All Hat, No Cattle: Three Things to Know About the Militants' Standoff in Southeast Oregon

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge doesn't typically get much attention.

The 187,757 acres of high desert in the southeastern corner of Oregon are best known to bird watchers, who trek 300 miles outside Portland to look for sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans and 22 types of wood warblers.

But this has not been a typical week in rural Harney County.

On Jan. 2, roughly a dozen militants armed with semiautomatic rifles seized the refuge's headquarters and visitor center while federal employees were enjoying their weekend. The men declared they would occupy the federal building to protest the prison sentences of two local ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, convicted of arson.

The invaders—threatening a violent confrontation with government officials—mark the latest eruption of seditionist fervor from ranchers who graze cattle on federal lands. The occupants are led by sons of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who defied the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2014. The Bundy brothers came to Oregon saying they'd been led by God—and were soon followed to Harney County by a pack of local and national media.

That press scrutiny has poked holes in the claims of the Bundys, who initially boasted their takeover included a 150-man force.

But several key facts of the saga remain unknown to many people following the story. Here are three facts to bear in mind.

1. This fight started with seven deer.

Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond were convicted in 2012 of setting fires on federal land. The first of those fires, the 2001 Hardie-Hammond Fire, burned 139 acres.

Federal prosecutors built their case around three deer hunters, who testified that the Hammonds' hunting party shot into a group of seven or eight small bucks on federal land, constituting illegal poaching. "I saw at least four bucks get hit by bullets," testified hunting guide Gordon Choate. "I saw one with a leg flopping, running. And basically the herd of bucks just exploded like a flock of quail."

Prosecutors argued that by starting the fire, the Hammonds were able to destroy evidence of the deer slaughter. Dwight Hammond's grandson, Dusty Hammond, testified that "Steven [Hammond] started handing out boxes of strike-anywhere matches and said we were going to light up the whole country on fire."

The Hammonds claimed they were setting backfires to control invasive plants on property where they had grazing rights. That defense became the basis for rancher outcry last October, when a federal judge resentenced the Hammonds to serve the balance of a mandatory five-year sentence.

2. Not a single Oregonian has been confirmed among the militants.

The Oregonian first reported last month that backlash to the Hammonds' sentence drew militant visitors from out of state. Ammon Bundy and his brothers joined a Jan. 2 protest march in Burns, then invited the protesters to join them in seizing the federal building 30 miles to the south.

It's not clear that anyone from Oregon took them up on the offer.

The militants holding the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters include people from four other Western states—including Arizona military veteran Jon Ritzheimer, who posted a YouTube video telling his family, "I want to die a free man."

None of the nine men who by Jan. 3 identified themselves to press or on social media as part of the occupation are Oregon residents. (Their apparent home states are shown in the map above.) In fact, the man who may be Oregon's best-known right-wing militia member in the state, BJ Soper, has decried the standoff on Facebook. "You mislead the people of this county," Soper wrote to the Bundys on Jan. 2, "and took advantage of the trust that had been built."

3. The feds have Gov. Kate Brown boxed in.

Almost everybody has an opinion on the Bundy bunch, from Twitter wits dubbing the militants #YallQaeda to magazine pundits arguing about the definition of domestic terrorism. National political figures—from U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and 2nd District U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) to Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio—have weighed in. In a statement to KOIN, Wyden urged the militants not to "walk off a cliff."

But Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, said nothing for three days about the standoff in her state. That silence is unusual for a governor during a crisis—especially one seeking re-election and presented with a right-wing insurgency that's an easy mark for her to pummel in campaign emails to her Democratic Party base.

Sources familiar with the situation say Brown kept mum at the request of federal law enforcement officials coordinating a response, including the FBI.

WW asked Brown for comment Jan. 3. She issued a statement the following afternoon.

"Although the FBI is the lead agency responding to the situation, my top priority is the safety of the people of Harney County and the city of Burns," Brown said. "The Oregon State Police has enhanced its presence in the area, augmenting local and federal public safety resources and assisting with community outreach. I look for a swift resolution that allows Harney County life to return to normal."

Willamette Week