Militia to Surrender

The armed militia occupying a wildlife refuge in Oregon said they would surrender to the FBI in front of the world’s media on Thursday, after several hours of tense and at times frantic negotiations that were broadcast live on YouTube.

[...]

“We are not surrendering, we’re turning ourselves in,” Sean Anderson, one of the remaining militia members at the site near Burns, Oregon, said on a phone call with mediators, which was live-streamed on YouTube on Wednesday.

  Guardian

Oh, sorry. Not surrender.

“It goes against everything we believe in, but we’re going to do it.”

If you can't stand up for everything you believe in, how do you expect other people to join or support you?  Probably won't be a next time, will there?

A federal grand jury recently indicted the four holdouts on conspiracy charges, which carry possible six-year sentences.

[...]

Fear of another fatal confrontation was clear in the phone calls that were broadcast live on the internet earlier on Wednesday after the FBI effectively squeezed the noose around the remaining members of the militia.

David Fry, a 27-year-old anti-government protester at the standoff, began screaming on a phone call with a conservative activist from Washington at 5pm. In a frantic status update, the activist on the other end of the line, Gavin Seim, told his 20,000 followers on Facebook that Fry was on the line, sharing a frightening message with him.

“He says a armored vehicles have surrounded them and are demanding they surrender but they will not,” he posted on social media at 5.03pm. “The FBI is on loudspeakers and asking them if they want to see their family again.

That David Fry is a screamer, isn't he? Jail will be interesting.   (UPDATE:  2/11/16 - I appear to have he wrong guy.  This is David Fry.)

Seim’s phone call with the occupiers, broadcast live, provided a dramatic and at times surreal window into the deliberations ongoing at the site, as the militia debated the merits of surrender.

[...]

As word of the live broadcast spread, the FBI confirmed in a statement that it had moved in on the occupation after militia members were seen driving outside the grounds. The FBI signaled it had run out of patience with the militia on their 40th day occupying the federal building.

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The negotiation that led to the shaky agreement to bring the occupation to an end on Thursday was a roller coaster of screaming matches, prayers, constitutional debates, desperate pleas for helps and occasional breakouts in Christian song.

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”In another dramatic twist late on Wednesday, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose 2014 standoff with the federal government inspired the occupation in Oregon, was arrested, apparently en route to Burns. The FBI said Bundy was taken into federal custody in Portland but declined to disclose the charges.

Shortly before setting off to Oregon, Bundy, 69, had told the Guardian in a phone interview that he was heading to the standoff to protect the holdouts. “I hope I save some lives,” he said. “I guess if they wanted to murder somebody tonight, that’d be a good way to do it.”

Ammon Bundy's lawyer, Mike Arnold, said Cliven Bundy was considering joining Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore at a news conference that had been planned Thursday morning in Portland to talk about the refuge takeover. Almost immediately after she arrived in Portland, Fiore started talking to the last occupiers by phone and left in a car for the six-hour drive to Burns to help work out their surrender.

  Oregon Live

The negotiation settlement may have come about  in part due to the remaining four running out of food.  When asked by Fiore if they'd eaten dinner last night, one of them said no, but they had snacks - "a thousand granola bars."

 UPDATE:  7:45 pm

Apparently, they had food.

Seim played host to it all, leading prayers and giving quickie history lessons involving Lexington and Concord.

“I bet you could use a good steak,” Seim said at one point.

“We’ve got steaks,” Sandy said. “We got pork. We’ve got everything. We just had pork fried rice for lunch. We had bacon and eggs and sausage for breakfast.”

“Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” Seim said.

“Exactly,” Sandy said. “That’s why I know God said we should be here. If He didn’t want us here fighting, He would’ve made it difficult.”

  Canmua

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.