OR occupation leader Ammon Bundy rejects sheriff’s bid to end standoff

It has been seven days since armed protesters seized control of several buildings on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon.

Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said Friday that he’s shelving the meeting after Ammon Bundy rejected Ward’s plea for the small group of anti-government activists to leave the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The Bundys’ group said that on Wednesday night three men entered the refuge unexpectedly and engaged in a brief confrontation with the occupiers.

About 20 members of the group moved into buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last weekend and show no plans to leave.

At that meeting, local residents said they sympathized with the armed group’s complaints about federal land management but disagreed with their tactics and called on Ammon Bundy and his followers to leave.

Sheriff Ward scrapped plans Friday to meet with Ammon Bundy, according to a tweet from the Harney County Sheriff’s Office.

The Idaho militia’s arrival came just hours after Mr. Bundy informed reporters that the occupiers would not leave the facility, declining an offer from the sheriff to peacefully escort the militants out of town.

The unidentified militant seen here drove the federally-owned vehicle on the right while at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

And like any bully who’s been “cutting in the lunch line” too many times, Bundy says the Federal Government needs to be “taken on”.

“He (the sheriff) did yesterday, we met and he said gracefully that he would give us free passage out of the county and free passage out of the state if we would leave”.

The federal government didn’t steal the land from the locals, however.

Their leader, Brandon Curtiss, said the group came to “de-escalate” the situation by providing security for those inside and outside the compound. At that meeting it was suggested that Ward meet with Bundy.

Earlier Thursday, even some of the protesters who say they support the message of the occupation were also expressing doubts about the continued standoff with no end in sight.

“I think people are afraid”, Sam Glerup, 61, the owner of a local auto towing and automotive shop called Sam’s Service said to the Daily News. The group also objects to a lengthy prison sentence for two local ranchers convicted of arson. The ranchers – Dwight Hammond and his son Steven Hammond – distanced themselves from Bundy’s group and reported to prison Monday.

“This is about furthering an extremist right-wing agenda”, Barrett Kaiser, a Montana resident and a representative of the Center for Western Priorities said, as supporters of Bundy tried to interrupt him and argue with him.