Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Standoff

Overview

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Standoff is a militia occupation of a federal building in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, undertaken on January 2nd, 2016 by several armed independent militias, to defend a family of ranchers against further imprisonment for an arson the family had already been sentenced for. The standoff received a large amount of attention by the news media and on social media.

History

Dwight Hammond is a rancher in Harney County, Oregon with his son Steve; much of their land borders federal property.^[1] After setting a series of fires on the federal property in 2012, which federal prosecutors claimed were to cover up illegal deer poaching and illegal backburn and the ranchers claimed were to stop invasive plants, the Hammonds were sentenced to serve five years in prison each, but an appeals judge shortened the terms to three months for the 73 year-old Dwight and one year for Steve.^[2] After they were released, a U.S. District court in Oregon said that the term shortening was illegal, and sentenced the pair to return to prison to fulfill the rest of their sentences. The pair were ordered to return to prison on January 4th, 2016.^[3]

To protest the sentencing, a petition began circulating under the hashtag #SaveTheHammonds. As of January 4th, 2016, over 14,000 have signed the petition, which was originally created in late September, 2015.^[4] One of those who saw the petition was another rancher named Ammon Bundy, who, along with his father Cliven Bundy, leads an armed anti-government militia.^[5] The pair contacted the Hammonds and pledged their assistance. While the Hammonds publicly claimed they did not want the assistance of the armed militias,^[6] Ammon Bundy called for the militias to convene Burns in a Facebook video,^[7] and on Saturday, January 2nd, an assemblage of armed militiamen marched on the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.^[8]

Some of Ammon Bundy’s videos calling for Militiamen to converge on the Malheur building.

Later that day, they began occupying the building, which was unoccupied. Their stated goals are for the Hammonds to be released and for the government to relinquish control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.^[9]

Notable Developments

#OregonUnderAttack

After the armed militiamen occupied the central building, many began using the hashtag #OregonUnderAttack^[10] to describe the event and discuss it on social media. One major critique accused law enforcement of racial bias when it came to the attackers; many Twitter users complained that if the protestors were black and armed, they would have been attacked by law enforcement in the manner of the many recent police brutality controversies that had been publicly debated over the previous three years. Roland Martin, a prominent television personality, wrote “Did I miss the call for the national guard in Oregon? I recall them in Ferguson and Baltimore. #OregonUnderAttack,” comparing the protests in Oregon to those that followed the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, in which the National Guard and a militarized police presence descended on those cities after large and mostly peaceful protests.^[11]

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#YallQaeda

Another criticism of the militiamen on Twitter compared the men to domestic terrorists operating under radical faith in the same manner as ISIS or Al Qaeda, although in this case, the faith was Christianity instead of Islam. Several hashtags, including #YallQaeda, #Yeehawd, #VanillaISIS, White ISIS, #YokelHaram, and #Talibundy were suggested, with the first three going into wide use.^[12]