Reportedly an ISIS sympathizer, Fry's said to be prone to apocalyptic rants and is determined to go out in a blaze of glory (or ignominy, depending on your perspective).
At the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Oregon standoff militant David Fry of Ohio prepared to die, says LaVoy Finicum was murdered":
CLEVELAND, Ohio – David Fry, an Ohioan who is among the remaining armed occupants of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, said he is prepared to die during the siege.Still more.
"I'll pass on and move on to the next life. I don't know (how it will end), but I'm willing to go that far,'' Fry told The Plain Dealer in a brief phone interview Wednesday.
"Obviously they are murdering people at this point. They've been doing it for a long time now, and you guys are watching it.''
The Oregonian newspaper reported Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, the spokesman of the refuge occupation, was shot and killed after he charged police during a roadside stop, according to a man who claims to be the driver of one of two vehicles involved in the highway shooting.
Fry, who was not at the scene, said he thought Finicum was "murdered.''
Fry is from the Cincinnati area, as is Peter Santilli, who was one of seven militants arrested at a roadblock Tuesday, when Finicum reportedly was killed. The occupation's leader, Ammon Bundy, and his brother Ryan also were arrested. All were charged with conspiracy to interfere with a federal official, a felony.
Santilli hosted The Pete Santilli Show, an online radio show.
Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Wednesday seven to 12 occupants remain at the refuge, including Fry, 27.
"I'm holding up alright,'' Fry told The Plain Dealer. "Everybody is still holding their ground. We did get the women, children, most of them out of here -– all the children. I think there's one woman who's pregnant. That still counts as a child.''
In a video posted Wednesday to Fry's youtube account, defendyourbase, Fry could be seen with a gun over his shoulder while a backhoe operated in the background.
On the same video, another man with a gun said, "The media has been ordered to leave. That means they're coming to kill us. They're going to murder all of us, and the medias are cowards."
The same man also urges people to join the occupation and shouts into the camera, "This is history in the making. There are no laws in this United States now. This is a free-for-all Armageddon. Any military or law enforcement or feds that stand and don't abide by their oath are the enemy. If they stop you from getting here, kill them!''
Fry is from Blanchester, a small town northwest of Cincinnati. He said he taking college classes by his junior year in high school. He was convicted of a minor drug-related offense in 2008. A woman who answered the phone at his family's home and said she was a relative declined to comment.
Fry reportedly was on vacation with his parents in Costa Rica when he left them and traveled to Oregon to join the occupation. He told reporters in Oregon he drove through a blinding snowstorm to get there.
Fry reportedly has been using government computers at the refuge to establish a website for the occupiers while conducting his own live stream and updating his Google+ and Facebook accounts. The website, defendyourbase.net, has been taken down, and it not cleary by whom.
His social media accounts included posts that were anti-Semitic, homophobic, and pro-Nazi, as well as posts in support of ISIS. After media reports about his posts, many were deleted.
"ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS FOR ISIS TO NUKE ISRAELHELL!" he wrote on his Google+ the site Nov. 30.
He also tagged posts #HitlerWasRight, and another #Pray4ISIS.
"You see a lot of slander,'' Fry said. "They called me an ISIS supporter and a group of people said I was an anarchist. They're making these things up about me and taking some of my comments -- it's satire. They twisted it out of hand and make it look like I'm an an anarchist. I'm not an anarchist...
Plus, at the Portland Oregonian, "Live, from inside the Oregon standoff: 'You're going to get to watch us die'":
With the 6-mile road into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge blocked by police late Tuesday night, the remaining militants there were isolated from much of the world. With members of the media stuck on the wrong side of the roadblocks, Americans were left without a window into what was left of the occupation.More.
Or they would have been. Instead, thanks to one YouTube user at the compound, tens of thousands of people got an inside view of the militants during what they thought might be their final hours.
Like some sort of bizarre reality show, viewers tuned in to watch militants say goodbye to their families, promise to defend their "base" and vow to avenge the death of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, who was killed as law enforcement moved to arrest the anti-government protesters and end the occupation that started Jan. 2 in Harney County.
David Fry, a 27-year-old from the Cincinnati area, had been broadcasting developments at the refuge since he arrived in early January. On Tuesday afternoon, as tensions between occupiers and law enforcement mounted, Fry began a near-continuous livestream of events.
Though the hours following the arrests and deadly shooting were relatively calm for those still at the wildlife refuge, Fry drew thousands of viewers with his end-is-nigh rants, peppered with the occasional background conversation between militants.
"Yeah folks this is it," he said at one point. "I'm going to try to get this livestreamed constantly until the end here."
Also, the Los Angeles Times had this sensational headline earlier, "Remaining Oregon protesters warn of 'Armageddon,' but Bundy urges holdouts to go home":
The leader of the armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge urged his colleagues-in-arms to “stand down” Wednesday, as a small band of holdouts vowing to fight fell under increasing pressure to surrender to the cordon of law enforcement now surrounding the sprawling facility.Still more.
By late Wednesday, it appeared that several of the protesters still inside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were heeding the request, as three more people were arrested and several others were allowed to leave freely, according to the FBI and other sources....
“The FBI and our partners continue to work around the clock to empty the refuge of the armed occupiers in the safest way possible,” the agency said.
Earlier in the day, at least some at the refuge were still expressing defiance.
“There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!” a heavyset man holding a rifle yelled into a camera transmitting from the refuge. He urged others to join those at the protest site, adding that if “they stop you from getting here, kill them!”
But that was before leader Ammon Bundy, arrested with other protesters Tuesday in a law enforcement operation that killed one of their comrades, called for those remaining in the high-desert refuge to “go home and hug your families.”
Bundy and several codefendants appeared in U.S. District Court in Portland on Wednesday afternoon and were ordered held without bond.
“Right now, I'm asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted,” Bundy said in a written statement read after the hearing by his attorney, Mike Arnold. “To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now -- in the courts.”
Authorities were offering free passage to most who left peacefully, and there were signs Wednesday evening that FBI agents were in communication with those inside the refuge before the departures.
“We’re just camped here by the fire,” one of the occupiers, David Fry of Ohio, said in a brief telephone interview.
“I’m waiting on the FBI calling,” he said.
A live stream feed Fry was running from the refuge through most of the day Wednesday showed a group with apparently mixed feelings. Some holdouts seemed ready to leave, while others were counting their weapons and ammunition.
“I want to go to my wife,” a man could be heard saying Wednesday afternoon, complaining that his credit card was maxed out and he was driving a rental car. “Sorry, guys.”
“No hard feelings,” another man responded.
At one point, the live stream caught what sounded like the cocking of a gun, and at least six occupiers could be seen passing through the camera’s field of vision and discussing their available weapons and ammunition.
“You got enough rounds for the 12-gauge?”
“We’ve got, what, two SKS [rifles]?”
“Hey, Sean! I think these fit your gun – they won’t fit the AR [rifle].”
“Anybody got a .45 pistol?”
But by Wednesday night, the stream included an image of a campfire burning in darkness, with a few voices talking of topics ranging from their personal finances to marijuana, relationships and the stars above.
“Oh, another great night,” a woman said. “There’s the Milky Way.”
Plus, from Jennifer Hayden on Twitter, "When I wake up, I’m hoping to read David Fry and the rest are hungover in a jail cell."
And from JJ McNab, "David Fry, 'I'm sitting around waiting to die, I guess.' The kid has lost it."
ICYMI, from last night, "Three New Arrests in Militia Occupation at #Malheur National Wildlife Refuge."
0 comments:
Post a Comment