For 41 days in January and February, national attention focused on the siege at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a snowy, remote stretch of land in eastern OR otherwise notable for birdwatching.
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The Bundys began the OR standoff on January 2 with at least a dozen armed men, sparked in part by the return to prison of two OR ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, who set fires that spread to federal property near the refuge.
“In Ammon Bundy’s words, ‘This was much more than a protest.’ They were taking a ‘hard stand”‘. Leader Ammon Bundy and several other protesters took over the refuge on January 2 after a rally to support two imprisoned local ranchers. Federal agents sealed off the refuge, and people fled the grounds until just four holdouts remained. There, self-identified “patriots” faced off with employees of the Bureau of Land Management who were trying to carry out a judge’s order to seize Cliven Bundy’s cattle because he refused to pay more than $1 million in overdue grazing fees.
The seven on trial are charged with conspiring to impede Interior Department employees from doing their jobs through intimidation or threats.
The Bundy brothers and five other defendants have pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to last until November. They planned to march around the courthouse during the trial’s lunch breaks.
The takeover in OR ended with the dramatic surrender of four holdouts, including one who threatened to commit suicide in a phone call with mediators that was streamed live.
As the opening statements began Tuesday, Geoffrey Barrow, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, started by presenting a timeline of the occupation in four chapters: the build-up, the takeover, the arrests and the aftermath. The father and son had been ordered to serve the balance of their mandatory minimum sentences for lighting two fires on the government land where they grazed their cattle. But Barrow said this was escalated by Ammon Bundy, leader of the occupying group. “We’re going to insist the Constitution be protected in this county”. Barrow said Ammon Bundy traveled to Burns in October to meet with Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward over his concern about the Hammond case. Barrow said Bundy delivered “an ultimatum” to Ward and promised to return with “thousands”. All acknowledged they were at the refuge, but not to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs. Instead, he argued, “it’s about the federal government”.
“He did what he did to demand accountability from the federal government”, he said.
“The issues are serious”, Mumford said. Charges were dropped against one. “Ammon has been labeled a terrorist and imprisoned for seven months”.
Ammon Bundy’s attorney, however, said the prosecution was all about his client’s beliefs.
September 13: Opening statements began. Debates over potential jurors turned into arguments over the Second Amendment.
Ryan Bundy, who is acting as his own attorney, told the court he came to help another ranching family he felt was being abused by the government. Five of them are also charged with possession of a firearm in a federal facility. The standoff drew national attention to the decades-old fight between the federal government and Western states over land policy.
Ryan Bundy said he is “in favor of government as long as it’s done correctly”.
And after the standoff, Barrow said authorities found “a mess” at the refuge, including many guns and 15,000 rounds of ammunition.
The nearby Burns Paiute Tribe also criticized the occupiers, noting that prehistoric archaeological sites were located at the refuge and that tribal members considered Malheur part of their ancestral land. Rather, it was the extension of a legal protest, they said. He was shot and killed during the traffic stop that resulted in the arrest of the Bundys and others.
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The FBI agents were part of the bureau’s elite Hostage Rescue Team.
