Oregon Sheriff Calls Meeting to End Standoff in ‘Peaceful Resolution’

Harney County Sheriff David Ward, right, talks with a resident during a community meeting on January 6 in Burns, Ore.

Bundy’s group seized buildings Saturday at the nature preserve in eastern Oregon’s high desert country.

Photo/Rick BowmerCowboy Dwane Ehmer, of Irrigon, a supporter of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, holds a US flag as he talks with a journalist next to a manned watch tower Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016, near Burns.

On Wednesday, members of an Oregon Indian tribe also took issue with Bundy and his group saying they were occupying ancestral property and “desecrating one of our sacred sites”.

Ammon Bundy has acknowledged that the group occupying the wildlife refuge would have to go home at some point, but said “we are not quite there yet”.

Harney County Sheriff David Ward met Thursday with Bundy.

“We as Harney County residents don’t need some clown coming in here to stand up for us”, said another tribal council member, Jarvis Kennedy, when asked about the protest group’s leader, Ammon Bundy.

Bundy said he expects to speak with Ward again today and feels closer to a resolution. Following the meeting, Bundy told reporters his group is sticking by its decision not to leave until federal land is turned back over to the people of Harney County. Authorities have not yet moved to remove the group of roughly two dozen people, some from as far away as Arizona and MI. They are led by the Bundy family, ranchers from Nevada who consider themselves revolutionaries against the feds and have already built up a reputation for opposing agencies like the Bureau of Land Management.

The group’s grievances include the imprisonment Monday of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond on federal arson charges after they lit fire on their OR ranch in 2001 that spread to federal land. Bundy’s group occupied the federal facility to protest the imprisonment of two ranchers convicted of setting fires on government land and to draw attention to a demand that the federal government cede ownership of land to local control.

Meanwhile, at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, armed occupiers remained camped out in several government buildings, undisturbed by local or federal law enforcement. But many of those same residents said they did agree with the message. “It just really rubs me the wrong way that we have a bunch of misinformed people in here – they’re not the original owners”. “But not yet. And we will go out of this state and out of this county as free men”.

Neither protesters nor authorities have said how many people are involved in the occupation. However he said people needed to express but their anger peacefully and lawfully.“Ive got my own frustrations, weve got visitors in town that have their frustrations, but theres appropriate ways to work out our differences, ” he said.

“We can’t have armed rebellion”, he said.

“There’s some folks in this room that worked very hard to put together a peaceful rally”, Sheriff Ward said during the meeting. The local sheriff pleaded with the occupiers to “go home”, and other residents haven’t seemed pleased with their takeover, either. However, federal prosecutors appealed their sentences and requested that they receive the minimum of five years.

This report first appeared on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s website.