One person was shot dead and eight others arrested on Tuesday after authorities confronted members of an armed group that has staged a month-long occupation of a federal wildlife reserve in Oregon, activists and officials said.

The FBI said gunshots rang out after officers stopped a car carrying protest leader Ammon Bundy and others near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Activists said Robert LaVoy Finicum, a rancher who acted as a spokesman for the occupiers, was killed.

Another person was injured, according to a statement issued by the FBI.

It was not immediately clear if other armed individuals remained occupying the remote Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon or if Ammon Bundy's arrest had ended the standoff, which began on Jan. 2 when Bundy's group, which has included people from as far away as Arizona and Michigan, seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as part of a long-running dispute over public lands in the West.

The Oregon Department of Transportation reported on its website that U.S. 395 was closed between the towns of Burns and John Day on Tuesday evening. The Oregonian reported that there had been a meeting scheduled between some members of the group and local residents in John Day on Tuesday night.

The FBI statement said that when the bureau with Oregon State Police “began an enforcement action to bring into custody a number of individuals associated with the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge” shots were fired.

“One individual who was a subject of a federal probable cause arrest is deceased,” according to the statement. “We will not be releasing any information about that person pending identification by the medical examiner's office.

“One individual suffered non-life threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital for treatment,” the statement continued. “He was arrested and is currently in custody.”

During the action, authorities arrested in addition to Bundy, 40: Ryan C. Bundy, 43, Brian Cavalier, 44, Shawna Cox, 59, and Ryan Waylen Payne, 32. The FBI also arrested Peter Santilli, 50. All the arrests were made along Highway 395 in northeastern Oregon about 4:25 p.m.

In a separate action, Oregon State Police arrested Joseph Donald O'Shaughnessy, 45.

Also on Tuesday evening, Jon Eric Ritzheimer, 32, turned himself into the Peoria, Arizona, police department on Tuesday evening and was arrested was without incident, according to a statement released by the FBI. Ritzheimer was among the most visible of the occupiers at the wildlife refuge.

All of the people arrested “face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats,” according to the FBI statement, which concluded that the bureau would make no further comments as the investigation was continuing.

Arianna Finicum Brown told The Oregonian that her father, standoff spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was the person who died at the highway stop.

“My dad was such a good good man, through and through,” said Brown, one of Finicum's 11 children. “He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”