The four remaining occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrendered Thursday morning, bringing an end to the standoff on its 41st day.
Jeff Banta, Sean Anderson, Sandy Anderson and David Fry were taken into FBI custody. Fry was the last to surrender, finally emerging after an extended phone dialogue with supporters who tried for over an hour after the others left to get him to walk out.
FBI agents in armored vehicles had moved in Wednesday night on the four still at the refuge, hemming them into their camp and insisting they put down their guns and surrender.
And for those who thought these Rambo wannabes were going to go out in a blaze of glory, this is how that went down this morning:
Three of the four walked out to waiting F.B.I. agents over the course of a few minutes after 9:30 a.m., but the fourth, David Fry, at first said he would not.
In an extraordinary, hourslong negotiation with supporters and F.B.I. agent, with thousands of people listening to the conversation on a live stream online, he aired a wide range of grievances, said he was suicidal, and said repeatedly that his choice was “liberty or death.” Ultimately he gave himself up without a fight.
I swear that after spending much of the morning listening to the livestream that I have lost just about as many brain cells as I do listening to a Sarah Palin speech.
In fact these are clearly her kind of people.
Not only did they have no clear idea of what they were "fighting" for, but they seemed to believe that they were participating in some kind of eternal struggle between good and evil, often claiming that only God could determine how the whole thing would end.
At one point a female on the phone with the protesters warned them that Satan was directing the actions of the federal agents and that they needed to resist giving in to trickery.
The protesters themselves kept talking about seeing religious signs in flashlight beams, firelight, and weather patterns. And no I'm NOT making that up.
On Twitter there were plenty of accusations that liberals were hoping for a massacre, but at least in my case I am very glad that everybody, on both sides, survived this encounter.
And if I were working with the FBI I would suggest that these people receive some kind of psychiatric help, because batshit crazy is not a strong enough term to describe some the of crap they were saying.
Also keep in mind that the ONLY reason these idiots were able to hold off the police for so long is because they had access to high powered weapons. And of course it didn't hurt that they were white.
Source http://ift.tt/1PPWweq
