Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Oregon standoff trial: Monday's highlights, what's next

  • ...Also Monday, prosecutors showed jurors video taken during the occupation. In one, Ammon Bundy speaks from the refuge on Jan. 4. "We feel we have exhausted all prudent measures and have been ignored,'' he says in the footage. He tells reporters he spent the previous two months trying to get the attention of state and county officials to the plight of Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steve Hammond. 
  • In a video independent broadcaster Pete Santilli filmed the next night of co-defendant Jon Ritzheimer, dressed in full combat fatigues and holding a rifle, at the refuge entrance. Ritzheimer says, "We got word they're coming out here,'' referring to law enforcement.
  • Federal prosecutors also played a video from co-defendant Jason Patrick's camera of a meeting led by co-defendant Ryan Payne in the refuge bunkhouse Jan. 7. During the meeting, Payne relayed the message from Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward that the sheriff had offered to escort them out of the county and state. "He should be telling the feds to get the hell out of this county,'' Payne told the crowd of about 25 people assembled.
  • Refuge archeologist Carla Burnside testified about finding the door to her locked office opened, and documents missing from her file cabinet. She said someone used her PIN to log onto three refuge computers on Jan. 2. She said no Native American artifacts were damaged, and refuted occupiers' claims that they were infested by rat feces and cobwebs.
  • Defendant Neil Wampler, on Monday, wore a light blue jail scrub shirt over his plaid shirt in the courtroom. He said he found the shirt at a thrift shop and wore it "in solidarity with Ammon.'' A man attending the trial, seated in the public gallery, wore an identical blue jail scrub shirt.
  • Ammon Bundy chose on the second day of testimony in the trial to wear his jail scrubs in order to look like "the political prisoner'' he said he is, refusing to dress in a suit and dress shirt.

Coming Tuesday:
  • Prosecutors said they plan to call two more employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to testify Tuesday.
  • They also plan to call as witnesses Harney County Sheriff's deputy Lucas McLain, Deschutes County Sheriff's deputy Ron Brown, two state police troopers and two FBI agents...more

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