‘This is a free-for-all Armageddon,’ a remaining Oregon protester says

As law enforcement surrounded the remaining protesters at an Oregon wildlife refuge Wednesday, an armed occupier urged supporters to join them and to kill any law enforcement who tried prevent their entry, according to a livestream that has been broadcasting from the site.

“There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!” a heavyset man holding a rifle yelled into a camera that was broadcasting a livestream from the refuge Wednesday morning, adding that if “they stop you from getting here, kill them!”

A second man cooed to the camera in a sing-song voice, “What you gonna do, what you gonna do when the militia comes after you, FBI?”

The FBI declined to release any details about how a spokesman for the protest group was killed during a confrontation with federal and state agencies a day earlier, citing a policy of not commenting on shooting incidents while they are under review.

The sudden move to arrest ranking protest leaders on a rural stretch of highway Tuesday afternoon was “a very deliberate and measured response” to the armed occupation that had lasted since Jan. 2 with no end in sight, Gregory T. Bretzing, special agent in charge of Portland’s FBI division, said at a Wednesday morning news conference.

“We’ve worked diligently to bring the situation” at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., to “a peaceful end,” Bretzing said.

He added that the FBI and Oregon State Police’s surprise arrests of protesters confronted outside the refuge Tuesday was deliberately carried far from county residents and that agents were cognizant of “removing the threat of danger from anybody who might be present.”

But he said he could not release details about how protester spokesman and Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was killed, citing an ongoing investigation. A pair of unverified videos from a man and a woman who claimed to be traveling with the protesters when they were arrested said Finicum was shot after he sped away from law enforcement during a traffic stop.

Several members of the group – including one of its most prominent leaders, Ammon Bundy, 40 – were expected to make their initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon to face charges of government intimidation.

Meanwhile, the standoff continues.

On Wednesday morning, law enforcement blocked the roads around the refuge, where armed protesters were still operating heavy machinery and refusing to leave, according to an activist’s livestream from the surrounded site.

The FBI and Oregon State Police’s “containment procedure” is likely aimed at preventing more armed activists from bolstering the holdouts at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, as well as keeping track of anyone who decides to leave. A group in contact with the occupiers, the Pacific Patriots Network, urged supporters to “stand by” as it urged peace and gathered more information about what was happening. Activist Jason Patrick told Oregon Public Radio that about seven to 12 occupiers remained at the refuge.

“This has been tearing our community apart,” Harney County Sheriff David M. Ward said of the armed occupation at Wednesday’s news conference, where he urged “everybody in this illegal occupation to move on.”

“There doesn’t have to be bloodshed in our community,” Ward said. “We have issues with the way things are going in our government, we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner.

“We don’t arm up – we don’t arm up and rebel. We work through the appropriate channels. This can’t happen anymore. This can’t happen in America, and this can’t happen in Harney County.”

On Tuesday, law enforcement stopped a group of occupiers who had temporarily left the occupied refuge, apparently to attend a community meeting.

“Multiple agencies, law enforcement agencies, put a lot of work into doing the best tactical plan they could to take these guys down peacefully and find some resolution to these issues in our community,” Ward said. He added of what happened next: “It didn’t have to happen. We all make choices in life. Sometimes our choices go bad.”

Gunfire broke out when the FBI and the Oregon State Police intercepted Bundy and several of his supporters on a rural stretch of U.S. Highway 395 about halfway between the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the town of John Day.

“It was planned in an area that would minimize injury to others and to law enforcement,” said a law enforcement official who requested anonymity to discuss an incident that was under investigation. “Authorities all along had hoped this would be resolved peacefully, and the arrestees and the decedent were all given ample opportunities to allow this to end peacefully.”

Details of what happened on the highway were scant. Officials would only say that shots were fired.

Ammon Bundy’s brother, Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev., was shot in the arm, and the 55-year-old Finicum was killed, according to Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore.

The void of official information about the incident has been filled by unverified videos circulating widely on social media among militia supporters.

A man named Mark McConnell – who is Facebook friends with one of the refuge’s remaining occupiers, Jason Patrick – posted a video on Facebook early Wednesday morning that said he was driving one of the group’s vehicles and that Finicum had been driving the other.

McConnell said that after officials arrested him and the other passengers in McConnell’s vehicle – which included Ammon Bundy – Finicum had sped away from law enforcement while Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, and “an 18-year-old girl” were still inside.

“LaVoy is very passionate about this, about the movement, about what we’re doing here … He was very passionate, I loved the dude … But he took off,” McConnell said in the Facebook video, who said he was released after two hours of interrogation. He said he was not among the original occupiers.

“Don’t put speculation, don’t put nonsense out there,” McConnell said, scolding Facebook commenters who were not at the scene. “Get to business, we have work to do here, alright. Let’s not let LaVoy’s death be in vain.”

Is the video account authentic? Maureen Peltier, who spent a week and a half at the camp and who stayed in contact with the occupiers and their supporters, said she didn’t personally know McConnell, though she said McConnell was relatively well known by other camp supporters.

“Everybody has turned their phones off or is just not answering them. There’s a lot of people down there I don’t know where they are and if they are OK,” Peltier said. “I have never been this in the dark. I would love for America to have eyes on (what’s happening) there and help them, but I don’t know how to at this point. I can’t get their story out if they’re not talking.”

Finicum’s daughter, Arianna Finicum Brown, confirmed her father’s death to the Oregonian newspaper. “He would never, ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom, and he knew the risks involved,” said Brown, one of 11 children.

Ammon Bundy, 40, who has acted as a leader of the occupation, told his wife in a phone call that the group had been cooperative when law enforcement agents confronted them, according to Fiore, a Bundy family supporter who spoke with Bundy’s wife Tuesday.

“It’s very unfortunate. The only saving grace is there’s six witnesses to it,” Fiore said in an interview.

Ryan Bundy was treated and released into FBI custody.

The Bundy brothers are the sons of Cliven Bundy, a southern Nevada rancher who was at the center of a tense armed standoff of his own with federal Bureau of Land Management officials in 2014.

“Isn’t this a wonderful country we live in?” the elder Bundy said sarcastically Tuesday night when the Los Angeles Times informed him about the arrests and the death.

In addition to the Bundy brothers, those arrested on the highway included Brian Cavalier, 44, also of Bunkerville; Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah; and Ryan Waylen Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont.

Police said they made a separate arrest of another man, Joseph O'Shaughnessy of Cottonwood, Ariz., who was taken into custody in the town of Burns, near the occupied wildlife refuge.

About two hours after the initial confrontation, authorities also arrested Internet radio host Pete Santilli, a supporter of the occupation who has documented the case on his program and via live stream since it began.

Another occupier, Jon Eric Ritzheimer, 32, an anti-government activist who has organized armed anti-Muslim rallies in Phoenix, turned himself in to police in Peoria, Ariz., without incident, officials said.

In a video posted on Facebook before he surrendered, Ritzheimer said goodbye to his two daughters. “Daddy’s gotta go bye-bye,” said Ritzheimer, who said he had returned to Arizona from Oregon to visit his family. “I gotta go again OK?”

“The Feds know I am here and are asking me to turn myself in. I need an attorney so I can get back to my girls,” Ritzheimer wrote, asking for donations. “I just want the country to live by the Constitution and I just want the government to abide by it.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 1:49 PM with the headline "‘This is a free-for-all Armageddon,’ a remaining Oregon protester says."