An armed group that has occupied a wildlife refuge in OR for more than a week plan to hold a community meeting on Friday to explain why they took over a building there and when they will leave.
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Matt Shea said he and fellow state Rep. Graham Hunt first met with local officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation before going out to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to meet with the armed militants.
“We’re like Boy Scouts”, said Ammon Bundy, the group’s leader, as he watched the Wildcat haul away a mountain of coiled wire and his supporters whooped in the background.
He did, however, encourage the entire community to attend the gathering.
Ward, the sheriff, said after a recently issued “call to action”, more armed protesters and “outside militia members” have begun to show up.
“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 effort started by understanding that a ranching family has been put under duress by multiple federal agency”, Bundy said.
Ward said he’s been told by officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that their employees have encountered similar incidents.
Ammon Bundy and his terrorist associates may be facing a bill of up to $1 Million for occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They say they’re there to protect both the local community and the Bundy group and that they are a neutral party.
But Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward says it’s the militia that is doing the intimidating, saying at a community meeting Monday night that reports of vandalism, harassment and intimidation have gone up since the militia came to town.
He said officers and employees have reported being followed to their homes and observed while inside and that self-identified “militia members” have tried to engage them in debates about their status as federal employees.
Bundy denied the reports that his fellow activists have touched building’s computers, but said their actions were part of their plan to return the land to the community and “expose numerous things that [the government has] done”. A small, armed group has been occupying the remote national wildlife refuge in OR for a week to protest federal land use policies.
Garrett VeneKlasen, who heads the New Mexico outdoors group, called the people holding the refuge “extremists”, who are breaking the law and need to leave.
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Local law enforcement is accusing armed protesters who seized an OR wildlife refuge of harassment and intimidation. “If they did, they, too, would work to bring this situation to a peaceful close“. I hear a lot of jargon, I hear a lot of we want the Bundys out, but a the same time what is that going to take?
