BURNS, Ore. — A day after a leader of the armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge was killed and eight other anti-government activists were arrested, law enforcement officials called on those who remained at the refuge to go home, saying they had only themselves to blame for what had happened.
With conflicting versions of the showdown making the rounds online, the officials, at a news conference here Wednesday, did not offer any details about the shooting that killed the activist or the arrests, but said they had done what they could to bring about a peaceful resolution.
"The armed occupiers have been given ample opportunities to leave," said Greg Bretzing, the FBI special agent in charge for Oregon. "Instead these individuals have chosen to threaten and intimidate the America they profess to love, and through their criminal actions to bring these consequences upon themselves."
"Let me be clear," he added, "it is the actions and choices of the armed occupiers that have led us to where we are today."
On Tuesday afternoon, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies stopped two vehicles carrying some of the occupation leaders on a rural highway, and arrested them, including Ammon Bundy, the most prominent public face of the group. But one person was killed, identified by supporters and his family as LaVoy Finicum, who often acted as the movement's spokesman.
Accounts of what happened, offered on social media and elsewhere, varied widely on the death of Finicum, who had said that he considered death preferable to prison. Some said he was shot while charging officers, others that he was killed while surrendering. But federal and local officials who spoke here declined to clarify what had happened.
"Please keep praying and keep using your voice to get the truth out," Finicum's family said in a brief statement. "This fight against tyranny is not over."
Since taking control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, the occupiers have called on other anti-government activists to join them, and some renewed that call. But after the arrests and the death of Finicum, law enforcement officials erected roadblocks around the refuge, apparently to prevent supporters from joining the protesters who are still there.
Bundy's brother, Ryan, was also arrested Tuesday, the FBI and the Oregon State Police said. They said one person, whom they would not name, was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening. Members of the occupation group and their supporters said that Ryan Bundy suffered either a minor gunshot wound, or was injured by flying debris, when officers shot Finicum. He was treated at a hospital, and released to the FBI.
In an interview before dawn Wednesday, Jason Patrick, one of the occupiers still at the wildlife refuge, said the group had spent most of the night watching news reports and that at least three people had chosen to leave. He would not say whether there were still children in the occupied buildings; several have been seen there in recent days.
Authorities have not cut off the compound's electricity, and the group still has food. Patrick, who said he had had only snatches of sleep, would not commit to staying at the refuge.
"I'm committed to going to breakfast," he said. "I'm committed to peaceful resolution. But somehow death or a cage doesn't sound like peaceful resolution."
On a video streamed online Wednesday by the protesters at Malheur, one of them shouted that there will be "a blood bath" and that federal officials intended to kill them all. He called on people to gather at the refuge and mount an armed resistance to the government. "American people better wake up, get here and fight for your country," he said. "If they stop you from getting here, kill them!"
Despite the roadblocks, law enforcement officials said the remaining protesters would be allowed to leave.
"It's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on," Dave Ward, sheriff of Harney County, said at the news conference, his voice choking with emotion.
When people disagree with the government, "we don't arm up and rebel," Ward said. "We work through the appropriate channels."
The arrests appear to have been planned strategically, to catch the group's leaders while they were away from their stronghold and the bulk of their supporters. The Bundy group had announced that they were holding a community meeting Tuesday night in John Day, about 100 miles north of the Malheur refuge, in Grant County.
For weeks, federal and state law enforcement officials had allowed the protesters to come and go at will from the refuge, about 30 miles southeast of here. But on Tuesday,
the protesters' two vehicles were stopped on Highway 395, near Burns, about 4:30 p.m., officials said.
People claiming to have witnessed what happened said the occupants of the vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy were arrested without incident, but that Finicum, driving a pickup truck, sped off, stopping only when he reached a law enforcement roadblock.
"I'm disappointed that a traffic stop yesterday that was supposed to bring a peaceful resolution to this ended badly," Ward said. "It didn't have to happen."
Members of the protest group had been suggesting that they might find a more sympathetic ear in Grant County, and that they might try to expand their activities there. The authorities, knowing that the leaders of the group would be en route to John Day, apparently set up on the one road that connects Malheur to the town and stopped them as they drove to the community meeting, which never happened.
Five people were arrested in the highway stop, two others in Burns, and one in Arizona. Officials said all eight would be charged in federal court with a felony: conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats.
After the botched 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian cult's compound near Waco, Texas, in which four federal agents were killed, officials were criticized for having missed opportunities to arrest the group's leader, David Koresh, when he ventured away from the compound.
Tuesday's confrontation came after more than three weeks of growing tension and anxiety that put the community of Burns — about a five-hour drive from Portland — into an international debate about homegrown right-wing militias, public lands and constitutional rights.
Community leaders demanded that Bundy, 40, and a group of his followers who adopted the name Citizens for Constitutional Freedom leave the wildlife refuge, while members of the occupation frequently came and went from the town, where some people saw them as heroes and others as a menace.
"This has been tearing our community apart," Ward said.
On Wednesday, Dusty Wilson, a retired veteran who lives in Burns, said: "My hope is that we just get our nice little town back. My fear is that people who sympathize with the occupiers will flood into this area from all around the country. Who knows, maybe tourists will even come see our small town — they'll want to know where all this went down."
But he also expressed support for Finicum and the other protesters, saying that the government should have waited out the occupation. "There's no reason he should have been killed," he said. "It should have been handled peacefully."
Becky Needham, 45, a saleswoman at the Broadway Boutique Clothing store in Burns, said of the occupiers, "I want them to spend some time in prison."
Ken Rollins, a contractor, called the protesters "American patriots," but added, "I agreed with their goals, not their tactics." With the killing of Finicum, he called Tuesday "the saddest day of my life."
The Bundys and the other occupiers contend that the federal government has illegally taken land in Oregon and elsewhere around the West, restricting its use by ranchers and other private landholders, and they demand that it be turned over to state and local control. They also said they were supporting the Hammonds, the local ranchers imprisoned for setting fires that spread to federal land.
In recent days, the occupation appeared to have become more entrenched. A concrete blockade went up at the entrance to the refuge, about a quarter-mile from Malheur's terra-cotta roofed buildings, and occupiers began carrying long guns across their chests, in addition to the pistols on their hips.
In addition to the Bundy brothers, the FBI and the Oregon State Police said that three others, including Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah, and Ryan Waylen Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Montana, were arrested on the state highway. Cox and Payne were prominent figures at the refuge. Also arrested was Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada.
Authorities said only that shots had been fired during the arrest. Two other people: Peter Santilli, 50, of Cincinnati, and Joseph Donald O'Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Arizona, were arrested later in Burns, and Jon Eric Ritzheimer, 32, turned himself in to the police in Peoria, Arizona, authorities said.
Bundy's family became a symbol of anti-government sentiment in 2014 when his father, Cliven Bundy, inspired a standoff between armed local activists and federal officials seeking to confiscate cattle grazing illegally on federal land in Nevada.
Cox, in an interview inside a building at the refuge a few days before her arrest, vowed to stay until the federal government handed it over to local control. "When the people come and take their rightful position, then we can go home," she said. "They are coming; it's just taking a little while."
.