PORTLAND (AP) – The government has beefed up security at national wildlife refuges in states south of OR as an armed standoff over federal land policy has created tensions in the region and shows no sign of ending soon.
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Bundy and 10 others were arrested last week in OR, majority during a confrontation with Federal Bureau of Investigation and state police on a snow-covered roadside where a spokesman for the group, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot to death.
“It’s a very small town… nearly everyone in the town knows one another”, Tiffany Harris, Cox’s attorney, said.
“I ask the question, what are a people to do?” asks Bundy. The day’s events, billed as “Lavoy Finicum’s Stand for Freedom”, include a visitation and funeral followed by a memorial horse ride to a local middle school for a benefit concert.
Family and friends wore red, white and blue ribbons featuring Finicum’s picture and pieces of blue tarp pinned to their shirts.
“The results of government officials ignoring the people are acts like the takeover of the Malheur Refuge”, Bundy said.
The ceremonies came as four people continued to occupy the federal property in southeastern Oregon.
Jail booking photos. Top row (left to right): Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, Joseph O’Shaughnessy, Ryan Payne, Brian Cavalier.
Meanwhile, the four still at the facility say they will not leave unless they receive a guarantee that they won’t be arrested. That’s unlikely after they were indicted this week along with 12 other defendants, including Bundy.
The standoff began January 2, with Bundy’s group demanding the federal government turn public lands over to local control and free two ranchers imprisoned for setting fires.
The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, a group that has publicly supported Ward, said Thursday that it did not stand by people who it described as arming themselves, breaking into publicly-owned buildings and intimidating and harassing local residents and officials.
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“Mr. Bundy requests this in order to gather further evidence of his statements and actions encouraging a peaceful protest and civil disobedience, ” his attorneys, Mike Arnold and Lissa Casey, wrote in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.
