ate and federal authorities pleaded with the armed men still occupying a U.S. wildlife refuge in Oregon to leave on Wednesday, a day after an attempt to resolve the standoff peacefully by detaining their leader ended with one man shot to death.
But one of the remaining occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Oregon told Reuters in an interview that he would not give up until the group’s grievances over federal land rights were addressed.
Law enforcement surrounded the refuge and blocked off access roads on Tuesday evening, after occupation leader Ammon Bundy and his group were taken into custody at a traffic stop along Highway 395.
Citing the investigation, authorities declined to say what led to the fatal shooting of one member of Bundy’s group, identified by activists as Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers. Bundy’s brother, Ryan, was wounded in the incident.
At a news conference in Burns, Oregon, on Wednesday morning Greg Bretzing, FBI special agent in charge of the agency’s Portland office, said that authorities wanted a peaceful end to the situation and that the remaining occupiers were “free to leave” the refuge.
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