The elder Bundy was also arrested on Wednesday when he rushed to OR in support of the remaining occupiers.
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That standoff, which the indictment states drew “hundreds” of Bundy supporters from various states to the rural southern Nevada community, is widely regarded as the precursor to the Malheur standoff as well as a banned recreational vehicle ride on federal lands that allegedly included the Bundys and led to the criminal conviction of a Southeast Utah county commissioner and a city councilman a year ago.
Ryan Bundy – Ammon’s older brother Ryan planned to open the refuge to cattle grazing this spring, though exact details were never spelled out.
“He should be handled in the normal course”, Judge Janice M. Stewart said in denying the request. The date of his court hearing hadn’t been scheduled Friday afternoon.
Federal authorities said the refuge would remain closed for several weeks as agents secured what was now considered a crime scene and scoured it for fugitives or explosives.
The FBI’s decision to encircle the last of the holdouts marked a dramatic escalation to a mostly plodding armed demonstration at the isolated sanctuary, which began January 2 as many out-of-state protesters descended on the property. “Everything you do can go the wrong way”, said Danny Coulson, the retired founding commander of the FBI’s hostage rescue team. That process will take several days. He said people who disagree, like the passers-by who sometimes shouted, also had that right. He could be heard over the live stream being arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI surrounded the last protesters holed up there amid reports they will surrender.
The final four occupiers will face charges of conspiracy to impede federal officers, along with 12 others previously arrested, officials said.
The FBI held a press conference Thursday regarding the arrests of the four holdouts at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
David Fry, 27, of Blanchester, Ohio; Jeff Banta, 46, of Elko, Nevada; and married couple Sean Anderson, 48, and Sandy Anderson, 47, of Riggins, Idaho; were arraigned Friday in Portland, Oregon, along with two of the other 21 people who have been indicted.
“I want you to know there is a future out here”, Bundy said from his cell in the Multnomah County Jail in Portland.
Rep. Judy Boyle, an Idaho state lawmaker, confirms that the four holdouts are in custody. He worries that the standoff has only intensified the conflict between private farmers and the federal bureaucracies that control the vast majority of Harney County land.
Federal prosecutors in Las Vegas are charging Cliven Bundy with conspiracy, assault on a federal officer, obstruction, weapon and other crimes.
Cliven Bundy appeared in an OR courtroom on Thursday to face six charges stemming from the 2014 incident.
It involved self-styled Bundy militia supporters pointing military-style weapons at federal agents trying to enforce a court order to round up Bundy cattle from federal rangeland near his ranch. He was arrested when he arrived at the Portland airport on Wednesday. They didn’t give a hometown for him, and his background isn’t immediately clear.
That’s what many ranchers and sympathizers opposing federal control of public lands in the West concluded after the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.
Nearly every aspect of the six-week standoff at the Malheur wildlife refuge was the result of decades of trial and error.
Fry, the last activist to surrender, appeared in an anti-suicide smock.
Occupiers Sandra Anderson, Sean Anderson, David Fry and Jeffrey Banta shown in jail booking photos, February 11, 2016. But Noesner said it probably hastened the end of the standoff.
Burns businesspeople are reluctant to speak too critically of their federal land stewards, noting that government workers comprise more than 70% of the population – a proportion of their clientele it would be unwise to alienate.
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“The key here is to encourage them to contrast the benefits of cooperation with the risks of resistance, Noesner said”. Four stayed behind, saying they feared they would be arrested if they left.
