Federal grand jury indicts 16 in Oregon wildlife refuge standoff
Charged with conspiracy to impede officers
PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal grand jury has indicted 16 people in connection with their roles in the Oregon wildlife refuge standoff, charging them all with a count of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States.
The group’s leader, Ammon Bundy, and 15 other people “prevented federal officials from performing their official duties by force, threats and intimidation,” according to a sealed indictment filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and unsealed Thursday. Each person could face up to six years in prison.
In addition to Bundy, his brother, Ryan, and others taken into custody last week in Oregon and Arizona, the indictment also charges the four people still at the refuge. On Thursday, a defiant Bundy again defended the occupation and called on the authorities blockading it, rather than the remaining occupiers, to leave.
The indictment came a little more than a week after authorities began arresting people involved in the armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and, while taking the group’s leaders into custody, fatally shot one of the most highprofile occupiers. Authorities then blockaded the federal refuge in eastern Oregon and, as protesters fled or were arrested, the occupation dwindled to just four people.
The law enforcement response to the occupation had been largely out of sight since it began in early January, and occupiers were allowed to freely travel to and from the refuge. This abruptly changed last week when the FBI and Oregon State Police moved to arrest Bundy while he and others were outside the refuge.
During this encounter on an open highway, one of the occupiers — LaVoy Finicum, who had acted as a spokesman for the group — tried to flee and, after he got out of his car, was shot and killed by an Oregon state trooper. The FBI quickly released video footage of the shooting and said it showed Finicum twice reaching toward where he had a holstered handgun. Finicum’s supporters maintain he was not a threat and have described his death as “an assassination.”
On the same day the indictment was filed, a judge also rejected the argument that one of the occupiers arrested should be allowed to go to Finicum’s funeral.
The standoff at the remote wildlife refuge began Jan. 2 when a small group traveled there and said it had seized the facility to support two local ranchers convicted of arson and sentenced to prison.
This group, which took on the name Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, also said they were protesting the federal government’s involvement in land ownership in the area, touching on long- standing unhappiness in Western states over the way the land is managed.
Bundy is the son of rancher Cliven Bundy, whose decades- long fight against the federal government sparked a 2014 showdown in which armed supporters faced off with federal agents who eventually backed down.