The remaining four federal land occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge have asked the FBI to call in evangelist Franklin Graham to negotiate the terms of their departure, according to a news report.
In a Monday phone call with local militia Oath Keepers, the four remaining holdouts said they requested Graham to facilitate their talks with the FBI, but did not explain why they wanted him or whether they had heard back from the federal agency.
The final holdouts — David Fry, Jeff Banta and Sean and Sandy Anderson — had previously volunteered to leave if law enforcement promised they would not be arrested for taking over federal land over the past four weeks, and would also like the other occupiers released. The FBI declined those terms.
The four have not left the building in which they have been staying. They fear turning themselves into the police could turn violent after a fellow protester, LaRoy Finicum, was fatally shot when police made an arrest well away from the refuge. One of the individuals on the phone call Monday pleaded with the public, saying, “Four lives matter.”
The standoff began Jan. 2, after a protest about the government’s control of federal land led a group of more than a dozen to take over a Burns, Ore., refuge.
