Wash. men indicted in OR wildlife refuge occupation

Protesters gathered January 2 in Burns, Oregon, and Ammon Bundy and others broke away to occupy the refuge.

The final occupier – 27-year-old David Fry – stayed more than an hour after the others, sounding increasingly distraught on another livestreamed phone call as he mentioned thoughts of suicide, ranted about UFOs and drone strikes in Pakistan and insisted that he would not go to jail.

A spokesman for the group, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot dead in the stop. Meanwhile, despite increasingly hysterical behavior from David Fry, the final occupier, officers waited him out until he emerged peacefully.

The occupation, led by Idaho rancher Ammon Bundy, also was directed as a protest against federal control over millions of acres public land in the West.

Or perhaps the wait was much longer.

Bundy, who inspired the occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, was arrested at the airport in Portland, Ore., Wednesday night, apparently on his way to Malheur. During a press conference Thursday, Greg Bretzing, the head of the FBI’s Portland office, referred questions to the district of Nevada. Although fortunately, the talks ended without violence or the use of firearms. The full document is here.

If Cliven Bundy is convicted of all six charges, he could be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Bundy and others arrested in conjunction with the standoff face felony charges of conspiracy to impede federal officials in their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats. Federal refuge workers are not sure when they will be allowed to return to monitor and manage the complicated irrigation system and keep invasive species in check. The wildlife refuge will be closed for weeks as bomb squads sweep the buildings for explosives and evidence is recovered.

Stanek was seen armed with an assault rifle on the refuge, but left before the first arrests were made. Grasty said the county plans to seek reimbursement directly from the occupiers, and is prepared to take legal action.

The Harney County Joint Information Center (JIC) will continue to be staffed through Sunday, February 14, 2016. “I just posted hallelujah on my Facebook”, said Julie Weikel, who lives next to the nature preserve. “They have been given opportunities to negotiate”.

A number of the occupiers were relating their account of events as they unfolded via an independent Internet broadcast, “Revolution Radio”, that is known to be sympathetic to the occupation.

“There’s no way we could have accomplished what we did without Mike Arnold”, she said. When they neared the refuge, Fiore got into an Federal Bureau of Investigation vehicle that took her and the Rev. Franklin Graham to the refuge headquarters.

The risks and rewards of the FBI’s strategy remain up for debate.

To some observers, the crackdown signaled a potential turning point in how the government deals with individuals who violate laws protecting federal lands and employees.

It’s not clear how Bundy’s arrest will affect his followers and the larger anti-federal lands movement. Yet other critics have complained that the hands-off response only emboldened the occupiers. And while federal agents deserve credit for not escalating the tension, they also brought about questions of how best to handle such an occupation. Whatever the perverse incentives risked by the wait-’em-out approach, it’s hard not to look at the result in OR and be impressed: Every occupier gone, the leaders apprehended and in jail, and only one violent death-and that of a man who had declared his intention to die before being arrested, was reaching for a pocket with a gun, and, according to the testimony of another occupier, crying, “Shoot me!”