Sheriffs meet with leaders of Oregon refuge occupation

Ryan Bundy, one of the group’s leaders, had said Monday that they would leave if local residents asked them to.

But the armed militants vow to continue their occupation inside a handful of federal buildings at the wildlife sanctuary, in protest of what they call the USA government’s encroachment into the lives of ordinary citizens, and, more specifically, its “unconstitutional” treatment of a pair of local ranchers, sent to prison this week for a second time, after setting fire to their ranch lands years ago.

Anti-government extremists hailing from as far away as MI and Arizona joined group leader Ammon Bundy to call for the federal government to return land to ranchers.

“They’re welcome to leave, and I’ll escort them out of the county”, Harney County Sheriff David Ward said at a community meeting Wednesday evening.

The small, armed group occupying a remote national wildlife preserve in OR has said repeatedly that local people should control federal lands – a sentiment that frustrates critics who say the lands are already…

The group’s leader, Ammon Bundy, is the son of an OR rancher who, in 2014, led a standoff after his cattle were seized for failure to pay grazing fees.

The situation was more calm on Thursday when area ranchers visited for chats with the Bundys, who discussed their beliefs that the federal government had overreached its authority, often pausing to read from the US Constitution.

“We can’t have armed rebellion”, he said. “But this is America – we get to disagree with each other without the threats of violence or retribution”. He got a lot of support during a packed community meeting Wednesday night.

“In reality these men had alternative motives, to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States”, Harney County Sheriff David Ward said in a statement earlier this week. This came after the group march supporting Steven and Dwight Hammond, two ranchers who have been convicted of committing arson.

Straw poll among Harney County, Oregon residents on who wants the Bundy crew to leave.

He said that the group believes it is their responsibility to help the Hammonds despite admitting that since being imprisoned they have distanced themselves from the group.

But the draft letter goes on to tell Bundy that the committee members “were very upset that you chose to take the aggressive action of occupying the refuge and did it without our knowledge or any local approval, and in a fashion that has created huge distrust and loss of credibility of and for us as a group and as residents within the community”.

The Burns Paiute accused the Bundy-led group of “desecrating one of our sacred sites”.

Inside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, Kennedy said there are important official papers that document his tribe’s history and his ancestors’ existence on the land. If Americans want the federal government to stop protecting land for the public and for habitat, there’s a way to go about that.

Some praised the protest group for having forced a conversation about the community that might not otherwise have occurred. “It just really rubs me the wrong way that we have a bunch of misinformed people in here – they’re not the original owners”. A judge later ruled that the terms fell short of minmum sentences requiring them to serve about four more years.

“Every hour they spend in prison is a great unjustice”, Bundy said.