Authorities seal off Oregon refuge after leaders of occupation arrested; 1 killed in gunfire
FBI blockades Oregon wildlife refuge after arrests and urges remaining occupiers to leave
(35 minutes later)
After an exchange of gunfire Tuesday that left one man dead and another injured, the two brothers who orchestrated the armed occupation of a remote central Oregon wildlife refuge were taken into custody while traveling outside the area, along with six of their followers.
Federal agents sealed off an Oregon wildlife refuge occupied by armed protesters Wednesday, hours after authorities arrested several members of that group and killed one of the most prominent occupiers.
Then, early Wednesday the government shut down the area, initiating what authorities called a “containment” with checkpoints and promising to arrest any unauthorized people attempting to travel into the refuge.
The frenzy of activity at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County marked a sudden escalation in the ongoing standoff that has simmered for more than three weeks, ever since a small group of men and women took control of a remote facility in southeastern Oregon.
The purpose, according to a statement from the FBI and Oregon State Police was “to better ensure the safety of community members and law enforcement.” Earlier, they had asked people to leave the area, but there was little sign that the remaining occupiers had done so, setting up the possibility of police action later in the day.
Officials set up checkpoints and roadblocks around the refuge, saying that people who tried to travel inside would be arrested and calling for the armed people remaining there to leave. But they suggested Wednesday that the situation at the refuge would not continue indefinitely and placed blame for the fatal encounter a day earlier on those occupying the refuge.
The Oregonian said that a convoy of police rigs, passenger cars and armored vehicles was seen driving south on Oregon Route 205, past the turn-off for the refuge. Other convoys also were reported in the area.
“They had ample opportunity to leave the refuge peacefully,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Greg Bretzing said at a news conference late Wednesday morning. “And as the FBI and our partners have clearly demonstrated, actions are not without consequences.”
The Tuesday encounter with police on a frozen stretch of highway north of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, where a small cast of gun-toting anti-government activists had been camping out for weeks, was a dramatic break in the tense, three-week standoff with local and federal authorities — at least, for leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy.
[What we know about the eight people who were arrested]
Other participants in the siege remained at the refuge, even as they received word that their de facto spokesman, LaVoy Finicum, had been killed in the confrontation with police and that eight other occupiers were either arrested or had turned themselves in. Authorities did not release the names of the man killed or wounded; the Oregonian reported that the injured person is Ryan Bundy.
He described the arrests a day earlier as authorities taking “the first steps to bring this occupation to a conclusion,” and said authorities were still working to “empty the refuge of those who continue to illegally occupy” the land. Anyone who wanted to leave could do so, but only after traveling through a checkpoint where they would be identified, Bretzing said.
BREAKING: Booking photos of Ammon Bundy, 7 others after arrest near Burns. https://t.co/AcqRyP4pd5 #KOIN6News pic.twitter.com/un82wepf95 — Brent Weisberg (@BrentKOIN) January 27, 2016
With the sun still high overhead, Highway 395 leading into the refuge was blocked off by a simple sign reading “Road closed.”
BREAKING: Booking photos of Ammon Bundy, 7 others after arrest near Burns. https://t.co/AcqRyP4pd5 #KOIN6News pic.twitter.com/un82wepf95
On the shoulder, some news trucks and a handful of reporters were gathered, observing the empty road; about half a mile past the sign, law enforcement officers were gathered.
— Brent Weisberg (@BrentKOIN) January 27, 2016
Local and federal law enforcement officials had called for the occupation on a remote swath of eastern Oregon land, previously best known for its bird-watching, to end peacefully, and the FBI has called its response “deliberate and measured.”
[This occupier said he’d rather die than go to jail — and then did just that]
However, there have been criticisms of how long it has stretched on, with Gov. Kate Brown (D) writing a letter urging federal officials to bring a “swift resolution” to the situation, as well as others questioning whether occupiers would have been treated with patience if they were black.
The standoff in Oregon has aroused passion and controversy across the country, in part because the government took little action to stop it, reportedly fearing a repeat of the heavy loss of life when federal agents broke up a siege at a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., in 1993, resulting in the deaths of four federal officers and 82 civilians.
[The occupied federal building in rural Oregon]
So the stalemate persisted. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the Bundys and several other occupiers reportedly left the refuge to attend a community meeting 100 miles away in John Day, Ore. About halfway to their destination,the FBI and the Oregon State Police ordered them to stop.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official defended the response, saying the FBI did not want a repeat of bloody sieges in Waco, Tex., and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The official said it did not matter who was inside — there was no need to act more hastily because the occupation involved abandoned buildings in an isolated area, no hostages and no one being directly threatened.
Authorities did not describe what happened next, though the Oregonian reported that Ryan Bundy and Finicum resisted orders to surrender. Ultimately, gunfire broke out.
“Why would we do that?” the official said Wednesday. “This was a very, very good outcome.”
[‘These buildings will never, ever return to the federal government’]
There had been no visible law enforcement presence around the refuge as the situation stretched on for days and weeks, and occupiers came and went, though they said they remained on guard. The group’s leaders had felt comfortable enough to move freely, leaving the refuge’s headquarters to attend meetings with residents and law enforcement officials.
The end result was a terse announcement from the FBI in Oregon: Ammon Bundy, 40, of Emmett, Idaho; Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev.; Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville; Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah; and Ryan Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont. had been arrested and faced federal felony charges of conspiracy to impede officers. A sixth person, who authorities did not name, had died in the encounter.
On Tuesday afternoon, with the group’s leaders away from the refuge and traveling on Highway 395, FBI agents and the Oregon State Police moved to arrest them on federal charges. Five occupiers were arrested on the highway, including Ammon Bundy, the group’s leader. Three other people tied to the situation were later arrested in Oregon and Arizona.
Arianna Finicum Brown, the daughter of LaVoy Finicum, the de facto spokesman, told the Oregonian on Tuesday that her father was the man killed during the exchange of gunfire.
All of the people arrested on the Oregon highway surrendered to authorities except for one man, later identified as LaVoy Finicum, a spokesman for the group who had previously said he would rather die than go to jail.
“My dad was such a good, good man, through and through,” Brown told the Oregon paper. “He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”
Another official familiar with the encounter said Finicum refused to surrender and was fatally shot; authorities said Wednesday they were investigating the shooting and have not revealed any details about the incident.
In addition, multiple individuals told The Washington Post that Ryan Bundy was shot in the arm during the arrest. The FBI statement said that one individual had been injured during the shooting and was treated at a local hospital before being taken into police custody.
[What we know about LaVoy Finicum, an Arizona rancher]
The initial arrests, about 4:25 p.m. local time, seemed to set off a chain reaction. About an hour and a half after the first encounter, Oregon State Police apprehended Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, a 45-year-old occupier from Cottonwood, Ariz., known as “Captain,” during a separate event in Burns. Soon after that, Peter Santilli — a 50-year-old from Cincinnati known for his livestreams of refuge events — was also arrested in Burns, which is the Harney County seat.
“I’m disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring peaceful resolution to this ended badly,” Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said at the news conference.
Meanwhile in Peoria, Ariz., Jon Eric Ritzheimer, 32, turned himself into police. Ritzheimer, an outspoken participant in the takeover, was also wanted on a federal conspiracy charge.
Ward added: “It didn’t have to happen. We all make choices in life. Sometimes our choices go bad.”
[Act Four: Stop sexually harassing Bundy and his fellow occupiers]
Several armored vehicles & what appears 2 b a black hawk at airport in Burns. Cops @ entrance #Oregonstandoff pic.twitter.com/yuwDHgzNI9 — Beth Nakamura (@bethnakamura) January 27, 2016
But Jason Patrick, an occupier who remained at the Malheur refuge Tuesday night, told The Washington Post that the arrests don’t change his group’s demands. He wouldn’t say how many people remain at the refuge, or who else was with him, but he said they don’t plan to pick up and leave because of the day’s events.
Several armored vehicles & what appears 2 b a black hawk at airport in Burns. Cops @ entrance #Oregonstandoff pic.twitter.com/yuwDHgzNI9
— Beth Nakamura (@bethnakamura) January 27, 2016
The U.S. law enforcement official said that the FBI picked the time and place they would move to arrest Bundy and the other leaders.
“We call the shots, not the bad guys,” the official said. The official also said there were “fractures” in the group’s leadership and described them as “tired from reacting to strange noises at night.”
The arrests gave some locals hope that Burns, Ore., would regain some sense of normalcy.
“I was excited. I was waiting for four weeks for them to be arrested,” Jen Hoke of Burns said about hearing news of the arrests. “I hope it ends today. That would be fabulous.”
Hoke said it was frustrating that the occupiers had the freedom to “come and go” as they pleased.
“They didn’t accomplish anything,” Primrose Truesdell said. Her husband, Ken, echoed her thoughts between sips of coffee at the Doughnut Hole in downtown Burns: “No one wanted them here. They can go back to wherever they came from. I’d wave them goodbye.”
The eight people who were arrested Tuesday face federal felony charges of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from performing their official duties through force, intimidation or threats. Seven of them appeared in a Portland courtroom to hear the charges against them, and motions for release were denied in each case.
It was unclear whether any of the people who were at the 2014 showdown involving the Bundy family would face additional charges stemming from that incident.
The people arrested included leaders of the movement and a de facto spokeswoman, and some of them were also involved in the 2014 standoff at the Bundy ranch.
News of the arrests met with relief from conservationists and public officials. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) applauded the law enforcement response in a statement Tuesday night.
“I am pleased that the FBI has listened to the concerns of the local community and responded to the illegal activity occurring in Harney County by outside extremists,” he said in a statement. “The leaders of this group are now in custody and I hope that the remaining individuals occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge will peacefully surrender so this community can begin to heal the deep wounds that this illegal activity has created over the last month.”
In a statement, Harney County Judge Steve Grasty said: “I am relieved this situation is coming to an end, however, I am saddened by the loss of life. I hope and pray that those who remain at the refuge will stand down peacefully.”
The standoff began Jan. 2 when a group, led by Bundy, went to the refuge after a protest over the imprisonment of two local ranchers convicted of committing arson on public lands. The ongoing situation has drawn new attention to long-standing frustrations with the federal government’s management of land in the West.
The ranchers’ case provoked a heated response in Harney County, where the refuge is located, and caught the attention of a wide swath of anti-government activists far beyond its borders. Among the hundreds who flocked to Burns, Ore., to express their outrage were Bundy and his brother, Ryan Bundy; a smaller group drove to the refuge, about 30 miles away from Burns, and has remained there since.
[Oregon sheriff cheered for calling on occupants to go home]
Bundy and his brother, Ryan, were among those taken into custody Wednesday. Authorities said that one person was injured during the arrests and was treated at a local hospital before being released into the FBI’s custody; the Oregonian newspaper identified the injured person as Ryan Bundy.
Ward, the sheriff, who has criticized the occupation and urged the people involved to leave, said the situation was “tearing our community apart.”
“It’s time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on,” he said Wednesday. “There doesn’t have to be bloodshed in our community. If we have issues with the way things are going in the government, we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner. We don’t arm up. We don’t arm up and rebel. We work through the appropriate channels.”
He continued: “This can’t happen anymore. This can’t happen in America, and it can’t happen in Harney County.”
Ward has previously said the situation led to intimidation in Harney. He told a community meeting that his parents, his deputies and their families were followed, adding that his wife left town after someone flattened her tires.
The FBI and Oregon State Police have not said yet how many shots were fired on the highway Tuesday, who fired them or officially identified the person who was killed. But occupiers and others identified the slain person as Finicum, who had acted as a spokesman for the group.
The Facebook page for Bundy Ranch — the site of a confrontation between the Bundy brothers’ father, Cliven, and the Bureau of Land Management in 2014, that involved Bundy supporters aiming guns at federal agents — posted a statement condemning what it described as Finicum’s “murder.”
Arianna Finicum Brown, daughter of LaVoy Finicum, told the Oregonian on Tuesday that her father “would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”
[Occupants had vowed that the buildings would “never, ever return to the federal government"]
Jason Patrick, an occupier who remained at the Malheur refuge Tuesday night, said the arrests didn’t change his group’s demands. He and another occupier also told The Post that Finicum was killed.
Patrick wouldn’t say how many people remained at the refuge, or who else was with him, but he said they don’t plan to pick up and leave because of the day’s events.
“Right now, we’re doing fine,” he told The Post by phone. “We’re just trying to figure out how a dead cowboy equals peaceful resolution.”
“Right now, we’re doing fine,” he told The Post by phone. “We’re just trying to figure out how a dead cowboy equals peaceful resolution.”
Patrick and another occupier both told The Post that Finicum was the man who died. And on Tuesday night, the Facebook page for Bundy Ranch — the site of a confrontation between the Bundy brothers’ father, Cliven, and the Bureau of Land Management in 2014 — posted a statement condemning what they described as Finicum’s “murder.”
Finicum, a 54-year-old rancher from Cane Beds, Ariz., had previously told NBC News that he’d rather die than be arrested. On Wednesday, his followers were portraying him as a martyr “who stood for your children’s liberty.”
The 54-year-old rancher from Cane Beds, Ariz., had previously told NBC News that he’d rather die than be arrested. On Wednesday, his followers were portraying him as a martyr “who stood for your children’s liberty.”
[The Oregon standoff is far bigger than a group of armed men in a refuge]
Finicum was a prominent public figure and something of a spokesman for the occupiers at the Malheur Refuge — a remote expanse of windswept wetland known mostly as a mecca for birders before it became the site of the latest showdown over land use, government overreach, community and the Constitution.
Talking to The Post in mid-January, Finicum explained that the armed group planned to remain at the refuge, which is operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, until all 187,000 acres of it were “returned” to Harney County and private ownership.
Talking to The Post in mid-January, Finicum explained that the armed group planned to remain at the refuge, which is operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, until all 187,000 acres of it were “returned” to Harney County and private ownership.
“It needs to be very clear that these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government,” he said at the time, a white cowboy hat perched atop his head, a Colt .45 pistol holstered at his hip.
“It needs to be very clear that these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government,” he said at the time, a white cowboy hat perched atop his head, a Colt .45-caliber pistol holstered at his hip.
The takeover of the Malheur refuge had begun two weeks earlier, after a Jan. 2 march in Burns to protest the imprisonment of local ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. The father and son had been convicted of committing arson on public land in 2012, and last fall a federal judge ruled that their sentences had been too lenient and ordered them back to jail.
The three other people arrested on the highway were Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nev.; Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah; and Ryan Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont. Later Tuesday afternoon, FBI agents in Burns also arrested Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Ariz., and Peter Santilli, 50, a Cincinnati man known for livestreaming refuge events.
[The mysterious fires that led to the Bundy clan’s standoff]
Hours later, FBI agents in Phoenix arrested Jon Ritzheimer, 32, who turned himself in to authorities. Unlike some of the other occupiers, who were relatively unknown figures nationally, Ritzheimer was known for his contempt for Muslims and organizing an anti-Muslim protest last year.
The Hammonds’ case provoked a heated response in Harney County, and it caught the attention of a wide swath of anti-government activists far outside it. Among the hundreds who flocked to Burns to express their outrage over the decision were Ammon and Ryan Bundy.
Bundy had said that the occupiers would leave only when the two local ranchers were freed from prison and the land was taken away from the federal government.
After the rally, Ammon Bundy issued an impassioned call to arms to his fellow protesters.
[Why veterans look at the Oregon occupation and see ‘loose cannon clowns’]
“Those who want to go take hard stand,” he declared, according to people in attendance, “get in your trucks and follow me!”
Carissa Wolf in Burns, Ore., Leah Sottile in Portland and Ellen Nakashima and Niraj Chokshi in Washington contributed to this report.
A small splinter group drove to the refuge, located about 30 miles south of Burns, and a rotating cast of occupiers have remained holed up there ever since.
Related:
[This refuge is one of the first wildlife sanctuaries in the U.S.]
The Oregon standoff and the recent history of anti-government groups in the U.S.
The group, which comprises anti-government activists from across the country, has been living and holding meetings in the Malheur refuge headquarters. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) said the occupiers’ presence there cost taxpayers about a half-million dollars. They were also accused of destroying government property and harassing law enforcement and Burns residents.
The local sheriff who called on the occupiers to leave
Meanwhile, a wide-ranging debate has raged nationally over the causes of the occupation, the nature of its participants, the role of government, the purpose of public land, the appropriate response to an armed takeover of a federal building, the meaning of the word “terrorist” and whether it was okay to send sex toys to the occupiers after they asked the public to donate “supplies and snacks.”
“That’s not how we live our lives.” Local residents expressed frustration with the occupation
But at the center of it all is a long-running conflict over land use in the West, where huge swaths of the landscape are publicly owned.
[This is a developing story and has been updated and will continue to be updated.]
“We’re out here because the people have been abused long enough, their lands and their resources have been taken from them to the point that it is putting them literally into poverty,” Ammon Bundy, clad in a brown rancher hat and thick flannel coat, told reporters the morning after he and his fellow occupiers moved into the Malheur headquarters. He announced that the occupiers aimed to help ranchers, loggers and others who wanted to use the previously protected land, which the Bundys believe should never have been controlled by the federal government in the first place.
“We will be here as a unified body of people that understand the principles of the Constitution,” he said.
In Oregon, more than half the land in the state is federally controlled. The government issues permits for grazing, mining and logging — major sources of income in the rural part of the state where the Malheur refuge sits. But it also lays down environmental regulations and restrictions to protect wildlife, threatening people’s livelihoods, some in Oregon say.
“What people in Western states are dealing with is the destruction of their way of life,” B.J. Soper, a father of four from Bend, Ore., who was once a professional rodeo rider, told The Post in early January. “When frustration builds up, people lash out.”
The rally in defense of the Hammonds was largely the outcome of that frustration. But even people who had attended the march were dismayed by the Bundy brother’s next move.
“It’s anarchy. … What we have here is old-style thinking, that might is right,” said Len Vohs, former mayor of Burns. Pointing out that the Bundys and most other occupiers weren’t even from Burns, he added, “the majority of us support the Hammonds, but we don’t need outsiders telling us what to do.”
On Jan. 4, two days into the Malheur takeover, the Hammonds turned themselves into federal custody without incident. In a news conference that afternoon, Harney County Sheriff David Ward told the occupiers it was time to leave.
“To the people at the wildlife refuge: You said you were here to help the citizens of Harney County. That help ended when a peaceful protest became an armed occupation,” he said. “The Hammonds have turned themselves in. It’s time for you to leave our community, go home to your families and end this peacefully.”
Criticism of the takeover made for strange bedfellows: Oregon’s Democratic governor, conservationists and members of the Paiute tribe (who consider the area of the refuge sacred ancestral land) issued calls to end the occupation of the refuge. But so did a “patriot movement” known as the “Three Percenters,” which pledges armed resistance to anything that infringes on the Constitution.
The standoff prompted mockery from some corners — people sent the occupiers glitter bombs and sex toys — and sympathy from others. It also sparked a debate about how the occupiers would be treated if they were African American or Muslim, rather than white.
Meanwhile, federal authorities did little to dislodge the Bundys and their followers as the occupation stretched into days and then weeks. On Jan. 4, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the takeover was a “local law enforcement matter,” although the FBI was monitoring the situation.
But Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation, said that Earnest was mistaken.
“We are entrusted with protection of federal buildings,” he told The Post on Jan. 7. “It is primarily our responsibility.”
Some worried that the prolonged success of armed standoffs like those at Malheur and Cliven Bundy’s ranch in 2014 would only encourage further showdowns. Brown and local officials in Burns demanded to know why U.S. officials hadn’t taken action.
Last Thursday, Brown sent a letter to the FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch asking them “to end the unlawful occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as safely and as quickly as possible.”
But federal authorities took a largely hands-off approach, saying they wanted to reach a peaceful resolution. That caution probably reflected concerns that a direct confrontation could end in violence, like those that occurred in Waco, Tex., and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the 1990s.
Last week, Ammon Bundy began participating in talks with the FBI, according to the Associated Press. But he balked when federal authorities said they wanted to conduct the conversations in private.
It’s not clear how far the talks with the FBI got before the arrests.
Like Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the rest of those arrested Tuesday came from all across the West and as far east as Ohio. Payne, an army veteran from Montana, had participated in Cliven Bundy’s protest in 2014 and drove to Oregon from his home in Montana for the Malheur takeover. Cox, who sometimes spoke on behalf of the occupiers, had come from Utah, while Ritzheimer — a Marine Corps veteran known nationally before the occupation for organizing protests and selling profane t-shirts denouncing Islam — visited from Arizona.
The news of the arrests was met with relief from conservationists and public officials. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) applauded the law enforcement response in a statement Tuesday night.
“I am pleased that the FBI has listened to the concerns of the local community and responded to the illegal activity occurring in Harney County by outside extremists,” he said in a statement. “The leaders of this group are now in custody and I hope that the remaining individuals occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge will peacefully surrender so this community can begin to heal the deep wounds that this illegal activity has created over the last month.”
Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, has spent the past two weeks in Burns following the occupation. He also issued a statement to Oregon Public Broadcasting on Tuesday after hearing the news.
“I’m saddened to see this standoff culminating in violence,” it said. “But the Bundys and their followers showed up armed to the teeth and took over lands that belong to all American people. We hope and pray those remaining at the compound surrender peacefully and immediately. Here’s hoping cooler heads now prevail in southeastern Oregon and we can return to a semblance of peace and civility.”
But an image posted on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page condemned the violent outcome.
“Tonight peaceful patriots were attacked on a remote road for supporting the constitution. One was killed,” it read. “Who are the terrorists?”
