Leader of Oregon occupation arrested, 1 dead after highway shootout with authorities
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 27 January, 2016, 11:59am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 27 January, 2016, 12:21pm
Reuters
Sergeant Tom Hutchison stands in front of an Oregon State Police roadblock on Tuesday. Authorities say shots were fired during the arrest of members of an armed group that has occupied a national wildlife refuge in Oregon for more than three weeks. Photo: AP
The leader of an armed occupation at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon has been arrested, along with five others, after an exchange of gunfire on a highway in which one person was killed and another was wounded, the FBI said.
Protesters were still occupying the remote Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon after leader Ammon Bundy’s arrest and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was setting up a perimeter, a law enforcement official said.
The takeover at Malheur that started January 2 is the latest flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over the US government’s control of millions hectares of land in the West.
Ammon Bundy speaks during an interview at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, near Burns, Oregon on January 5. Photo: AP
Four other people were taken into custody along with Bundy following the gunfire along Highway 395 in northeast Oregon, according to the FBI.
The FBI said that Bundy, 40, his brother Ryan Bundy, 43, Brian Cavalier, 44, Shawna Cox, 59, and Ryan Payne, 32, were arrested during the traffic stop, while Joseph Donald O'Shaughnessy, 45, was arrested later in Burns.
All of those arrested face federal charges of conspiracy to use force, intimidation or threats to impede federal officers from discharging their duties, the FBI said.
The Oregonian newspaper reported that Bundy had been en route to a community meeting in John Day, Oregon, with several other members of the occupation, where he was scheduled to be a guest speaker, when authorities stopped his vehicle.
Some 40km Highway 395 was shut down in both directions following the incident, a spokesman for the state department of transportation said.
Local media reported that a hospital in nearby Burns had been placed on lockdown.
The occupiers of the wildlife refuge said they were supporting two local ranchers who were returned to prison this month for setting fires that spread to federal land. The ranchers’ lawyer has said the occupiers do not speak for the family.
Burns Mayor Craig LaFollette said that while he had limited information about the night’s events, he hoped the stand-off would come to a peaceful end.
“I think my perception is that people’s patience was running thin and that the community as a whole was looking for some resolution and to have these people leave,” he said.
Law enforcement officials had largely kept their distance from the buildings at the refuge, 50km south of the small town of Burns in rural southeast Oregon’s Harney County, in the hope of avoiding a violent confrontation.
Local residents have expressed a mixture of sympathy for the Hammond family, suspicion of the federal government’s motives and frustration with the occupation.
