The four people remaining in an armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge have found a way around the FBI’s block on cell phone and WIFI service. For the last week they’ve only had one working phone, which was provided by FBI. But, the militants self-described tech guy, David Fry, found a way around the communications block and uploaded a series of videos yesterday.
One video shows David Fry’s reaction after finding out that all four militants have been named in the federal indictment released by a grand jury last week. To say he’s upset about the pending felony charge is an understatement. In the video below, he tells the FBI to stick the charges “where the sun don’t shine” and then shows himself defiantly breaking even more federal laws:
In another video, Fry rambles around topics, from abortion to Obama coming to take people’s guns to the removal of the Confederate flag, ending with a call to ‘patriots’ to rise up. It was a buffet of rightwing talking points and conspiracies. He hinted that supplies may be starting to run low and calls the newfound ability to post videos a “miracle.” Anti-government extremism expert JJ MacNab shared a partial transcript on Twitter. See this video and the others below:
In another video, they show off the newly named “Camp Finicum”—which is the tent camp they’ve built along a road where they’ve been staying. They also discuss finding LaVoy Finicum’s Mormon Bible inside the refuge, which they see as yet another sign from God.
Militant couple Sean and Sandy Anderson appeared in a separate video, calling the refuge the “freest place on earth”, not realizing they are actually in a frozen prison of their own making, unable to move freely anywhere but that tent area. They again reiterated how upsetting the awaiting felony charge is because they will lose their right to own guns and vote.
Finally, David Fry and the militants have been spending far too much time reading the comments on the videos they post to YouTube. He posted a screeching video about “nasty liberals” that are “running and living in this country.” Somebody should tell him to pick a video, any video, and read the comments. YouTube is a well-known cesspool of commenting. Anyway, the video went from “nasty liberals” to taxation to abortion to showing off how they have “fortified” their camp in preparation for a possible FBI raid.
There were a few more videos (seen here), where they showed off their “fortified” camp area, tried to shut down a conspiracy from a well-known conspiracy-peddling YouTuber’s page and showed off LaVoy’s Mormon Bible.
In the end, they all (sadly) seem resolute in their decision to die there at “Camp Finicum” if they aren’t released with no charges. And since walking out that door without charges is totally impossible, it’ll be interesting to see how long the FBI waits them out. There have been no videos since yesterday afternoon, so perhaps they’ve blocked their new found ability to upload. And with hints of a dwindling food supply, perhaps we’ll see resolution in days. Stay tuned.