach.”

The phone call was orchestrated by Gavin Seim, a failed Washington congressional candidate and self-proclaimed “liberty speaker.”

At the refuge, 187,700 acres of isolated grassland about 150 miles southwest of Bend, yelled conversations between the occupiers and law enforcement broke through the nighttime quiet of the high desert.

“Come out with your hands up,” a voice could be heard saying, according to the Oregonian. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Fry shouted back.

Over the phone, Fiore told the occupiers she would negotiate with law enforcement on behalf of those who remain.

“A grand jury has issued an indictment outside the Constitution, and we can fight that,” she said. “But we can’t fight if you die. … You guys have to come out. You need to stand down.”

Fiore said she wanted to come to the refuge and accompany the occupiers out on Thursday morning, telling the occupiers that she and Mike Arnold, an attorney for Ammon Bundy, were driving to Burns as they spoke. But the FBI has not allowed anyone onto the refuge since late January, when it set up its blockade.

Fiore, a Republican member of the Nevada state assembly who has been an outspoken gun rights advocate, traveled to Oregon Wednesday to advocate for Bundy and other occupiers. She is demanding that authorities release body cam anddash cam footage of the traffic stop in which Finicum was killed; the FBI has released aerial footage of the highway encounter but the video is fuzzy and taken from a distance.

“We have questions,” Fiore told the Las Vegas Sun.

The people still at the refuge have said they will not leave as long as they face charges and a possible prison term.

“I can’t even describe to you how wrong it is i feel to be giving myself into the hands of the enemy,” Sandy Anderson said. “ We’re going to lose our rights.”

On Wednesday night, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy — father of Ammon Bundy — who was involved in a standoff with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights in 2014, announced on his Facebook page that he was heading to Burns to support the occupiers. He urged patriots and militia groups to join him.

“Wake up America!” his all-caps message read. “It’s time!”

Since it began on Jan. 2, the occupation has been at the center of a heated debate on the power of the federal government and land use in the West. In Oregon more than half of all land is federally controlled, and disputes over land use and environmental regulations are a familiar source of conflict.

The occupiers said that they would not leave until the Malheur Refuge was “returned” to the county and private landowners and two ranchers who had been imprisoned for setting fires on public lands were released from jail.

But after his arrest last month, Ammon Bundy called for the remaining occupiers to stand down.

“Go home and hug your families,” he said. “This fight is ours for now —  in the courts.”

The surprising history of the Malheur wildlife refuge

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http://www.hcn.org/articles/the-surprising-history-of-the-malheur-wildlife-refuge?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

The refuge’s creation helped support nearby ranchers.

National wildlife refuges such as the one at Malheur near Burns, Oregon, have importance far beyond the current furor over who manages our public lands. Such refuges are becoming increasingly critical habitat for migratory birds because 95 percent of the wetlands along the Pacific Flyway have already been lost to development.

In some years, 25 million birds visit Malheur, and if the refuge were drained and converted to intensive cattle grazing – which is something the “occupiers” threatened to do – entire populations of ducks, sandhill cranes, and shorebirds would suffer. With their long-distance flights and distinctive songs, the migratory birds visiting Malheur’s wetlands now help to tie the continent together.

This was not always the case. By the 1930s, three decades of drainage, reclamation, and drought had decimated high-desert wetlands and the birds that depended upon them. Out of the hundreds of thousands of egrets that once nested on Malheur Lake, only 121 remained. The American population of the birds had dropped by 95 percent. It took the federal government to restore Malheur’s wetlands and recover waterbird populations, bringing back healthy populations of egrets and many other species.

Sandhill crane in Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Yet despite the importance of wildlife refuges to America’s birds, not everyone appreciates them. At one recent news conference, Ammon Bundy called the creation of Malheur National Wildlife refuge “an unconstitutional act” that removed ranchers from their lands and plunged the county into an economic depression. This is not a new complaint. Since the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1980s, rural communities in the West have blamed their poverty on the 640 million acres of federal public lands, which make up 52 percent of the land in Western states.

Rural Western communities are indeed suffering, but the cause is not the wildlife refuge system. Conservation of bird habitat did not lead to economic devastation, nor were refuge lands “stolen” from ranchers. If any group has prior claims to Malheur refuge, it is the Paiute Indian Tribe.

For at least 6,000 years, Malheur was the Paiutes’ home. It took a brutal Army campaign to force the people from their reservation, marching them through the snow to the state of Washington in 1879. Homesteaders and cattle barons then moved onto Paiute lands, squeezing as much livestock as possible onto dwindling pastures, and warring with each other over whose land was whose. Scars from this era persist more than a century later.

In 1908, President Roosevelt established the Malheur Lake Bird Reservation on the lands of the former Malheur Indian Reservation. But the refuge included only the lake itself, not the rivers that fed into it. Deprived of water, the lake shrank during droughts, and squatters moved onto the drying lakebed. Conservationists, realizing they needed to protect the Blitzen River that fed the lake, began a campaign to expand the refuge.

But the federal government never forced the ranchers to sell, as the occupiers at Malheur claimed, and the sale did not impoverish the community. In fact, it was just the opposite: During the Depression years of the 1930s, the federal government paid the Swift Corp. $675,000 for ruined grazing lands. Impoverished homesteaders who had squatted on refuge lands eventually received payments substantial enough to set them up as cattle ranchers nearby.

John Scharff, Malheur’s manager from 1935 to 1971, sought to transform local suspicion into acceptance by allowing local ranchers to graze cattle on the refuge. Yet some tension persisted. In the 1970s, when concern about overgrazing reduced – but did not eliminate – refuge grazing, violence erupted again. Some environmentalists denounced ranchers as parasites who destroyed wildlife habitat. A few ranchers responded with death threats against environmentalists and federal employees.

But violence is not the basin’s most important historical legacy. Through the decades, community members have come together to negotiate a better future. In the 1920s, poor homesteaders worked with conservationists to save the refuge from irrigation drainage. In the 1990s, Paiute tribal members, ranchers, environmentalists and federal agencies collaborated on innovative grazing plans to restore bird habitat while also giving ranchers more flexibility. In 2013, such efforts resulted in a landmark collaborative conservation plan for the refuge, and it offers great hope for the local economy and for wildlife.

The poet Gary Snyder wrote, “We must learn to know, love, and join our place even more than we love our own ideas. People who can agree that they share a commitment to the landscape – even if they are otherwise locked in struggle with each other – have at least one deep thing to share.”

Collaborative processes are difficult and time-consuming. Yet they have proven that they have the potential to peacefully sustain both human and wildlife communities.

Authorities closing in on Oregon’s Malheur occupation

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http://www.hcn.org/articles/malheur-occupiers-1-dead-7-arrested-finicum

FBI calls for removal of occupiers following eight arrests and the death of one man late Tuesday.

Tay Wiles and Jonathan Thompson

Jan. 29 update: As of Thursday night, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that four occupiers remained at the refuge and that the agency is working to get them to come out peacefully.

Officials for the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday they will begin controlling access to Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, following the arrest of eight suspects and the death of one man late Tuesday.

The FBI and Harney County Sheriff set up checkpoints to control access into and out of the refuge, the FBI said in a statement Wednesday morning. The only people allowed to pass will be Harney County ranchers who own property in specific areas. Others will be asked to leave. Those who do not comply will be arrested. Those leaving the refuge must show identification and will have their vehicles searched, the FBI said.

The announcement comes following the shooting death of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, a core member of the group of armed occupiers at the Malheur refuge. Federal Bureau of Investigation officers moved to arrest several of the illegal occupiers at about 4:25 p.m., Pacific Standard Time, on Highway 395 north of the refuge.

malheurroadblock-ap-jpg
Sgt. Tom Hutchison stands in front of an Oregon State Police roadblock on Highway 395 Jan. 26 between John Day and Burns, Oregon. The roadblock was set up by the FBI and the Oregon State Police to attempt to take into custody participants in the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP

The suspects arrested Tuesday include Ammon Edward Bundy, 40, the leader of the Malheur occupation. Also arrested were Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nevada; Brian Cavalier, 44, also of Bunkerville; Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah; Ryan Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Montana; Joseph O’Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Arizona; and Peter Santilli, 50, of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Arizona man Jon Ritzheimer, a member of the Three Percent militia, who had spent time at the refuge in support of the occupation, turned himself in to the Peoria, Arizona, police late Tuesday. Prior to coming to Oregon, Ritzheimer gained national attention for making incendiary comments about Muslims and organizing anti-Islam rallies.

One of the arrestees was treated for a gunshot wound at a local hospital and released last night. Officials have not released the name of the injured suspect, but the Oregonian reported it was Ryan Bundy. All arrestees face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372.

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The criminal complaint filed Jan. 27 against the occupiers. Click to view.

 

Tuesday’s arrests come amid 25 days of occupation at the Malheur refuge, following a protest in nearby Burns, Oregon, in support of ranchers Steven and Dwight Hammond, who were being sent to jail over charges of arson on public land.

Bundy and a small group of supporters, many of whom were armed militia from across the region, took over the refuge Jan. 2. They claimed they were taking a stand against federal overreach in matters of natural resource management and touting the far-fetched idea that all federal lands, including the refuge, should be turned over to local ownership.

It was unclear early Wednesday what will happen to the occupation, or the broader movement it represents.

“I would expect that the evidence against them will be presented to a grand jury in the weeks ahead, however, and that even more serious charges will be filed based on their unlawful occupation of the Malheur Refuge,” says David Uhlmann, former head of the Department of Justice’s environmental crimes section. “There is no question that the Justice Department would pursue the most serious possible charges — to include domestic terrorism — if a militant group took over federal property on behalf of ISIS or as part of an effort to overthrow the US government. The threat from this group was far less dangerous but no less illegal, and I expect that the Justice Department will insist on felony charges and jail time for anyone who does not cooperate in the case.”

Finicum was one of the most visible of the occupiers, often speaking at length at press conferences about the occupiers’ aims and beliefs.
Robert “LaVoy” Finicum at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Jan. 3, 2016.
Brooke Warren/High Country News

Finicum owned a ranch in northwestern Arizona, and has also long been a foster parent. He told reporters at the refuge that foster care, not ranching, was his main source of income. Tax documents from the Catholic Charities Community Services Inc. show that in 2009, Finicum was compensated about $115,000 for foster care, and in 2005, he received $99,000. The children in his care were taken out of his home by child services after the occupation began, thus depriving him and his wife of that income. He and his wife, Dorthea Jeanette, also owned a business called Southwest Horse and Trails, but they and the business declared bankruptcy in 2002.

The public record on Finicum is thin prior to 2014. But he appears to have gone through a major transformation after the standoff at the Bundy Ranch, just over the Nevada border from Finicum’s, in April of that year. Finicum joined the Bundys during the standoff, and helped them successfully wrest their cattle from the BLM.

Shortly thereafter, Finicum developed an online persona, with a website and Facebook page titled, “One Cowboy’s Stand for Freedom,” and laid out his creed in a series of YouTube videos. As is the case with Ammon Bundy and other members of their ad hoc movement, Finicum’s ideology was less old-school Sagebrush Rebellion than it was a broader brand of extreme libertarianism. He accused the BLM of stealing water from a huge tank on his land and other transgressions, but also spoke out against Obamacare and gun control, and encouraged his followers to stockpile enough food and supplies to survive for at least a year, in case of some sort of apocalyptic event. He even sold “Defend the Constitution” t-shirts and wrote a novel, “Only By Blood And Suffering: Regaining Lost Freedom.”

In his videos, Finicum appears to get deeper and deeper into his cause as time goes on, transitioning from merely proselytizing to inflaming actual revolt. In November of 2015 he rallied southern Utah ranchers to take part in a “Cowboy Uprising” by refusing to pay grazing fees, a la Cliven Bundy, and asked for militia support. His speech to them repeatedly invoked the American Lands Council and its seizure of federal land philosophy.

Referring to the Bundy standoff, Finicum wrote in 2014: “When I rode around that corner to face those federal guns, I knew I might never see my family again and I did it because I knew that the federal government was using the law to unjustly steal a man’s property…. I’m willing to die standing on this line.” He used similar rhetoric during the occupation, hinting that he’d rather go down shooting in the name of an ideological crusade than to spend his life in a “concrete box.”

Officials have not yet given any details regarding the exact events that led up to Finicum’s death. But as news got out that Finicum was dead, supporters of the Bundys and the occupation unleashed a flurry of propaganda on social media, accusing the feds of murdering him and raising the specter of retaliatory action against the government and law enforcement.

“My heart and prayers go out to LaVoy Finicum’s family he was just murdered with his hands up in Burns, OR,” tweeted Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. Fiore is well-known for her extreme right wing views, her support of the Bundy family and for the Second Amendment calendars she produces and models in, posing with high-powered firearms. On its own Facebook page, the Bundy Ranch posted photos of Finicum, noting, “… our government murdered him while he was unarmed with his hands in the air… Who stands with liberty?”

But in a video posted on YouTube this morning, Ammon Bundy’s bodyguard Mark McConnell, who says he was detained and released, had a different account. “He (Finicum) was not on his knees,” McConnell says, basing his take on what he saw and heard during the altercation. “He went after (the enforcement officers). He charged them. LaVoy was very passionate about what he was doing up here.”

Still, McConnell’s account might have come too late to defuse the situation. Extremist Internet forums lit up last night with the language of revenge. “These are the first shots of a new revolution,” wrote commenter “Nextrush” on freerepublic.com. “His death will be avenged.”

DC correspondent Elizabeth Shogren contributed reporting to this story. Jonathan Thompson is a senior editor of HCN and Tay Wiles is the online editor.

 

Remaining Oregon protesters issue death threats: ‘This is a free-for-all Armageddon’

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http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oregon-refuge-roadblocks-20160127-story.html

As law enforcement surrounded the remaining protesters at an Oregon wildlife refuge Wednesday, an armed occupier urged supporters to join them and to kill any law enforcement officer who tried prevent their entry, according to a livestream that has been broadcasting from the site.

“There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!” a heavyset man holding a rifle yelled into a camera that was broadcasting a livestream from the refuge Wednesday morning, adding that if “they stop you from getting here, kill them!”

A second man cooed to the camera in a sing-song voice, “What you gonna do, what you gonna do when the militia comes after you, FBI?”

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The FBI declined to release any details about how a spokesman for the protest group was killed during a confrontation with federal and state agencies a day earlier, citing a policy of not commenting on shooting incidents while they are under review.

The sudden move to arrest ranking protest leaders on a rural stretch of highway Tuesday afternoon was “a very deliberate and measured response” to the armed occupation that had lasted since Jan. 2 with no end in sight, Gregory T. Bretzing, special agent in charge of Portland’s FBI division, said at a Wednesday morning news conference.

“We’ve worked diligently to bring the situation” at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., to “a peaceful end,” Bretzing said.

He added that the FBI and Oregon State Police’s surprise arrests of protesters confronted outside the refuge Tuesday was deliberately carried far from county residents and that agents were cognizant of “removing the threat of danger from anybody who might be present.”

But he said he could not release details about how protester spokesman and Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was killed, citing an ongoing investigation. A pair of unverified videos from a man and a woman who claimed to be traveling with the protesters when they were arrested said that Finicum was shot after he sped away from law enforcement during a traffic stop.

Several members of the group — including one of its most prominent leaders, Ammon Bundy, 40 — were expected to make their initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon to face charges of government intimidation.

Meanwhile, the standoff continues….

More: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oregon-refuge-roadblocks-20160127-story.html

FBI sets up checkpoints around Oregon refuge after deadly confrontation

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Reuters

By Peter Henderson

Jan 27 (Reuters) – U.S. and state officials in Oregon on Wednesday set up checkpoints around Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, where an armed group pledged to prolong its standoff with the government a day after one protester was shot and eight others were arrested.

Authorities said the new security involves a series of checkpoints along key routes into and out of the refuge, and was made out of an “abundance of caution” to protect the public and law enforcement after the confrontation.

The month-long occupation of the wildlife reserve over federal control of large tracts of the country turned violent on Tuesday after officers stopped a car carrying protest leader Ammon Bundy and others near the refuge. Activists said Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers, was killed.

There were no details on why shooting broke out at the traffic stop. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said authorities would hold a news conference on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. PST (1730 GMT) in Burns, a town near the refuge.

One of the remaining occupiers, Jason Patrick, told Reuters by phone they would stay until the “redress of grievances.”

“I’ve heard ‘peaceful resolution’ for weeks now and now there’s a cowboy who is my friend who is dead – so prepare for the peaceful resolution,” Patrick said.

Authorities on Wednesday said the checkpoints will allow only ranchers who own property in the area to pass and anyone coming out of the refuge will have to show identity and have their vehicle searched.

More:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fbi-sets-up-checkpoints-around-oregon-refuge-after-deadly-confrontation/ar-BBoKsvV?ocid=spartandhp

 

Man headed to Malheur standoff threatens to kill cops

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http://www.ktvb.com/story/news/local/2016/01/26/watch-man-headed-malheur-standoff-threatens-kill-cops/79339746/

Mike Benner, KGW 8:55 a.m. MST January 26, 2016

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BURNS, Ore. — A Woodburn man who said he was on his way to an Oregon refuge under armed siege was jailed in Harney County after threatening to shoot and kill federal agents.

Joseph A. Stetson, 54, made the threats at a market in Hines, according to the Harney County district attorney’s office.

He was then pulled over by police. Stetson told authorities he was heading to Burns to join the weeks-long protest at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Stetson was carrying a weapon that turned out to be a pellet gun in a holster, the sheriff’s office said in a prepared statement.

He said he wished to be the personal bodyguard for the Bundy family, which orchestrated the takeover of the refuge in early January.

KTVB

Counter-protesters show up at occupied Oregon refuge

The actual bodyguard for the Bundys, Brian Cavalier, was called out by a  British newspaper recently for lying about being a Marine who served in the Middle East.

“If I go to jail and I come out I will kill you,” Stetson can be heard saying in a video of his arrest. He continues making the threats.

“You let me go right now or I’ll kill you I promise you,” he said It took troopers several minutes to get Stetson into a police vehicle.  He would later kick the door and damage it, according to authorities.  He was eventually booked into the Harney County Jail for DUII and resisting arrest.

The Oregon Militia Is Turning Out To Be Its Very Own Worst Enemy

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/bundy-standoff-enters-third-week-of-ridiculousness

By Lauren Fox

In what is starting to look like a genius move, the federal government and local law enforcement have mostly kept their distance in the two weeks since an unknown number of out-of-town, rag-tag militiamen stormed the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and vowed to stay until the federal government turned over its land to local ranchers.

So far authorities have declined to confront the men or to put the squeeze on them by restricting movement to and from the refuge or even to turn off the electricity, which might help draw the men out of the compound in the freezing January days.

But the lack of confrontation by federal officials has not only prevented it from becoming the next Waco or Ruby Ridge but transformed it into a peculiar and mundane sideshow, a one-sided standoff where the militiamen’s days are marked by visits from wacky outsiders like pretend judge Bruce Doucette coming to sniff out “evidence” against the federal government and from disgruntled community members ready for the men to leave already.

By leaving the would-be revolutionaries to their own devices, authorities have given them enough rope to hang themselves.

In the last week alone, the militiamen have made headlines–not for forcing the government’s hand on federal lands or helping free the Hammonds–but for throwing boxes of dildos on the floor in protest against the mocking mail they have been receiving, for getting arrested after allegedly driving an official refuge vehicle into town to get groceries, for ransacking government files and for using government computers.

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With each odd incident, the media and the public gets more insight into the individuals holed up at the wildlife preserve and their puzzling and incongruent motivations. It does not appear that all of the men at the refuge subscribe to one ideology or another. A report from the Anti-Defamation League actually chronicles that the men hold a hodgepodge of views and have some varying disagreements on how to tackle the standoff.

By taking a hands-off approach to the incident, the government has actually given the militiamen room to stew, to fight with one another and ultimately, to undermine their cause.

Take for example Jon Ritzheimer, the man who recorded himself throwing boxes of sex toys onto the floor at the compound. Before he appeared in Oregon standoff videos, Ritzheimer was not known for taking up land disputes, but for putting together threatening, anti-Muslim protests and videos. He was well known in Arizona for organizing a protest where more than 200 individuals –many with guns– showed up outside of a Phoenix mosque. In November, he once again came on the FBI’s radar for announcing he planned to travel to a Muslim hamlet in New York.

Kenneth Medenbach, the man arrested for allegedly driving a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service vehicle into town, was actually out on bail for another seven-month government land occupation he was allegedly involved in last year. According to the Guardian, he was also convicted of squatting on government land in 1996 when the 62-year-old now chainsaw sculptor resided in a tent on government land and guarded his assumed property with “50 to 100 pounds of the explosive ammonium sulfate, a pellet gun, and what appeared to be a hand grenade with trip wires.”

The more outspoken, bold and hungry the militiamen are for attention, the more peculiar their standoff becomes. While federal officials have been wildly criticized for leaving the militiamen to their own devices, those still at the compound are giving feds plenty of evidence to help government officials charge them later.

In one bizarre video released last week from inside the compound, an ISIS-sympathizing, self-proclaimed video gamer from Ohio, David Fry, recorded himself using a Linux flash drive to circumvent password-protected government computers. And there are several photographs of de facto standoff leader Ammon Bundy ripping apart government fencing with his bare hands.

Over the weekend, one of the most outspoken standoff participants LaVoy Finicum– a Mormon rancher who has ceased paying grazing fees and has penned a right-wing conspiracy-ridden cowboy thriller – had several foster children removed from his family’s custody back in Arizona.

Photo: Snow by Jim Robertson

Photo: Snow by Jim Robertson

He claimed the federal government was taking aim against his family in retaliation for his involvement in the standoff in Oregon, but questions have now been raised about his motivations for fostering such a large number of children and whether such an activity is his major source of income.

Another man affiliated with the Oregon militiamen, Californian Darrow Burke, 57, crashed his vehicle outside of Hines, Oregon, in an embarrassing display for the militiamen Sunday. He was cited for driving without a license. A man who in the first few days of the standoff served as Ammon Bundy’s bodyguard – and who goes by the name of ‘Fluffy Unicorn’ – was arrested last week in Maricopa County, Arizona, for an outstanding warrant. One by one, the militiamen’s pasts are catching up with them.

Even the father and son pair they claimed to be fighting for – Dwight and Steven Hammond– have turned themselves into authorities and have begun serving five-year sentences for setting fire to federal lands. The Hammond family has said it wants nothing to do with the standoff at the refuge.

The longer this standoff drags on, the more the militiamen do that further undermines that cause and the more the federal government begins to look like they may have made the right move when the opted to deescalate the situation. Isolated from the rest of the country, the militiamen enter the third week of this standoff, free to cross legal lines and incriminate themselves on video tape.

Coyote-Kill Contest: It’s getting uglier around the Malheur National Wildlife

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“This morally suspect male-bonding event is ecologically indefensible”

Scott Slocum
White Bear Lake, MN

Jan 15, 2016 — It’s getting uglier around the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge this weekend. The Harney County Coyote Classic is coming to the area. Another destructive force. Spotlights and gunfire at night. Spin-offs into firefights? Best to stay far away.

Here’s some advice from Predator Defense on who to call:

“HERE’S HOW TO HELP: express your concern to County and State officials! Call the Harney County Sheriff’s Office at 541-573-6156 and urge them to either (a) cancel the coyote-killing contest, or (b) make the Wildlife Refuge out of bounds for coyote-hunt contestants. Call Oregon Governor Kate Brown at (503) 378-4582, or write at http://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/share-your-opinion.aspx and ask her to act.”

Also, check out the information from Predator Defense on the importance of coyotes to intact, healthy ecosystems; and the foolishness of indiscriminate killing–not just in contests like this, but in all of its misguided forms.

Coyote-hunting foes oppose Harney County event
Coyote-hunting foes oppose Harney County event
The third annual Harney County Coyote Classic will take place near Burns and Crane this weekend as planned, despite the ongoing refuge occupation nearby, authorities said Wednesday as they warned…
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