UpDates: Ammon Bundy Taken Into FBI Custody

by: Sam Culper


Follow this post for additional updates.
Article at Oath Keepers national:
https://www.oathkeepers.org/breaking-ammon-bundy-taken-into-fbi-custody/

This evening, the FBI made a legal, felony stop on a vehicle carrying Ammon Bundy and several other individuals. After a shoot out with the FBI, four individuals were reportedly taken into custody, including Ammon Bundy. Two individuals are reported to have been taken to the Burns hospital, which is currently on lock down.
FBI sources stated that those at the Refuge are currently free to leave unimpeded, implying that there might be action if they do not leave immediately.
Although those in custody have not been confirmed, we can safely assume that Buddha Cavalier was with Ammon. Ryan Payne suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was taken to the hospital, according to local officials.
UPDATES:
1811L: Blaine Cooper has reportedly assumed leadership at the Refuge and has been told to leave immediately. During a phone call with Pete Santilli, Pete can be overheard saying, “Blaine, please don’t do this.” Blaine is reportedly wanting to make a stand. Women and children are still at the Refuge.

1821L: According to local government officials, Ryan Payne suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was taken to the Burns hospital.
1827L: Awaiting a forthcoming statement from law enforcement regarding the shoot out and arrests.
1844L: KATU News is now reporting that eight occupiers have been taken into custody.
1850L: Pete Santilli and Joe Oshaugnessy have also been arrested.
1857L: Law Enforcement reporting the arrest of the following individuals:
Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier, Shawna Cox, Ryan Payne — and JJoe O’Shaghnessy in a separate arrest.
1900L: FBI reporting that one of the occupiers is now deceased 
1924L :
One man, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was killed in the exchange. Finicum, 55, was a Northern Arizona rancher, foster parent, and frequent spokesperson for the militant group, according to Oregon Live. 



by: Steve Mollman

In a shootout in the US state of Oregon yesterday evening (Jan. 26), the FBI confronted members a militant group that since early this month has occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Authorities took eight people into custody after the shootout, including group leader Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan, who was shot in the arm.

Finicum was prominent in the early days of the occupation, giving reporters the first tours of the occupied grounds. Doing a series of interviews one cold evening with a blue tarp over his head (and a gun on his lap) earned him the nickname “tarp man.”

As a rancher in northern Arizona, Finicum had a permit to graze cattle during certain months on land administered mainly by US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). He ran into trouble with the agency after he was found grazing his cattle on the land outside the authorized period, which is restricted to give the land time to recover.

Meanwhile Finicum felt inspired by the militant group, who some believe should be labeled domestic terrorists. Bundy and his followers argue that the US government has illegally taken federal lands around the West from ranchers and private landholders. They demand the return of such lands to local control. (Native Americans have their own take on who should own the land.)

Finicum joined Bundy in a 2014 standoff against the BLM. “After that incident, I had to do a lot of soul-searching,” Finicum told St. George News in Utah. “I realized that Cliven Bundy was standing on a very strong constitutional principle—and yet, here I was continuing to pay a grazing fee to the BLM.”

Although he’d had a decent relationship with the BLM for many years, Finicum decided to—like Bundy—stop paying the grazing permit fees, in protest.

Despite his identity as a rancher, Finicum and his wife Jeanette earned their “main source of income” as foster parents with Catholic Charities Community Services, according to an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting. In January he told the broadcaster that more than 50 boys—including from mental hospitals and drug rehab programs—had stayed at his family ranch in Arizona over the past decade.

“My ranch has been a great tool for these boys,” Finicum told the broadcaster. “It has done a lot of good.”

Shortly after the militant group’s occupation of the wildlife reserve began in early January, a social worker removed the last of the foster children from the ranch.

Cliven Bundy—father of group leader Ammon—said to the Los Angeles Times of Finicum’s death, “Now we’ve got one killed, and all I can say is, he’s sacrificed for a good purpose.”