The four remaining occupiers at an Oregon wildlife refuge surrendered Thursday morning after hours of tense negotiations, bringing an end to a nearly six-week demonstration.
Jeff Banta, Sean Anderson, Sandy Anderson and David Fry were taken in without incident after FBI agents overnight surrounded the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 300 miles southeast of Portland.
The FBI’s decision to encircle the last of the holdouts marked a dramatic escalation to a mostly slow-plodding armed demonstration at the sanctuary.
The ringleaders, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and other protesters were arrested last month, and Ammon Bundy called for the remaining occupiers to give up.
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Agents “moved to contain” the holdouts Wednesday after one allegedly droveoutside previously-established barricades and then back in at high speed when approached by the FBI, the bureau said in a statement.
The occupation came to an emotionally heated conclusion as Fry, the last to leave, ranted about politics and threatened suicide in a livestreamed conversation with self-described “liberty activist” Gavin Seim and conservative radio host KrisAnne Hall.
“I’m not coming out of here alive,” Fry, 27, could be heard saying at one point. “I’ll kill myself before you guys (expletive) do it.”
Fry said he was unhappy that his taxes were going toward abortions, drone strikes in the Middle East and Obamacare.
“You have a very powerful voice. You have a very powerful passion,” Hall could be heard saying, adding Fry would have more influence on the outside.
Nevada lawmaker Michele Fiore and evangelist Franklin Graham, two allies of the occupiers, were also outside the compound.
Thursday’s events followed a phone call Wednesday night between the protesters and negotiators that was also livestreamed online. In the call, the occupiers warned that the incident could end in bloodshed. RELATED: Oregon Townsfolk Are Tired of Occupiers But an occupier identified as Sean Anderson — one of the remaining four — said that the stragglers would turn themselves in once Fiore and Graham arrived at the wildlife refuge. In the sometimes fiery phone call, Anderson, 48, repeated that the occupiers weren’t technically giving up what they stand for. “We’re not surrendering, we’re turning ourselves in,” said. “It’s going against everything we believe in.” This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com
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