FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2017
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS — 5
Local
Shawn Cox speaks locally
CONTINUED FROM
PAGE 1
Cox brought with her a
number of photographs of
the Bundy ranch, includ-
ing their small home in the
middle of it.
“These are not rich
people,” she said.
Cox explained that out
of the 52 ranching families
who operated in Clark
County, Nevada in the
1950s, Cliven Bundy, age
70, is now the only rancher
left operating in the county.
“Who are the good peo-
ple?” she asked. “People
who take care of the land.”
Bundy ran cattle on the
Bunkerville Allotment,
over 145,000 acres, begin-
ning in the 1950s, with his
ancestors running cattle in
that same area as far back
as 1877. The ranch itself is
160 acres.
In 1991 the US Fish and
Wildlife Service called
a wide swath of range-
land endangered tortoise
habitat, and later asked the
Bundys to sell the govern-
ment their grazing rights,
and sign an agreement
stating such.
Cox pointed out that this
is still America—no citizen
can be forced to sign a
contract against his will.
Bundy refused.
Cox also pointed out that
if the Federal governern-
ment made the offer to
buy those rights, then how
did they later figure they
owned them in the first
place?
Today, 97% of Nevada’s
lands are managed by
Federal entities. In 2014,
that number was 84%. In
2010 that number was just
under 70%.
Cox echoed some of
the Constitutional argu-
ments voiced frequently
by Montana State Rep.
Kerry White and Utah
State Rep. Ken Ivory, who
agree along with many oth-
ers and a Supreme Court
Ruling, that the Federal
government only has the
constitutional power to
first manage and then
dispose of those lands back
to state-level government
management.
This viewpoint, however,
is also met with great op-
position from other politi-
cians and scholars.
Cox explained that
LaVoy Finicum befriended
Cliven Bundy, and began
studying public grazing
laws and federal land dis-
pensation.
When Bundy refused to
sign the new agreement,
which would have lever-
aged down the number
of cattle he could run to a
level that couldn’t sus-
tain ranch operations, the
BLM stated that its rights
superseded whatever rights
Bundy had claimed prior.
Bundy stated he had paid
his dues to Clark County
and the State of Nevada.
The BLM disagreed and
began imposing trespass
fines for his cattle, which
still grazed that allotment.
A number of legal battles
went back and forth over
the years, with the courts
ruling that the Bundys
couldn’t claim pre-emptive
grazing rights.
Fines and more fees
were levied by the govern-
ment, soon exceeding more
than $1 million. Cox said
Bundy had never received
this bill prior to the BLM
releasing it to media.
In spring of 2014, the
BLM moved onto the
ranch with helicopters,
heavily armed BLM staff,
and dozens of various
unmarked vehicles. The
helicopters began hazing
the cattle.
“These were dark,
unmarked vehicles,” said
Cox. “They did not say
police.”
BLM used the helicop-
ters to push the cattle into
several pens—400 head.
The BLM agents either
shot and killed or ran to
death at least 10 of those
that day, including one
full-grown bull.
Cox said the BLM sepa-
rated the newborn calves
from their mothers and left
the slick calves behind.
She said one male mem-
ber of the Bundy family,
David, was tasered and
beaten. Another family
member, the elderly aunt
of Ammon Bundy (who
would later come more
into the picture at the Mal-
heur Wildlife Refuge), was
taken and hip-tossed into
the gravel. Ammon came
to her defense and was
tasered four times. Pho-
tos of all these incidents
were provided, including
showing the unarmed fe-
males on the Bundy ranch
attempting to face down
armed agents from an
unidentified agency.
CNN reported that
Federal agents had been
assaulted, along with one
police dog, with no specif-
ics given.
From the ranch, Cox
said they could see snipers
on the ridges above them
with red laser lights darting
around the ranch. She pro-
vided photographers of the
snipers positioned there.
She made some calls and
hired an airplane to fly
over the scene, showing
some aerial views of what
appeared to be a vast mili-
tary operation surrounding
several pens of cattle.
Cox relayed how several
men on horseback carry-
ing flags lined the ridge at
Bunkerville as a show of
peaceful support. “LaVoy
was the first rider,” she
pointed out in the photos.
Responding to a call for
help, protestors began to
arrive in droves, standing
in front of a BLM back-
hoe and dumptruck. A
statement from the BLM
claimed that an ATV driven
by a protestor was crashed
into their dumptruck.
However, Cox stated
that the ATV belonged to
Ammon Bundy who had
parked it in front of the
dumptruck in order to stop
it, and the driver had run
over it.
The BLM released
another statement that the
heavy equipment was to be
used in “restoring fields.”
Cox said they all looked
into the bed of the dump-
truck and saw that BLM
staff had been tearing the
waterlines out of the fields
and carrying them out the
truck—the back was full of
Bundy ranch waterlines.
The BLM set up sections
labeled, “First Amendment
Areas” where protestors
were supposedly allowed
to speak their minds.
One protestor informed
them, “The first amend-
ment isn’t an area.”
Cox showed several pho-
tos of that signage marking
those areas.
In the end, Federal
charges were brought
against 14 of the protestors
who later arrived, resulting
in mistrials, acquittals and
convictions. Cliven Bundy
faces trial this year.
Flash forward to 2016
and the Malheur Refuge
standoff, which began
when members of the
Bundy family and their
supporters traveled to
Harney County in support
of ranchers Dwight and
Steven Hammond, ages 73
and 46 at the time.
Supporters from the
Bundy camp and others
viewed the Hammond
situation as similar Federal
overreach to what they had
experienced.
Cox joined the 600 or so
Hammond supporters who
attended a rally in Burns
for the Hammond family
nearly by accident. Cox
said she didn’t originally
intend to attend, but some-
one needed to take video
of the Sharp family who
planned to go and sing
Christian hymns, so at the
last minute, she piled in the
truck.
The Hammonds’ incar-
ceration unleashed protests
around Harney County,
Oregon, and across the na-
tion after the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice appealed
the original sentence they
had already served.
That first conviction
came in 2012 for arson
charges, which fell under
the Federal Anti- ter-
rorism Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996, after
the Hammonds burned
approximately 130 acres of
the Bureau of Land Mana-
ment (BLM)-managed
grazing land adjoining
their own property.
Prosecutors argued
during trial that the Ham-
monds had set one fire to
cover up poaching, and
offered testimony from
a hunting guide and one
member of the Hammond
family described as hav-
ing mental issues. Deer
carcasses, which do not
completely incinerate in
wildfires, were never found
after the fire and no poach-
ing charges were ever
brought.
The 9th Circuit Court
granted the appeal in Octo-
ber 2015, and ordered the
Hammonds to fulfill a five-
year minimum sentence,
which had been waived by
the previous judge.
The penalties didn’t just
come with what most feel
is an excessive sentence.
The Hammonds, during
the course of their legal
battles, were also given a
$400,000 fine—they have
paid over half so far—and
have been ordered to
give the BLM the right of
first refusal should their
financial situation force
them to sell their family
ranch. To date, the family
has incurred over a million
dollars in legal bills, and
now, after the incarcera-
tion of their husbands, the
Hammond wives carry the
day-to-day operations of
the family ranch.
The Hammonds turned
themselves in to Federal
authorities back in January
of 2016 and were trans-
ported to prison in Cali-
fornia.
Cox said that the Ham-
mond family was aware
that they were on their way
to the rally in Burns, as
Ammon and Cliven had
spoken to them before they
left.
Whether the Hammonds
had any knowledge that
several of the rally attend-
ees would follow Ammon
and Ryan Bundy to the
refuge after the rally, was
debatable—most attendees
at the rally were not aware
of any such plans.
Cox didn’t go into how
the leap was made from
rally to refuge in her pre-
sentation, but she did say
that once they were there,
the goal was to get word
of their protest out—and
attracting media attention
was how to do it.
She said while at the
refuge, they spent time in
prayer. Cox repeatedly said
she felt divinely inspired to
get the message of govern-
ment overreach out to the
public, and felt God had
worked several miracles
during the process. One ex-
ample was a flock of geese
circling the penned cattle
so the Bundys knew where
they were kept.
She spoke briefly about
the hours surrounding
the shooting of LaVoy
Finicum, stating the group
inside two vehicles had
intended to locate Sheriff
Glenn Palmer in John Day,
approximately an hour’s
drive from the refuge.
Inside Finicum’s white
pickup were Cox, Ryan
Payne, Victoria Sharp and
Ryan Bundy.
She said at the first stop,
they opened the windows
and yelled to the men at the
roadblock where they were
going—which was to a
sheriff. She said she didn’t
see any identification and
wasn’t sure to whom they
were speaking. Military?
Law enforcement? They
drove off quickly.
Down the road they en-
countered what she called
a kill zone, and said it was
her thought that those in
the vehicle were never in-
tended to walk away from
that location. She said that
Finicum’s pickup hit the
snow and became stuck,
and that he exited the
vehicle with his hands up,
without shutting the engine
off or taking it out of gear.
Cox said a “shower of
bullets” hit them, and they
could see the red dots from
laser sites inside the rig.
She then could see men in
camouflage emerge from
the trees around them—
that was the first time she
saw who was shooting,
she said. As Cox testified
in trial later, she repeated
at the presentation Sat-
urday—she didn’t know
who the men were or what
agency they were from.
Cox said she had broken
her foot a year and half
prior, and as the last person
out of the pickup, was
having trouble walking in
the ice. When she stepped
out, she said, “LaVoy was
facing me, and I could see
he was dead.”
Cox said she looked for
blood on the snow and
saw three bullet holes in
Finicum. The tires on the
pickup—still in gear and
stuck—were spinning on
packed ice and deep snow.
Cox said she saw Fini-
cum’s loaded gun laying
inside the truck.
Ryan Bundy had been
shot in the shoulder.
She was instructed to
walk up the hill, where
Victoria Sharp, age 18 at
the time, apologized. The
men had asked her Cox’s
name, and Sharp said she
didn’t remember; however,
she’d given them the ap-
proximate age of 30, which
made her laugh.
Cox was held near a van
at the edge of the scene,
she said, for about three
hours—told she was only
being detained not arrest-
ed. She said she’s tried to
puzzle out why there were
no warrants or why none of
their names were known.
Thus far, over a dozen FBI
informants have been iden-
tified, according to Cox,
as having been among the
refugee occupants, and a
court order has instructed
their names be redacted
from records.
SEE SHAWNA COX
PAGE 10
Fire on Ash
Street
On September 18, Baker City Fire responded to a
reported structure fire at 1917 Ash Street, owned by Carol
Gutridge.
Crews arrived to a fire in the cellar entrance where the
water heater and furnace are located.
The occupant had partially extinguished a small fire us-
ing a garden hose and bucket of water.
Fire crews used thermal imaging cameras to check for
possible fire extension. Smoke cleared from residence
using a high velocity fan. The fire is still under investiga-
tion.
$1,500 worth of property and contents were lost in the
fire, with $118,500 saved.
Bell arrested
in Haines
On September 24 at approximately 11:55 p.m., the Baker
County Consolidated Dispatch Center received a 911 call
reporting a disturbance at 913 Cole Street in Haines.
Deputies from the Baker County Sheriff’s Office
responded to the location and at the conclusion of the
investigation arrested Laree K. Bell, charging her with
Assault in the Fourth Degree and Interfering with Mak-
ing a 911 call.
During the investigation, deputies learned Bell had
been with her roommate, Darrel Day, at another location
during the day, consuming alcohol. Upon arrival to the
Cole Street residence, Bell became combative and began
throwing items at Day, causing injury to his person, and
breaking items in the home.
When Day called 911, Bell took the phone from him
and threw it into the yard.
Prior to deputies arriving on scene, Bell had fled. Dep-
uties searched the area, but did not locate Bell. When the
deputies returned to the home, they observed a female
run to the back of the residence. Bell was contacted
inside the home and taken into custody without further
incident.
Hells Canyon
Dam traffic to
close Oct. 2-4
Traffic over Hells Canyon Dam will be restricted
Monday and Tuesday next week and during the follow-
ing week while crews use heavy equipment to remove
stoplogs from the dam’s spill gates.
Oct. 2–4, the road will be closed to all traffic during the
following times:
Oct. 2: Road closed 7:30-10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.–5
p.m.
Oct. 3: Road closed 7:30 a.m.-noon and 1–5 p.m.
Oct. 4: Road closed 7:30–10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.–5
p.m.
If work is completed ahead of schedule, one-lane traffic
could be restored on Oct. 4.
Stoplogs are long rectangular beams that are stacked
in front of the dam’s spill gates to control water flow.
Located 21 miles downstream of Oxbow Dam, Idaho
Power’s Hells Canyon Dam began generating electric-
ity in 1967 and has a nameplate generating capacity of
391,500 kilowatts.
Distracted driving
law changes
Oregon’s new distracted driving law goes into effect
October 1. Baker City Police Chief Wyn Lohner says the
public needs to be aware that “the exemption for farming
or agricultural operations” has been removed.
Under this law, it is illegal to drive while holding or
using an electronic device (e.g. cell phone, tablet, GPS,
laptop). Exemptions apply for: When using hands-free
or built-in devices, if 18 years of age or older; Use of a
single touch or swipe to activate or deactivate the device
or a function; While providing or summoning medical
help and no one else is available to make the call; When
parked safely, i.e., stopped at the side of the road or in a
designated parking spot; It is NOT legal to use the device
when stopped at a stop light, stop sign, in traffic, etc.;
Truck or bus drivers following the federal rules for CDL
holders; Using a two-way radio: CB users, school bus
drivers, utility truck drivers in the scope of employment;
Ambulance or emergency vehicle operators in the scope
of employment; Police, fire, EMS providers in the scope
of employment: HAM radio operators, age 18 years or
older.