A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

25 March 2016

Sanders County is too sovereign for its own good

Jack Ryan, a twenty-something resident of Sanders County, is on the run, wanted by the federal government for allegedly breaking laws at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. On Monday, a federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with:

…”depredation of government property” for allegedly digging two trenches or latrines next to a makeshift camping area at the refuge and causing more than $1,000 worth of damage.

An FBI Evidence Response Team began scouring the scene after the occupation ended Feb. 11, and agents found “significant amounts” of human feces in at least one of two large trenches, prosecutors previously said. Investigators also found an “improvised road on or adjacent to grounds containing sensitive artifacts,” prosecutors said.

Ryan faces a second criminal count of allegedly conspiring with the 25 other defendants to prevent employees of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management from using the refuge from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11. He also faces a third count of allegedly possessing guns or other dangerous weapons or causing guns or other dangerous weapons to be present at the federal refuge in Harney County.

As they say in the south, that boy’s in a heap of trouble — and he’s compounding his trouble by not surrendering peacefully.

Reports Vince Devlin of the Missoulian:

Jeanette Finicum, the widow of the refuge occupier who was killed by Oregon police on Jan. 26, wrote on Facebook that Ryan’s family “has said that they have decided ‘the arrests stop here,’ and that they intend to ‘make a stand.’ ”

Sanders County Sheriff Tom Rummel quickly sought to ward off any potential for a local conflict.

In a Facebook post on the Sanders County Sheriff’s Office page Monday afternoon, Rummel wrote there is no evidence that Ryan, 25, is in Sanders County at this time, that the Ryan family has an attorney who is in contact with the FBI, and that he is hopeful a peaceful resolution will be worked out.

“At this time, I believe a peaceful resolution is being achieved and outside citizen involvement will not be needed,” Rummel wrote.

Meanwhile, reports Devlin, hundreds of people sympathizing with the Malheur occupation, and perhaps holding political views similar to those held by Cliven Bundy and his sons, are overwhelming Rummel with email and other messages urging him to protect Ryan by asserting the authority they believe he has to tell the FBI and federal officials what to do. That authority doesn’t exist, of course, but a political fringe known as the sovereign citizens movement (the subject of Justin Robbins’ post today at Montana Cowgirl) believes it does.

Sanders County has more than its share of sovereign citizens, which makes for interesting politics. Its isolated, disgruntled, sometimes impoverished, residents — not all, but more than its share — reinforce the conspiracy theories of each other, creating a zone of altered reality in which the political right thrives. I suspect Donald Trump would poll well there.

That means Rummels walks a tightrope. I think he knows he could end up in a federal penitentiary if he interferes with the FBI, and therefore will not actively harbor a fugitive from justice. But I suspect he will posture and pontificate in an effort to maintain his sovereign bona fides with the people who elected him.

Jake Ryan has no future as a fugitive. He’ll be caught. He can help both himself and Rummels by turning himself in pronto. Helping Sanders County emerge from its reality distortion zone won’t be quite so easy.