Authorities seal off Oregon refuge after leaders of occupation arrested; 1 killed in gunfire
Federal agents moved early Wednesday morning to seal off a remote wildlife refuge in Oregon, hours after authorities arrested several leaders of the armed activists who had seized the land in a shootout that killed one of the group’s most prominent members.
In the weeks since the group began its occupation, local and federal law enforcement officials had called for the occupation to end peacefully. On Tuesday, after these calls and attempts at negotiations went nowhere, authorities moved to arrest several group members while they were away from the compound. A total of eight people were arrested, at the shootout and other locations.
After the exchange of gunfire on a highway, Ammon Bundy, the group’s leader, and others were arrested on federal charges. Other members of the group remained at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, but before the sun rose over a remote swath of eastern Oregon previously best known for its bird-watching, authorities said they were blocking access to the federal land.
In a statement, the FBI and Oregon State Police said that they had established checkpoints along key routes to the refuge and that anyone who tries to travel inside would be arrested. Officials said people leaving the refuge would have their names confirmed and vehicles searched, but they did not say whether those people would be arrested.
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The FBI had refrained from making arrests on the refuge because it did not want to be seen as storming the compound, and officials had publicly said they sought a peaceful resolution. Up to this point, law enforcement has not impeded the travel of occupiers, a law enforcement official said Wednesday.
“But as we call for a peaceful resolution, we’re hoping that people on the refuge will now depart,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing situation.
The standoff began Jan. 2 when a group, led by Bundy, went to the refuge after a protest over the imprisonment of two local ranchers convicted of committing arson on public lands. The ranchers’ case provoked a heated response in Harney County, where the refuge is located, and caught the attention of a wide swath of anti-government activists far beyond its borders. Among the hundreds who flocked to Burns to express their outrage were Bundy and his brother, Ryan Bundy.
After the rally, Ammon Bundy issued an impassioned call to arms to his fellow protesters.
“Those who want to go take hard stand,” he declared, according to people in attendance, “get in your trucks and follow me!”
A small splinter group drove to the refuge, located about 30 miles south of Burns, and a rotating cast of occupiers has remained holed up there ever since.
Shortly before 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, federal agents and the state police went to arrest Bundy and several other occupiers while they were on Highway 395. Gunshots were fired, and one of the occupiers was killed, authorities said. It was not immediately clear who fired the fatal shots.
Bundy and his brother, Ryan, were among those taken into custody. One person was injured during the arrests and was treated at a local hospital before being released into the FBI’s custody; the Oregonian newspaper reported that Ryan Bundy was injured.
The FBI and Oregon State Police have also not said yet how many shots were fired, who fired them or identified the person who was killed. The person killed was later identified as LaVoy Finicum, who was a spokesman for the group, according to occupiers as well as Nevada assembly woman familiar with the occupiers and a Facebook page for Bundy’s father’s ranch. Finicum’s daughter also told the Oregonian that he was killed.
LaVoy Finicum, who said he would rather die than be arrested
Gary Hunt, a board member of a militia network known as Operation Mutual Defense who arrived Sunday from California to support the occupiers, told the Oregonian that those still in the compound “have decided they’re going to hold their ground.”
But there is some confusion about who is leading the occupation now that Ammon Bundy is under arrest, Hunt added. Still, by Wednesday, people at the compound showed no signs that they were leaving.
Five people were arrested following the shootout. Later Tuesday afternoon, FBI agents in Burns also arrested Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Ariz., and Peter Santilli, 50, a Cincinnati man known for livestreaming refuge events. Hours later, FBI agents in Phoenix arrested Jon Ritzheimer, 32, who turned himself in to authorities. The other people arrested were Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville; Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah; and Ryan Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont.
The eight people who were arrested Tuesday face federal felony charges of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from performing their official duties through force, intimidation or threats.
The standoff in Oregon has stretched on for weeks, and questions have lingered about why federal agents did not immediately move to physically intercede. In the past, federal agents moving into places like Ruby Ridge or Waco, Tex., during standoffs led to numerous deaths, and officals have changed the way they respond to such events.
So the stalemate in Oregon persisted. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the Bundys and several other occupiers reportedly left the refuge to attend a community meeting 100 miles away in John Day, Ore. About halfway to their destination,the FBI and the Oregon State Police ordered them to stop.
Authorities did not describe precisely what happened next, though the Oregonian reported that Ryan Bundy and Finicum resisted orders to surrender. Ultimately, gunfire broke out.
