Protester killed in Oregon standoff with feds

Ammon Bundy taken into custody, shots fired during incident (Photo: Twitter)

Ammon Bundy and seven of his fellow militiamen are in FBI custody near the site of their Oregon stand-off and will face federal felony charges, authorities said.

Two people, LaVoy Finicum and Ryan Bundy, Ammon's brother, were shot during an altercation with police on Highway 395. Finicum, was killed, CNN reported. Federal authorities initially refused to release much information about the incident.

"One individual who was a subject of a federal probable cause arrest is deceased," the FBI said in a news release.

"One individual suffered non-life threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital for treatment. He was arrested and is currently in custody."

The FBI said those arrested at the traffic stop include:

Ammon Edward Bundy, age 40, of Emmett, Idaho
Ryan C. Bundy, age 43, of Bunkerville, Nevada
Brian Cavalier, age 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada
Shawna Cox, age 59, Kanab, Utah
Ryan Waylen Payne, age 32, of Anaconda, Montana

Authorities reportedly stopped Bundy and the others while they were on their way to a community meeting.

In a separate event in Burns Tuesday, Oregon State Police also arrested Joseph Donald O'Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Arizona, and Peter Santilli.

Meanwhile, protester Jon Ritzheimer, who led a rally against radical Islamism and Shariah law on a previous occasion in Arizona, turned himself in to police in Peoria, Arizona, said FBI's Kurt Remus, in CNN.

The FBI said, "All of the named defendants face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372."

Bundy and his fellow ranchers had refused to leave the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, over allegations of federal overreach by the Bureau of Land Management. They said they wanted the federal government to surrender its control over the land. They also wanted father-son ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond to be released from prison, where they are serving a sentence for arson.

U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan sentenced the pair to a one-year prison sentence in 2012 for fires they caused that spilled over into acreage, also leased by the Hammond Ranch. In 2014, however, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that now-retired U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan illegally sentenced the Hammonds to terms below the five-year minimum. The Hammonds were ordered back to prison, despite serving time and paying $400,000 in damages to the government.

As WND recently reported, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown told federal officials that it is time to advance on ranchers holed up in the refuge since Jan. 2.

Brown said Wednesday that her patience with the protesters is at an end.

"[Federal officials] must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable," the governor said at a press conference in Salem, CBS News reported. "The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials' response thus far. I have conveyed these very grave concerns directly to our leaders at the highest levels of our government: the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House."

Brown estimated Bundy's protesters have cost the state $100,000 per week in resources required by multiple local law enforcement entities.

"The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials' response thus far," Brown said, CNN reported. "This spectacle of lawlessness must end. And until Harney County is free of it I will not stop insisting that federal officials enforce the law."

Bundy has held several press conferences at the site. Federal authorities said they wanted the situation peacefully resolved.

The London Daily Mail reported that Bundy had been communicating with a FBI negotiator and local law enforcement. He met with a federal agent Friday at the Burns Municipal Airport. But he left after the agent refused to speak in front of the media.