January 6, 2016. Hundreds of Harney County residents attended a community meeting to express frustration and support over an armed anti-government militia group that continues to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Headquarters.
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Harney County Sheriff David Ward said via Twitter that he asked Ammon Bundy to respect the wishes of residents.
Sheriff David Ward said in a statement that the militia and members of the Bundy family have “no intention” of leaving the federal land.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who famously met with Nevada rancher Clive Bundy and offered support for his cause, has broken with the Bundy’s family over the armed takeover of a federal building in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in rural Oregon.
“And I’m here today to ask those folks to go home and let us get back to our lives in Harney County”, the sheriff said.
Because life imitates art, and especially satire, The New York Times reported Friday that the armed protesters who seized a federal wildlife refuge in OR last week have angered an equally passionate, camo-clad group: birders.
He did not elaborate or specify whether any local residents had accepted the offer for land, or how his group would go about stripping the federal government of ownership.
Their lawyers said they plan to appeal to President Barack Obama for executive clemency.
Schools were closed following the seizure of the refuge because of safety concerns in the small town in eastern Oregon’s high desert.
Members of the Burns Paiute tribe aren’t the only people in the area who want Bundy’s group to end their occupation of the wildlife refuge. Bundy gave no indication that the group was going to leave and said their demands were being ignored. “We need to make sure that there is some teeth in these land transfers”.
First, they are demanding that the federal government relinquish control of OR land.
As time goes on, the situation in OR, and how the government will respond, is bringing up discussions of the standoffs between the feds and private citizens in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and Waco, Texas, in 1993.
The Burns Paiute Tribe says the occupiers of the refuge need to leave.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Dave Ward has warned people to stay away from the refuge. Ammon Bundy, the leader of a small, armed group that is occupying a remote nati… “That’s what I wanted to post on Facebook, ‘Quit b– on your electronic devices and come down here and see these people because they are not how they are portrayed in the media'”. It followed a march in protest of new prison sentences for two ranchers who were convicted and previously served time for setting fire to federal grazing land.
About two dozen armed militiamen have occupied a federal wildlife refuge site in OR for the past seven days with no signs of leaving.
“The occupation of the refuge reflects a decades-old dispute over land rights in the United States, where the federal government controls just over half of territory in 13 states”.
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A judge sentenced Steven Hammond to a year in prison and Dwight Hammond to three months.
