Oregon Standoff Update: Ammon Bundy’s Father Cliven Bundy Arrested

Cliven Bundy, the father of wildlife refuge occupation leader Ammon Bundy, was arrested late Wednesday after he reached Portland, Oregon, from Nevada. He was taken into custody and was charged in a 2014 standoff case at his ranch in Nevada, the Oregonian newspaper reported.

The 74-year-old was booked into Multnomah County jail and faces weapons charges as well as those related to interfering with a federal officer, according to the Oregonian. Cliven Bundy was at the center of the 2014 standoff in Nevada with federal officials in 2014 over the use of public lands.

Bundy’s sons Ammon and Ryan are also facing similar charges. Bundy arrived in Portland to visit Burns where four armed protesters continued to illegally occupy a federal building. Ammon and about 15 to 150 armed ranchers had occupied the Malheur Wildlife Center on Jan. 2 to demand the release of two fellow ranchers and to petition the government to relinquish federal lands for state or public use. Speaking through his attorney, Ammon had encouraged the remaining occupiers to vacate the wildlife center.

The current protest was triggered by the imprisonment order of a father-son Oregon rancher pair, Dwight and Steven Hammond, who served sentences for the 2001 and 2006 arson of federal land. The armed ranchers occupied the wildlife center to protest their imprisonment as well as to lobby the government to surrender federal lands for grazing and logging.