Bundy has repeatedly rejected calls to leave buildings at the refuge despite pleas from the county sheriff, from many local residents and from Oregon’s governor, among others.
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At the emotional community meeting Ward, the county sheriff, said he understood the problems some had with the ranchers’ court case.
Harney County Sheriff David Ward met Thursday with Bundy.
Finicum, Bundy, and armed protesters have been living at the refuge for a week, saying they will only leave when the land is returned to the people – its rightful owners.
A man stands guard after members of the “3% of Idaho” group along with several other organizations arrived at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016, near Burns, Ore.
Bundy’s band of militiamen are “alarmed” by the appearance of another militia group, MacFarlane said, “and concerned about the perception they convey”, The Oregonian reports. The new sign comes with a fresh moniker for the group members, who now call themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom.
He added that Bundy, who has his own group of around two dozen men, had “tried to put out the word: ‘We don’t need you'”.
Now, the other OR militia groups are directly intervening in Ammon Bundy’s standoff.
The militia groups said they would not join the occupation but would instead sleep in their cars or local hotels and be on armed patrol of the periphery of the wildlife refuge’s property. The group’s leaders say they plan to stay until local rancher Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven, are released from prison and the 187,000-acre refuge is divvied up among area residents to be used for livestock grazing and logging.
“We are here to create a safety buffer”, 3 percent leader Brandon Curtiss told the media, but not long after that, Curtiss and his followers came back from inside the reserve and left, after being told they were not needed.
The Bundy family is among many people in the West who contend local officials could do a better job of managing public lands than the federal government.
“It was instigated by outsiders whose tactics we Oregonians don’t agree with”. The group also objects to a lengthy prison sentence for two local ranchers convicted of arson.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday said the armed protesters “need to decamp immediately and face the consequences”.
“In reality these men had alternative motives, to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States”, Ward said in a statement earlier this week. He got a lot of support during a packed community meeting Wednesday night.
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Ammon Bundy, leader of the group that took over the bird sanctuary a week ago, said he was grateful for the help. Even the Native American Burns Paiute Tribe has gotten involved in the dispute, since they say the federal government “stole” the land after President Ulysses Grant established the Malheur Indian Reservation for the Northern Paiute in 1872. However, federal prosecutors appealed their sentences and requested they receive a minimum of five years.
