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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 29, 2016)
Page 8A NATION/WORLD East Oregonian STANDOFF: ‘He did have a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the pocket’ Continued from 1A tering a roadblock. A man identi¿ed as Finicum gets out of the truck. At ¿rst, he has his hands up, but then he reaches into his pocket and he falls into the snow. “On at least two occa- sions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket,” said Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge for the FBI in Portland. “He did have a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the pocket,” he said. Bretzing also said Fini- cum’s truck nearly hit an FBI agent before it got stuck in the snow. “Actions have conse- quences,” Bretzing said. “The FBI and OSP tried to effect these arrests peace- fully.” The FBI posted the video to its YouTube channel. With Fincium lying in the snow, the video shows the arrest of two other occupiers as they got out of the stuck truck: Ryan Bundy, who is Ammon’s brother, and Shawna Cox. Bretzing said another woman was in the truck but was not arrested. He did not identify her. Bretzing said agents and troopers “provided medical assistance to Finicum” after they were “con¿dent that they had addressed any further threats.” He said that happened about 10 minutes after the shooting. Two loaded .223 caliber semi-automatic riÀes and a loaded revolver were found in the truck, Bretzing said. Bretzing said that when Finicum’s truck was ¿rst stopped, an occupier riding with him — Ryan Payne — got out and surrendered. He said troopers and agents ordered others in the truck to surrender but Finicum sped off. Bundy and his followers were on their way to a meeting in the community of John Day when then encoun- tered the FBI-led operation to apprehend them. The FBI acted amid growing calls that something be done to end the occupation, including from Oregon’s governor. The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Of¿ce on Thursday con¿rmed the person shot in the Tuesday confrontation was Finicum, a 54-year-old Arizona rancher. At the news conference in Burns, Bretzing said four occupiers are still holed up at the wildlife refuge. “The negotiators continue to work around the clock to talk to those four people in an effort to get them to come out peacefully,” he said. The occupation by ranchers and others began on Jan. 2, and at one point there were a couple of dozen people holed up, demanding that the federal government turn public lands over to local control. But the compound has been emptying out since the arrest of Bundy, and 10 others over the past few days, and with the death of Finicum. Oregon Public Broad- casting on Thursday spoke with the holdouts and identi¿ed them as David Fry, who is from Ohio, husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson of Idaho, and Jeff Banta of Nevada. Ammon Bundy on Thursday released a state- ment through his attorney repeating his call for the last occupiers to leave peacefully: “Turn yourselves in and do not use physical force.” All 11 people under arrest have been charged with a felony count of conspiring to impede federal of¿cers from carrying out their duties through force or intimidation. Three of the 11 were arrested Wednesday night when they left the refuge. Ammon Bundy is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a tense 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. The group came to the desert of eastern Oregon in the dead of winter to decry what it calls onerous federal land restrictions and to object to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting ¿res. In a criminal complaint Wednesday, federal authori- ties said the armed group had explosives and night-vision goggles and was prepared to ¿ght. The charges against Bundy and others say that the refuge’s 16 employees have been prevented from reporting to work because of threats of violence. Orange County jails teacher arrested for helping 3 escape SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A woman who taught English classes at a Southern California jail was arrested Thursday on suspicion of helping three inmates — including an alleged killer — escape the lockup, and the men are believed to be riding around in a stolen van. Nooshafarin Ravaghi, 44, of Lake Forest, was arrested nearly a week after the men — one an alleged killer — cut their way through steel bars, climbed through plumbing tunnels, made their way to the roof, cut razor wire and, using rope made of braided bedsheets, rappelled four stories to freedom from the roof of the Orange County Central Men’s Jail. The escape on Jan. 22 wasn’t noticed for 16 hours. It was the ¿rst escape from the maximum-security lockup in more than 20 years. Ravaghi was taken into custody about an hour before the arrest was announced Thursday afternoon and remained jailed. It was unclear whether she had an attorney. Ravaghi had worked since 2014 as a part-time instructor of English as a second language in the inmate education program operated by the Rancho Santiago Community College District, the school said in a statement. One of her students was Hossein Nayeri, 37, the alleged mastermind of the escape, who was awaiting trial on charges that he kidnapped and tortured a marijuana dispensary owner — ¿nally cutting off his penis — in a bid to learn where he might have cached money. “There was some type of relationship that developed between the two” that was close, Hallock said, but he didn’t know whether it was a romance. Ravaghi denied supplied any tools to the inmates, but investigators suspect she provided Google maps that potentially could have helped the inmates plan their route after Àeeing the jail, Hallock said. According to a personal website that sells children’s books designed by Ravaghi under the name “the Noosha Collection,” she was born, like Nayeri, in Iran. She traveled in Europe and Asia as a child and attended college in Tehran before coming to California in 1997, where she got a masters’ degree in education and began teaching English to non-na- tive speakers. She had under- gone a sheriff’s background check before beginning her assignment in the jail, and the college is working closely with sher- Ravaghi iff’s of¿cials to provide anything they need, the school’s statement said. Hallock said investigators believe he and the others — alleged killer Bac Duong, 43, and Jonathan Tieu, 20 — are living in a white GMC Savana van that was stolen on Saturday in southern Los Angeles. Duong appar- ently stole the vehicle from someone after responding to a sales ad and taking it for a test drive, Hallock said. “They may be driving around and potentially living in the back” of the van, he said. Friday, January 29, 2016 Regulators get input — sort of — on self-driving car rollout Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California regulators deciding how to permit the future rollout of self-driving cars were told Thursday by consumer advocates that their cautious approach was right on, and by companies developing the technology that the current course will delay deployment of vehicles that promise huge safety bene¿ts. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles heard the comments at a workshop as it wrestles with how to keep the public safe as the imperfect technology matures — but not regulate so heavily that the agency stiÀes development of the vehicles. The agency sought suggestions of possible changes to a draft of prec- edent-setting regulations it released last month. Those regulations will govern how Californians can get the cars once companies move beyond their current testing of prototypes. Because California has been a hotbed for the devel- opment and regulation of the technology, what happens in the state has ripple effects nationally. What the DMV had hoped would be a technical discussion Thursday about legal language instead drifted toward broad state- ments about the technolo- gy’s merits. Most vocal were advo- cates for the blind — a group that has not been central to the regulatory debate. Several argued the technology could change their lives, and the agency should not get in the way. “Please don’t leave my family out in the waiting room,” said Jessie Lorenz, who is blind and relies on public transit to get her 4-year-old daughter to preschool. Lorenz would prefer to use a self-driving car for that — or even a “spontaneous road trip.” She said she has taken a ride in a self-driving car AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File This May 2015 ile photo shows Google’s new self-driving car during a demonstration at the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif. that Google Inc. has been developing, “and it was awesome.” DMV attorney Brian Soublet said the agency appreciates the potential bene¿ts for disabled people, but its focus has to be on the safety of the entire motoring public. Google wants California to clear the road for the tech- nology — and has expressed disappointment in the DMV’s draft regulations, which say self-driving cars must have a steering wheel in case onboard computers or sensors fail. A licensed driver would need to sit in the driver’s seat, ready to seize control. “We need to be careful about the assumption that having a person behind the wheel” will make driving safer, Chris Urmson, the leader of Google’s self- driving car project, told the agency. Google has concluded that human error is the biggest danger in driving, and the company wants to remove the steering wheel and pedals from cars of the future, giving people minimal ability to intervene. Urmson said that if the draft regulations are not changed, Google’s car would not be available in California. While Google has been testing on roads here for several years — with trained safety drivers behind the wheel, just in case — it might deploy cars without steering wheels in Texas, where regulators hailed the technology when Google began testing proto- types there last summer. California’s DMV is still months away from ¿nalizing any regulations. Under the draft frame- work, an independent certi- ¿er would need to verify a manufacturer’s assurances that its cars are safe. Google and traditional automakers want manufacturer self-cer- ti¿cation, the standard for other cars. Once a company receives that veri¿cation, manu- facturers would receive a permit for three years. Consumers could lease the cars, but manufacturers would be required to keep tabs on how safely they are driving and report that performance to the state. Drivers would need special, manufacturer-provided training, and then get a special certi¿cation on their licenses. If a car breaks the law, the driver would be responsible. John Simpson of the nonpro¿t Consumer Watchdog commended the DMV on Thursday “for putting safety ¿rst. I think you got it exactly right” in the draft, he said. 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