Occupiers at Oregon refuge say they’ll turn themselves in

BURNS, Ore. (AP) – The last four armed occupiers of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon said they would turn themselves in Thursday after facing authorities who came to the property more than a month into the takeover.

A roadblock leading to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was quiet except for a large group of media awaiting the holdouts, a departure from the confrontation late Wednesday that played out via a phone line streamed live over the Internet.

At the refuge, the occupiers yelled at officers to back off and prayed with supporters over the open phone line streamed by an acquaintance of holdout David Fry.

Fry, 27, of Blanchester, Ohio, 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, adding that armored vehicles surrounded their camp.

He and three others are the last remnants of an armed group led by Ammon Bundy that seized the refuge on Jan. 2 to demand public lands be turned over to locals. The three others are Jeff Banta, 46, of Elko, Nevada; and married couple Sean Anderson, 48, and Sandy Anderson, 47, of Riggins, Idaho.

A Nevada legislator, Michele Fiore, called the occupiers to try to get them to calm down.

“I need you guys alive,” said the Republican member of the Nevada Assembly who had been in Portland to support the jailed Bundy.

She told occupiers that she was driving to the refuge to try to help negotiate their exit. They prayed with Fiore and others as the confrontation dragged on for hours.

Finally, Sean Anderson said he spoke with the FBI and that the occupiers all would turn themselves in at a nearby FBI checkpoint Thursday morning. He relayed the news to Fiore.

“We’re not surrendering, we’re turning ourselves in. It’s going against everything we believe in,” he said.

Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, said the situation had reached a point where it “became necessary to take action” to ensure the safety of all involved.

One of the occupiers rode an ATV outside “the barricades established by the militia” at the refuge, Bretzing said in a statement. When FBI agents tried to approach the driver, Fry said he returned to the camp at a “high rate of speed.”

The FBI placed agents at barricades around the occupiers’ camp, Bretzing said.

“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,” he said.

The development came as Cliven Bundy – who is the father of Ammon Bundy and led a Nevada standoff with federal authorities in 2014 – was arrested in Portland after encouraging supporters to flock to Oregon to support the occupiers. The FBI confirmed he was taken into custody but declined to provide a reason or other details.

Federal authorities likely decided to move in over concerns about dealing with a larger group, an expert said.

“The FBI looks at the concept of group dynamics, and they don’t have the upper hand with a big and ungainly crowd,” said Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor at California State University, San Bernardino. “When you’ve got many armed people taking positions, it’s not going to end well.”

For weeks, authorities had allowed the occupiers to come and go freely from the remote refuge, leading to criticism from local officials and residents that law enforcement wasn’t doing enough to end the standoff.

The four had refused to leave even after Ammon Bundy and others were arrested on a road outside the refuge on Jan. 26. The traffic stop also led police to shoot and kill Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, who the FBI says 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 previously said they would not leave without assurances they would not be arrested.

“We will not fire until fired upon,” Sean Anderson said in the livestream. “We haven’t broken any laws, came here to recognize our constitutional rights.”

The occupiers said they saw snipers on a hill and a drone.