Taking a page from the Black Lives Matter movement, protesters chanted “don’t shoot” and held up their hands at a Monday rally in rural Oregon condemning last week’s shooting death of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.
At the same time, locals weary of the 30-day-old occupation countered with calls for the protesters to “go home,” as shown in video posted online by KOIN-TV and the Twitter account Occupied Burns.
The rally at the Harney County Courthouse in Burns, Oregon, which drew about 300 people, came as four occupiers remain burrowed at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge despite last week’s arrests and departures.
Among those arrested was occupation leader Ammon Bundy, whose attorneys sought his release from custody pending a trial on a federal conspiracy charge stemming from the Jan. 2 takeover of a headquarters building at the refuge.
In a brief filed Sunday, attorneys Mike Arnold and Lissa Casey argued that a magistrate judge’s detention order issued last week should be revoked in favor of allowing Mr. Bundy to return to his home in Idaho under GPS monitoring.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman ruled Friday that Mr. Bundy and others arrested in connection with the occupation posed a flight risk and a danger to community. Eleven occupiers have been charged with conspiracy and face a maximum six-year prison sentence.
A hearing is scheduled Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman in Portland, Oregon.
While other protests were held over the weekend in Burns, Oregon, the Monday rally organized by the Pacific Patriots Network and 3 percent of Idaho was far larger, drawing roughly equal numbers of protesters for and against the occupation.
Supporters of Mr. Bundy and the other occupiers invoked the Black Lives Matter movement by holding their hands up in surrender while chanting “don’t shoot,” a protest originated by the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the 2014 shooting death by police of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Mr. Finicum, 55, was shot and killed Jan. 26 after slamming his truck into a snowbank and jumping out at an FBI roadblock on Highway 395 near Burns. He and other occupiers were confronted by law enforcement while driving to a community meeting in John Day, Oregon.
A video released Thursday by the FBI shows Mr. Finicum extending his arms away from his body as he leaves the truck, then reaching toward his jacket or waistband before being shot by an Oregon state trooper. He had a 9 mm pistol in his jacket pocket, according to the FBI.
Eleven people have been arrested and charged with conspiracy in connection with the takeover. One of those, Shawna Cox, was fitted with an ankle monitor and allowed to return home Monday to Kanab, Utah, the Oregonian reported.
Mr. Bundy and others involved in the occupation, a protest against federal public-lands policy and the sentencing of two Harney County ranchers to five years’ each for arson, are being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center in Portland, Oregon.
A petition presented at the courthouse by the PPN calls for the resignation of Harney County Sheriff David Ward and other local officials, as well as the detention of FBI agents and Oregon State Police officers involved with the shooting.
The four occupiers still holed up at the refuge headquarters — identified by the Oregonian as Sandy and Sean Anderson, Jeff Banta and David Fry — have been negotiating their surrender with FBI officials.
The FBI has let some of those departing the refuge leave without being charged. The last of the occupiers have sought assurances that none of them will be arrested if they leave.
“It’s either all of us out or all of us dead,” says Sandy Anderson in a video posted online last week.
In messages conveyed through his attorney and via cell phone, Mr. Bundy has urged the holdouts to “please stand down” and “go home to your families.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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