On Tuesday, Harney County Sheriff David Ward told reporters [3] it was time for Ammon Bundy and the group of militiamen occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to “leave the community, go home, and end this peacefully.”
Bundy, we noted, had no such plans.
The handful of armed men holed up in a remote bird sanctuary say they are standing up for state’s rights in a kind of ad hoc, haphazard rekindling of the Sagebrush Rebellion.
The proximate cause for the occupation was the (re)sentencing of Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who a judge ruled should be sent back to jail in connection with fires the two lit in 2001 and 2006. Although the Hammonds aren’t protesting their sentence, Bundy wants to see them go free before the militiamen give Linda Beck (the biologist at whose desk Bundy now sits at Malheur) her office back.
(from left to right: Bundy, his bodyguard Wes, Dwight Hammond, and Linda Beck)
On Thursday, Sheriff Ward attempted to reason with the men.
In a scene right out of a (bad) movie, Bundy and his bodyguards drove to a “neutral location” that Reuters says was located “along a remote Oregon roadside,” for a meeting with the Sheriff.
In the meeting - which apparently lasted “about five minutes” - Ward offered the men safe passage out of the state if they agreed to cede control of the snowy federal outpost.
In short, Bundy said no.
As you can see from the video, the Sheriff seems to be at a loss when it comes to figuring out exactly what it is Bundy wants, but he is convinced that it's not safe to open local schools until the standoff is resolved. "We pose no threat whatsoever to the people," Bundy insists. "It only takes one unstable person and we know that," Ward counters.
“Ward told Bundy that he was seeking a peaceful resolution to the nearly week-long standoff and offered to escort the occupiers out of Oregon,” Reuters writes. “But Bundy, saying that the sheriff had not addressed the occupiers' grievances, declined.” "We're being ignored sir," he can be heard saying.
Bundy also seems to have been offended by the notion that he needed a police escort to leave Oregon. "I'm not afraid to go out of state. I don't need an escort,” he later told reporters. Here's a bit more from the Oregonian [4]:
The parley between Bundy and the sheriff lasted between five and 10 minutes and took place in the open, at the intersection of a state highway and the back route to the refuge. It was another in a series of twists and turns the past week that have drawn national and international attention to this sparsely populated high desert country.
Ward was accompanied to the remote location by Sheriffs Brian Wolfe of Malheur County and Andy Long of Tillamook County as well three rigs carrying heavily armed law enforcement officers.
Ward met Bundy on the side of Lava Bed Road, a handful of media surrounding the men. Bundy was accompanied by Ryan Payne, a self-styled militiaman from Montana.
Ward explained he was there to resolve the standoff. He said he didn't want anyone to get hurt.
"We need to find a peaceful resolution and get you guys out of here," he said.
Bundy, wearing his trademark cowboy hat, told Ward, "We mean no harm to anybody."
Bundy went into his oft-repeated comments about why the militants had arrived to take over the refuge.
"We're here for the people of Harney County," he said. "We're here because people were being ignored." He said citizens have complained over and over about federal land-use issues.
"Yet, sheriff, you would not address those concerns," Bundy said. "We're getting ignored again."
Ward replied, "I didn't come here to argue."
The men shook hands, Bundy and Payne returning to the small convoy that brought them to the scene on a gravel road roughly 20 miles east of the refuge. It was apparent Bundy brought a security detail with him.
Ward climbed into a sheriff's rig and headed off over back roads to a town hall meeting in the small community of Diamond. He met about 50 citizens there to talk about the refuge occupation and hear their concerns.
And so, there was no common ground to be found on Lava Bed Road near Highway 78. Only a cold (both figuratively and literally) handshake.
The Sheriff would later say that he believes Bundy doesn't feel like the standoff is being taken seriously. "I don't feel like they think they're getting enough attention yet," he remarked.
But while Bundy says he "doesn't need an escort" out of the state, he may get one anyway because as Ward cautiously warned the group on Thursday, "at some point, this is all going to have to be resolved."
