Armed group in OR sifting through government documents

A man dressed as continental army officer walks through the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, near Burns, Ore.

The group’s leader, Ammon Bundy, said the militia’s objective at the refuge is “to restore and defend the constitution”. A majority of the people at that meeting again asked the armed group to leave the refuge immediately.

“We are taking steps necessary to ensure our employees are safe, and we now are reaching out to landowners who may have records on the refuge”, said Jason Holm, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Portland. The group acted to allow a rancher access to what they said was public land, in a move condemned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge.

Meanwhile, Harney County Sheriff David Ward issued a statement to residents regarding intimidation tactics from the occupiers.

Bundy and his followers seized buildings at the refuge January 2. The protest started out as a call against the conviction of Dwight Hammond and his son Steven – two ranchers who were found guilty in 2012 of committing arson on federal lands in OR – but soon morphed into a bigger movement, rallying against the role of the federal government when it comes to land rights.

The armed men who have occupied a federal wildlife refuge escalated their defiance of the federal government Monday, using hands and a Wildcat excavator stolen from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rip apart a barbed-wire fence erected by the government at a far end of the vast refuge.

The armed protesters haven’t just claimed the refuge – they’re altering it to their liking.

Protesters have been examining federal files at the refuge headquarters.

Protester LaVoy Finicum told reporters the fence was making a local ranch “not profitable” and “hard to operate”.

“What do they want the federal government to return back to the community?”

It’s not clear where the fence was located or which rancher sought the group’s help.

“We will take that offer”, Bundy said on Friday.

But some people are coming with a different message for those at the wildlife refuge, according to CNN affiliate KTVZ.

At the news conference, after the occupiers had walked off, Garrett VeneKlasen stepped forward to protest their actions.

“I know that there are people I go to church with, they don’t speak to us any more”, a resident said. “They are domestic terrorists”.

Walden said that frustration stems from constant pressure by environmental groups who want to leave public land untouched and from the arrogance exhibited by some federal government bureaucrats who don’t follow the law and disregard the opinions of residents in the rural region.

“This is about abuse in our healthcare, abuse of fed regulators at every level of our lives, we are losing our freedoms and it’s close to being gone”, said Finicum.