Bundy won’t say how many armed people are at the refuge.
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A members of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, wears a camouflage jacket with a patch on his shoulder Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, near Burns, Ore.
Ward said the father and son turned themselves in as planned on Monday at a federal prison in California.
The armed activists, led by rancher Ammon Bundy, announced plans to stay indefinitely. No one answered a call to the phone number of the refuge.
One of them, the newspaper said, is Jon Ritzheimer, an avowed anti-Islamist and former Marine who served in Iraq.
Some observers said the description of the situation is being tempered by the race of the protesters. He said his goal was to provoke. He told CNN that he doesn’t describe the group as a militia.
Ritzheimer appears to have posted a video of himself at the refuge on Sunday.
It’s worth backing up and understanding how we got to this point. “What we have here is old-style thinking, that might is right”.
First, they want the federal government to relinquish control of the wildlife refuge so “people can reclaim their resources”, he told CNN early Monday.
In the current dispute, the two OR ranchers – Dwight Hammond Jr., and his son Steven Hammond – whose pending arrest sparked the weekend protests have distanced themselves from the Bundys, according to CBS News. “The government should not be doing anything but encouraging the people to claim their rights, encouraging them to use their rights, and then protecting and defending the people as they live freely”.
But according to Billy J. Williams, the acting US attorney in OR, the Hammonds were rightfully convicted after setting fire to about 130 acres of public land in an attempt to cover up poaching.
“Witnesses at trial, including a relative of the Hammonds, testified the arson occurred shortly after Steven Hammond and his hunting party illegally slaughtered several deer” on Bureau of Land Management property. In October, a USA district judge increased the sentences to five years. But he said their case illustrates officials’ “abuse” of power.
What do the Hammonds want? After admitting that they set fired on federal properties to protect their property from potential wildfires, the Hammond’s were charged. Matthews reiterated that the Hammonds intend to surrender Monday to begin serving their terms.
Bundy is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose ranch was the scene of an armed demonstration against federal Bureau of Land Management officials in 2014 that ended with the authorities backing down, citing safety concerns. “I mean, they could have took the courthouse here in town”.
Social media was quick to call out the hypocrisy, noting that had these men been Muslim or black, they would already be surrounded by SWAT – or dead.
Birding is a popular pastime at the refuge, which also draws anglers, hunters and wildlife watchers. The building looks like a place you’d stop to grab a bite and use the bathroom on a long roadtrip, she said.
Keith Landon, a longtime resident of Burns and employee at the Reid Country Store, said he knows local law enforcement officials who fear their kids will be targeted by angry militia members.
“The FBI is working with the Harney County Sheriff’s Office, Oregon State Police and other local and state law enforcement agencies to bring a peaceful resolution to the situation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge”, the agency’s Portland office said in a statement.
How and when could this end?
“We are not terrorists”, Bundy said.
Marco Rubio called them “lawless”. This is a remote area in OR in a building where no one – except those who’ve voluntarily occupied the building – are in immediate danger. “But we don’t have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others”, Cruz told reporters in Iowa. “The last thing we need is some type of confrontation”.
Bundy has said he and others are prepared to stay in the building for days, weeks or months if necessary. “But you don’t see any of it. They’re keeping a low presence”, Landon said.
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Cliven Bundy claimed he did not recognize orders from federal agents to keep his cattle off land that belonged, in his view, to the “sovereign state of Nevada”.
