Last week’s stunning acquittal of Ammon Bundy and six of his followers who last winter took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns was not only a slap in the face to law and order, but a dangerous precedent that sends the wrong message: that anyone who has an ax to grind over federal policy can stage an armed takeover of our public lands. It is also a shameful affront to the residents who are still trying to recover from the trauma of last January’s event which severely compromised the law-abiding community that has long supported the national refuge.
The Source Weekly reported on site from the refuge during the event and found it to be a bizarre scene. It was cold and desolate in the dead of winter, and the vibe coming from Bundy and his followers—who were heavily armed—was eerie. They commandeered buildings, vehicles and the grounds and used them for their own purposes, all while visibly carrying firearms. They took over the watchtower which overlooks the refuge where they could keep track of all activities. If you walked the grounds, you always had a pair of eyes on you. In short, they took a peaceful setting and turned it into an armed camp.
But that’s not all. They regularly drove illegally-commandeered federal vehicles into Burns where they hazed residents on the streets, in the stores, and during a community meeting held at the high school. Schools were shut down for days. Government business was shut down, including day-to-day activities at the nearby Burns headquarters for the Bureau of Land Management. The Harney County Courthouse was put on high security and barricaded from normal activity. According to some reports, the occupation cost taxpayers up to $9 million.
“The message of the Malheur verdicts is that the federal land management agencies stand alone,” Dennis McLane, the retired deputy chief of law enforcement for the Bureau of Land Management, told The New York Times.
The group’s actions also caused harm to Native Americans of the Burns Paiute Tribe whose ancestors left their DNA throughout the refuge over thousands of years. By carving in an unauthorized road near headquarters buildings, damage was done to the land and disrespect shown to tribal heritage, which can never be reversed. And when we compare the treatment of the Bundy occupiers to the treatment of the demonstrators against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota—who have sustained pepper spray and dog attacks during their peaceful actions—we only get more infuriated.
Inside Malheur headquarters buildings, government computers were ransacked. Records and information were compromised by a group of individuals who had no right to do so. Even today the Welcome Center remains closed to the public.
Last January’s nightmare at our wildlife refuge was nothing short of domestic terrorism. This by outsiders from Nevada who have a quarrel with the Bureau of Land Management because the Bundys refused to pay grazing fees for use of public lands where their cattle were fattened for market. The jury’s acquittal rewards their actions and will go down as one of the biggest injustices in modern history. It is shameful.
This article appears in Source Weekly – November 3, 2016.
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Well said. Remember some of these extremists live in our community. Google BJ Soper Washington Post. He lives in Redmond. We must remain diligent to observe and report if there is inkling of something like this occurring in Central Oregon. These ill minded folks are even more embolded now they think public opinion is on their side. This couldn’t be further rom the truth.
The distaste for this verdict shows the level of sheep-ism in our country these days. People tend to forget that Federal buildings, State buildings, or any taxpayer funded property is THE PEOPLES, not private property. The “domestic terrorists” did what they thought was needed done in the light of them being treated tyrannically by our government. These folks had previous arrangements made for the grazing and we don’t need to get back in to the facts. Let’s not forget that a person lost his life for all of this, his life would’ve been saved if the law enforcement just let him get to the courthouse and didn’t intervene for no real reason.
It scares me to think how people would react if/when their fellow citizens rise up against a future government that has gone beyond it’s boundaries, like what our fore fathers did from England.
Apparently the highest court in the land felt they were justified, that’s enough for me.
Nothing like a response calling people sheep. The person who lost his life ran from a police stop, nearly ran over a law enforcement officer, told law enforcement multiple times to shoot him, and reached repeatedly for a weapon prior to being shot. The wildlife refuge always belonged to the people. The only time it didn’t was when a bunch of out of towners with assault rifles took it over.
@ OMG THE STUPID- That’s pretty much the response I figured would pop up given the liberal and “progressive” political mindset that inhabits Central Oregon these days.
Law enforcement could have let them get to the courthouse, like they intended, and then apprehend the people there with no struggle. Instead, they went ahead and trapped a person who said he’d not go easy and forced his hand. The only violence in the whole situation was presented by law enforcement. The ranchers didn’t stop anyone from using the refuge, law enforcement secured and shut down the area.
Also, well done in throwing in the “assault rifle” comment, there were also bolt action rifles, shot guns and pistols of all variety. I always find it interesting that “progressive” and “tolerant” people attack more viciously than those darned conservatives. You didn’t claim to be liberal, I am certainly pointing the finger, am I incorrect?
Also, I respect those officers that were on the ground and had to make the decision to end a lift. It’s the command decision that forced their hands and that’s issue I have with it. I am combat Veteran and have a huge respect for all people who serve, military or first responder.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
Your continued ad hominem attacks only demonstrate how weak your argument is. When a person is pulled over by police and instructed to get out of the vehicle, there is no negotiation. You may call this tyranny, I call it appropriate use of law enforcement to apprehend criminals. Why don’t you go 120 mph down 97, get pulled over, and tell the officer you are going to K Falls before you wish to follow his instructions. See how that goes for you. If you are referring to ‘darned conservatives’ as the patriot movement you are defending, ‘progressive and tolerant’ people don’t follow others home, brandish weapons, and make personal threats. All of which occurred to innocent people in Burns by those ‘constitution loving conservatives’
This has nothing to do with getting pulled over for speeding. This has everything to do with ranchers that were letting their cattle graze on public land for decades, then the Feds not only fined them for the use that somehow became illegal, the Feds also burned the fields and killed cattle. The government over reach was extreme and the Supreme Court agreed. If the ranchers were theorizing folks in Burns, why were there no charges filed, no arrests or convictions.
Again, the Supreme Court acquitted them, that means they didn’t do wrong in the eyes of the law.
Yes Mr or Mrs Concerned Citizen.. you and your people will want to keep your eye on BJ Soper as he has been seen picking up trash on the side of the road as a volunteer, he tried to end the occupation at the refuge, he volunteered to guard the recruiting center in Bend and this is just a few of his transgressions against the people of Central Oregon.
@ Brent Howk – to what Supreme Court decision are you referring? Is this related to Burns?
@?, It may not be the Supreme Court, ally he news releases just say Federal Jury and US District court. This is about the take over of the Malhuer wildlife refuge.
http://www.wweek.com/news/2016/10/27/the-b…