Ammon Bundy walked through the crowd outside the Safeway store in Burns, handing out rolls of pennies. That was 10 years ago. I was there, watching and wondering about the purpose of the coins. That became evident soon as Bundy led a band of protesters through the high desert town. The sign -carrying marchers paused at the office of Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, pitching pennies against the entry. That rebellious symbol of defiance was one of many oddities I’d encounter over the next six weeks. I had arrived in the eastern Oregon town towards the end of 2015, reporting for The Oregonian. I was drawn by the presence of Bundy, already well known for the armed standoff as his family challenged federal authorities in Nevada in 2014. Bundy was an anti-government force, injecting himself into Harney County to “protect” the people, restore the local economy and wrest land from federal hands. Days ahead of the Burns protest, I met Ryan Payne for coffee at the McDonald’s in Hines, adjacent to Burns. Payne had participated in the Nevada event, had returned home to Montana and now was staking out Harney County. I wanted to know why. As I recall, he explained how he, Bundy and others were there to protect two Harney County ranchers – Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steve. They had been convicted of federal charges related to a range fire and were due to report to prison to finish their sentences. By that New Year’s Eve, the Hammonds had rejected Bundy’s help. They wanted no trouble. Ammon Bundy, an Idaho farmer, hands out pennies ahead of a protest march in Burns on Jan. 2, 2016. Later that day, he led the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. (Les Zaitz/The Oregonian) My first story from Burns for The Oregonian opened with this: “The strangers carrying the whisper of danger arrived in the vast territory of the Harney Basin just before the holidays.” The protest march on that Saturday came on a bitterly cold day. The temperature had dropped below zero the night before and wouldn’t climb above 15 degrees. I chronicled the march in word and photos, sent the result to the Portland office, and climbed into my car for the run home. Before I could start the engine, my cell phone rang. Bundy had taken over the refuge, the caller said. “They did what?” I asked. The refuge he meant was the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a bird sanctuary about 30 miles southeast of Burns. I got out of the car and reclaimed my hotel room, settling in for what turned into weeks operating from Burns, covering the 41-day occupation. Even a decade later, memories remain vivid. The refuge was already shut down as a precaution as were other government facilities in Harney County. The refuge employees had evacuated, so Bundy’s crew encountered a shuttered compound with not a soul around. There was the visitor’s center, the museum, the offices, maintenance sheds, and a bunkhouse for employees and volunteers. The following day, I met Bundy there for the first of many conversations. He was calm, friendly – and a bit vague about his mission. In later news conferences, Bundy and his command mapped out grievances. They wanted the Hammonds cut loose. They wanted the federal government to give back the refuge land. They were never clear who it should go to since much of it had never been in private ownership. They wanted forests opened for logging, though Harney County had not a single lumber mill, the last one closing in 2008. The refuge drew a swarm of media from around the world. The occupation also attracted an eclectic mix of Bundy supporters – self-proclaimed militia, anti-government believers, and those there for a lark. Many carried guns. Burns swelled with people. The Bundy followers who couldn’t stay at the refuge set up in the town. Some later would stiff the Western-themed Silver Spur Motel for thousands of dollars. Just north of town, law enforcement filled rooms at another iconic motel, the Horseshoe Inn. Reporters and assorted news crews helped keep the rest of the motels full. A closed school became the command post for police. The FBI established an elaborate operation at the Burns Municipal Airport, including a base for an elite tactical unit from the Hostage Rescue Team. One time, Bundy drove to the airport, demanding to talk to the FBI face to face. Instead, he was kept outside the barricaded entrance, left to connect by cell phone. He put the conversation on speaker for journalists to listen in. Tensions in Burns were evident. A high school student recounted in a tearful interview how she had been followed through town by a pickup loaded with Bundy supporters. Terrified, she found protection by going back to the school. That night, she slept with a baseball bat beside her. A community meeting one night filled the gymnasium at Burns High School, home of the Hilanders. Public officials spoke. Local people questioned them. And then Bundy and some of his crew unexpectedly showed up, many with guns strapped to their hips. They quietly scattered into the bleachers, a discernible rustle in their wake. The risk of something going horribly wrong seemed high. At the time, Steve Grasty was the county judge – equivalent to a county commission chair. He faced a heated and divided crowd but turned his attention to Bundy, seated high up in the bleachers. “It’s time for you to go home,” he said, a little more than two weeks into the occupation. As tensions increased and the numbers of both Bundy sympathizers and law enforcement climbed, I worried that one small mistake by someone – a rude comment, a misunderstood gesture, a perceived threat – would result in mayhem. Another concern popped into my head. The Oregonian had a hefty team on the ground, with reporters and photographers cycling in and out. I was the Burns anchor. The teams each day would head out to the refuge, and I worried about that isolation. I could imagine police suddenly blockading the highways or the militants making an aggressive move, leaving those on the team stranded on the desert. I swooped through Big R, the ranch supply place in Hines, and bought sleeping bags and cases of water. I doled them out to the team – just in case they got stuck in the desert with no immediate way back to town. The standoff had another moment that tensed me. The Bundy bunch had promoted yet another news conference, this time in a picnic shelter near the center of the refuge compound. The press dutifully gathered. I approached LaVoy Finicum, a New Mexico man who had become a colorful spokesman for the occupation. Until that moment, LaVoy had been easy going, ready to talk and josh. This time, though, his set jaw belied an anger as the time for the press conference drew near. He waved me away. That’s when I spotted a troubling move. Militants, with holstered pistols or carrying long guns, seemed to be moving in, encircling the picnic shelter where reporters and speakers had gathered. Attentive to what could go wrong, I decided to get outside that circle and back up to the entrance. Nothing happened, though. All along, the core Bundy team stayed in place but surrounded by an ever-changing cast. There was the spiritual mother who brought her seven children from Kansas to the refuge, having them sing gospels before militiamen at the compound. One daughter later would be in the pickup that Finicum drove to his death late in the occupation. The mother eventually lost custody of all her children. There was the New Mexico rancher, declaring to the press that he was swearing off ever paying for federal grazing permits. He’d let his cows munch where they wanted. He returned home to tend his cows. Turns out, he never yielded his grazing permits. Then there was the self-proclaimed Constitutional lawyer who told me he was convening his own grand jury in Burns to investigate federal officials. He threatened me with a felony if I reported what he was doing. Then came the shooting. A handful of militants, including Bundy, left the compound on Jan. 26 for a run to John Day. There, the sheriff had proved sympathetic. Grant County folks had been running supplies to the refuge. Finicum was driving in the lead. When police stopped him north of Burns, Finicum idled and then stomped his accelerator, aiming for safe harbor in Grant County. At a police roadblock, he plowed off the highway into a snow berm, jumped out and was shot to death by state police who saw him reaching for a holstered pistol. Back at the refuge, panic ensued. Rumors flew. As darkness fell, people started streaming out. A woman from Coos Bay reached me that night, begging for help. Her brother wanted to leave the refuge but feared he’d be shot by police. He just wanted to go home. I connected her with the FBI. In the middle of that night, I drove to a remote café not far from the refuge. The parking lot held a half dozen cars and trucks and people trying to communicate in the chaos with those at the refuge. I watched a caravan of police vehicles – overhead lights on but no sirens – come south and then go past the refuge turn. I assumed they were moving to seal off routes from the refuge. After days of drama, livestreams and grandstanding by visiting politicians, the last four occupiers gave up on Feb. 11. In the following months, one militant after another was convicted of criminal conduct. Yet full accountability proved elusive. Bundy beat the government in federal court, winning acquittal for his actions. An FBI agent involved in the Finicum roadblock was later charged with lying about shooting at the truck. He was acquitted in a Portland trial. Just this year, FBI Director Kash Patel awarded the agent and his team a high agency honor for their occupation role. In 2018, Trump pardoned the two Hammonds, who walked out of prison and went back to ranching in Harney County. “The Hammonds are devoted family men, respected contributors to their local community, and have widespread support from their neighbors, local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers across the West. Justice is overdue,” Trump said then. Bundy went back to Idaho and his melon farm outside of Boise. He ran for Idaho governor, staged more protests, and then moved to Utah in late 2023. In court papers not long ago, he listed himself as a diesel mechanic. Payne, one of the first militants into Burns, served his 3-year federal prison term for the felony of conspiracy to impede federal employees. He then returned to Montana, founding an electronics company. Ward, who had been sheriff exactly one year when the occupation started, left Harney County in 2020 to become a deputy sheriff in Douglas County. He retired in May. The federal government spent millions repairing and restoring what Bundy’s band had done at the refuge. Now, steel gates block access roads and part of the compound is marked off limits. As I lunched outside the closed visitors center last summer, I thought back to all the promises of federal and state officials that they would do better to pay more attention to rural Oregon, to bridge that so-called urban-rural divide. The devotion seemed to fade as the scars healed at the refuge. Bundy, packed out of the county in handcuffs, never made good on his promises to Harney County. He, it seems, used those people to get what he wanted – attention and headlines for himself. Les Zaitz, former reporter for The Oregonian, in July 2025 visits the southeast Oregon bird sanctuary that was the scene of a militant takeover in early 2016. He covered the 41-day occupation. (Scotta Callister/KEIZERTIMES) Contact Editor Les Zaitz: [email protected] LOCAL NEWS DELIVERED TO YOU: Subscribe to Salem Reporter and get all the fact-based Salem news that matters to you. Fair, accurate, trusted – SUBSCRIBE The post EDITOR’S NOTE: Reflections on Bundy’s desert takeover in Oregon 10 years ago appeared first on Salem Reporter. ...read more read less