FBI surrounds last occupiers at Oregon refuge
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The FBI surrounded the last four occupiers of a wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon on Wednesday night as the holdouts argued with a negotiator and yelled at law enforcement officers in armored vehicles to back off.
Agents attempted to approach an occupier who rode an ATV beyond barricades at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge around 4:30 p.m., CBS affiliate KOIN reported.
The occupier "returned to the encampment at the refuge at a high rate of speed," the FBI said in a statement. No shots were fired.
The tense standoff between law enforcement officers and the four occupiers was being livestreamed on the Internet by an acquaintance of one of the holdouts, David Fry.
Fry, 27, sounded increasingly unraveled as he continually yelled, at times hysterically, at what he said was an FBI negotiator.
"You're going to hell. Kill me. Get it over with," he said. "We're innocent people camping at a public facility, and you're going to murder us."
"The only way we're leaving here is dead or without charges," Fry said, who told the FBI to "get the hell out of Oregon."
Fry and the three others are the last remnants of an armed group that seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2 to oppose federal land-use policies.
"It has never been the FBI's desire to engage these armed occupiers in any way other than through dialogue, and to that end, the FBI has negotiated with patience and restraint in an effort to resolve the situation peacefully," Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, said in a statement.
"However, we reached a point where it became necessary to take action in a way that best ensured the safety of those on the refuge, the law enforcement officers who are on scene, and the people of Harney County who live and work in this area," Bretzing said.
The four remained despite the arrests of group leader Ammon Bundy and others Jan. 26 on a remote road outside the refuge.
Another occupier, Sandy Anderson, said after the group was surrounded: "They're threatening us. They're getting closer. I pray that there's a revolution if we die here tonight."
Her husband and fellow occupier, Sean Anderson, said in the livestream: "We will not fire until fired upon. We haven't broken any laws, came here to recognize our constitutional rights. Help us."
As David Fry and Sean Anderson yelled back and forth with the FBI, Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore spoke to them and Sandy Anderson on a phone, telling them she could only help them if they stayed alive. The Rev. Franklin Graham apparently spoke to occupiers on another call as the occupiers occasionally prayed.
The occupiers said they saw snipers on a hill and a drone.
The standoff was occurring on the 40th day of the occupation, launched by Bundy and his followers to protest prison terms for two local ranchers on arson charges and federal management of public lands.
Bundy was arrested on Jan. 26 as he and other main figures of the occupation were traveling to the town of John Day. Four others were also arrested in that confrontation, which resulted in the shooting death of the group's spokesman, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum. The FBI said Finicum was reaching for a gun.
Most of the occupiers fled the refuge after that. Authorities then surrounded the property and later got the holdouts added to an indictment charging 16 people with conspiracy to interfere with federal workers.
The four recently posted a series of defiant videos in which Fry shows a defensive perimeter they have built and takes a joyride in a government vehicle. Fry says the FBI told him he faces additional charges because of the barricades.
At first, Bundy urged the last holdouts to go home. But in response to the grand jury indictment, he took a more defiant tone from jail.
"Taking over the refuge was not only right, it was the duty of the people to do," Bundy said in a recording released by his family on Feb. 4.