Standoff dwindles to four holdouts
<p>Security was strong at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, as the defendants arrested in Harney County had their appearance in court. (Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian via AP)</p>
<p>Rancher Cliven Bundy stands along the road near his ranch after speaking with media Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in Bunkerville, Nev. Cliven Bundy and his wife Carol Bundy was returning from a trip to visit the family of LaVoy Finicum, a 55-year-old rancher from Cain Beds, Ariz., who died Tuesday after law enforcement officers initiated a traffic stop near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. It's unclear what happened in the moments before his death. (AP Photo/John Locher)</p>
The armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge dwindled Thursday to just four holdouts demanding assurances they will not be arrested by the FBI if they surrender.
“We’re still stuck here, four of us. They’re telling us it’s safe to leave, but it’s not safe,” a spokesman believed to be occupier David Fry said in a video posted on YouTube nearly four weeks into the standoff in the frozen high desert.
The FBI had no immediate comment on the negotiations or the holdouts’ demands, saying only that it was trying to “empty the refuge of the armed occupiers in the safest way possible.”
The occupation began on Jan. 2, and at one point there were a couple of dozen people holed up, demanding that the federal government turn public lands over to local control. But the compound has been emptying out since the arrest of their leader, Ammon Bundy, and 10 others over the past few days.
With the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrounded by the FBI, the occupiers have been posting videos on YouTube showing them around a campfire, along with pickup trucks, an American flag, guns, an old car and assorted clutter.
“We want to live. We want to go home peacefully,” one of the men, who was not identified, said in a video posted on Thursday. He was also shown dancing outdoors to a country-western tune with a woman identified as his wife.
Oregon Public Broadcasting spoke with the holdouts and identified them as Fry, who is from Ohio, husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson of Idaho, and Jeff Banta of Nevada. Fry told the station that Sean Anderson faces a federal arrest warrant.
All 11 people under arrest have been charged with a felony count of conspiracy to impede federal officers from carrying out their duties through force, intimidation or threats.
Bundy and seven other main figures in the takeover were arrested earlier in the week, most of them in a traffic stop Tuesday night that erupted in gunfire and left one follower dead. On Wednesday, three more followers surrendered after Bundy pleaded in a statement from jail: “Please stand down. Go home and hug your families.”
Meanwhile, Bundy followers gave conflicting accounts of how Robert Finicum, a spokesman for the group, died in the clash on a remote highway during an operation led by the FBI.
One said Finicum charged at officers, who then shot him. A member of the Bundy family said Finicum did nothing to provoke the officers.
Finicum’s daughter called him a martyr. “He loved freedom obviously more than his life,” Challice Finch told Dallas-Fort Worth TV station KXAS.
Bundy is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a tense 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights.
The group came to the desert of eastern Oregon in the dead of winter to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires.
In a criminal complaint Wednesday, federal authorities said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and was prepared to fight.
The charges against Bundy and others say that the refuge’s 16 employees have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence.
Petty reported from Portland. Associated Press writers Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Martha Bellisle and Lisa Baumann in Seattle contributed to this report.