Hundreds of Armed Right-Wing Militia Members Take Over Federal Building

I don't know how to hot wire a car either. It isn't as easy as back in the 50's.

Protester arrested in Burns, driving stolen refuge vehicle

BURNS – Oregon State Police on Friday arrested one of the protesters holding the wildlife refuge, charging him with having a stolen vehicle after he drove into town, authorities said.

The man was identified as Kenneth Medenbach, 62, of Crescent. He was accused of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Law enforcement officials said Medenbach is currently on federal probation stemming from another militia-style episode in southern Oregon last year.

He is the first person arrested in connection with the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, taken over two weeks ago.

He was arrested in the Safeway parking lot in one vehicle bearing federal government license plates. A second federal vehicle was parked next to him, but the man police suspect of driving that into town already had gone into the grocery before police arrived.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/protester_arrested_in_burns_dr.html#incart_river_index

One Yeehawdist down, hopefully more to come.

PEOPLE:
Bundy bodyguard -- aka 'Fluffy Unicorn' -- arrested in Ariz.

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Friday, January 15, 2016

A man who served as a bodyguard to Ammon Bundy during the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and to Cliven Bundy during his earlier standoff with the federal government was arrested this week by police near Phoenix.

Brian Cavalier, 44, who was known on the Oregon refuge as "Booda Bear," was arrested Monday by municipal police after they discovered he had an outstanding warrant, the Buckeye Police Department said.

Cavalier was a passenger in a "suspicious vehicle" that police pulled over, said Sgt. Jason Weeks, a spokesman for the department. The driver of the vehicle also had a warrant and was arrested, Weeks said. His name was not disclosed.
Bundy and Cavalier

Brian Cavalier, left, walking alongside Ammon Bundy, was a prominent figure in the early days of the refuge occupation. Photo by Rick Bowmer, courtesy of AP Images.

Cavalier was booked into the Maricopa County jail, where he was later released by a judge. Details on the warrant were not immediately available, but one source said it did not involve federal violations.

An early participant in the Malheur occupation, the heavily tattooed and big-bellied Cavalier was often seen next to Ammon Bundy wearing earbuds, a Middle Eastern-style scarf and a pistol on his hip.

The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, reported last week that Cavalier falsely claimed to be a retired Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Marine Corps has no record of him serving.

Cavalier left the Malheur refuge on Jan. 5, just a few days into the occupation, according to a report by Reuters reporters who were given access inside one of the buildings and described Cavalier as "head of security."

One refuge occupier yesterday confirmed that Cavalier has not returned.

This is not his first run-in with the law.

Records show he's been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence, including one case in 2005 of "extreme DUI." He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in 2013 in a Prescott Valley, Ariz., court. He also appears to have lived and made several court appearances in Santa Clara County, Calif.

His nickname comes from the large picture of Buddha tattooed on his belly, which he proudly displays in one photo posted on Twitter.

Cavalier has also been described as a bodyguard for Cliven Bundy, Ammon's father, during the armed uprising in April 2014 against the Bureau of Land Management, when the agency was trying to confiscate the elder Bundy's unauthorized cattle.

"Our goals are safety and security of innocent civilians trying to practice their constitutional right," Cavalier told Fox News at the time of the standoff.

At Malheur, Cavalier identified himself to journalists as "Fluffy Unicorn," according to the Daily Mail.

At one point, he became irritated by a reporter's questioning, and said: "Yesterday it was Fluffy Unicorn. ... Today it's Raging Unicorn."
Twitter: @philipataylor Email: [email protected]

Armed Oregon Occupiers Scrub Meeting With Town, Tell FBI to Leave
Source: NBC News

A group of armed protesters who have occupied an Oregon national wildlife refuse building for nearly two weeks said a planned meeting with the community likely won't happen Friday, and called on the FBI to leave the area.

"They're fear mongering. We want them to quit acting this way, quit being provocateurs, quit acting as militia and stirring up fear — there's no need for that," Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum, who has acted as a spokesperson for the group, said Friday.

"We can get on with the business and get out of here quicker if you go home," Finicum told reporters.

-snip-

The group had planned to meet with the community and explain their actions and timetable for withdrawal Friday evening, but Finicum said Harney County Judge Steve Grasty has prevented them from securing a meeting place.

-snip-


Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/armed-oregon-occupiers-scrub-meeting-town-tell-fbi-leave-n497636

Short of actually enlisting, he really, really wanted to be there, dammit.

The real problem was after spending hours trying to hot wire the pickups, the keys were on a hook in the motor pool office. Go figure.

Oregon standoff: Feds forcibly removed black occupiers from wildlife refuge in 1979

A striking "similar" incident to the Oregon Malheur Wildlife stand-off with armed-to-the-teeth white supremacists, occurred in Georgia, in 1979. But THESE 'occupiers' happened to be unarmed and their skin was black, so it took the FBI exactly 2 days to get a court-order and promptly arrest &
forcibly remove them from the refuge, which had been their home, before they were forced off the land to build a ******* Air Force base.


Oregon standoff: Feds forcibly removed black occupiers from wildlife refuge in 1979
by Joseph Rose * Jan. 15, 2016 * The Oregonian

The group's anger was a slow burn.

But after decades of being ignored by federal authorities, it's members decided to take a very public stand against what they saw as an unjust land grab by the U.S. government.

Without warning, they started an occupation of a sprawling national wildlife refuge. The year: 1979.

The drama unfolding with armed occupiers holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns is similar to a standoff that made national headlines 39 years ago in Harris Neck, Ga.

But there are also stark differences, including the race of the Harris Neck occupiers – mostly displaced descendants of West African slaves -- and the tactics used by the FBI to quickly remove what the media casually called "squatters."

Also, the 40 members of People Organized for Equal Rights who set up a camp on the patch of land south of Savannah on April 30, 1979, were unarmed.

Instead of guns, the demonstrators, including prominent civil rights leaders, brought concrete blocks and bags of mortar to build new homes. Their protest was straightforward and, upon reflection, heartbreaking.

Following the Civil War, a white plantation owner deeded the land on the Georgia coast to a former slave. In the decades that followed, the descendants of slaves moved to Harris Neck to build houses, factories and boats. They fished, hunted for oysters and grazed cattle.

Harris Neck evolved into a thriving community. Its members were recognized as a culturally unique group of African Americans called Gullah.

But in 1942, U.S. military officials gave Harris Neck residents just three weeks via eminent domain to leave their property so they could construct an airbase for training pilots and conducting anti-submarine flights. ~snip~

In contrast to the Burns occupation, federal authorities secured a court order to remove the Harris Neck demonstrators a day after the 1979 camp-in began. However, four of the unarmed protestors -- Edgar Timmons, Jr., Hercules Anderson, Christopher McIntosh and the Rev. Ted Clark -- refused to leave.

On May 2, 1979, U.S. deputy marshals "forcibly removed" the men, according to a story in The Oregonian. "Their bodies taut and motionless," the men were dragged out of their tent, handcuffed and hoisted into a waiting van.

MORE: http://www.oregonlive.com/history/2016/01/oregon_standoff_feds_forcibly.html#incart_most-readnews

ha! now the keffiyah makes sense

Let me see the used of public lands for an Airforce base during a world war is somehow ripping the people living there off?

I have no idea if the government paid a fair amount for those lands or not but eminent domain inherently is not unfair on it face.

Of course no matter who lands are taken be it from blacks or whites no one is happy see the taking of white farmers for oil pipelines as an example of this fact.

That's funny, beth.

My post was deleted here. It remains on another thread. If deleted there as well, I'm gone.

what post?

So 7 people think it is unfair on it face to take lands for a needed military base during WW2???

No facts given about the amount paid or the worth of the land in question we must just assume that the payments was unfair if the owners had dark skins?

Lot of reverse racism on this site.

you've got identical posts on two threads

both marked NSFW

both still there

Ah. A functionality I was not aware of. One which I don't think much of but this ain't my place. Thank you.

That was their big-ass mistake right there, eh? They were quickly removed by force, because they didn't intend to fight back. No mystery there.

Big mistakes???????

Well they are still alive and given that it was Carter in charge and not Obama in charge in 1979 I would not had bet that would be the case if they had been armed.

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060030710

Well, there ya have it, then, eh?

Good point, Bill. Jimma wouldn't let NOBODY **** with Georgia, eh?

Nice headline, but his guy wasn't charged with theft. Theft requires that one take something with the "intention of permanently depriving it's rightful owner of it's use." This guy was merely charged with "unauthorized use of a vehicle." Like borrowin sumthin without askin permission first, eh? But "stolen" has a more ominous ring to it, ya gotta admit.