An FBI supervisor approached members of the agency's Hostage Rescue Team after refuge occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum lay dead in the snow at a highway roadblock in 2016.

Agent Ian McConnell asked the sharpshooters if they were OK and if anybody had fired their guns.

All nodded their heads that they were fine, except one, McConnell said.

Team member W. Joseph Astarita said something like, "Hey bro, I'm good" or "You don't got to ask me that,'' McConnell testified Tuesday in the second week of Astarita's federal trial in Portland.

Another Hostage Rescue Team agent, Christopher Scott, said he was present during McConnell's exchange with Astarita and recounted it a bit differently. Scott said he heard McConnell ask Astarita if any of "our guys had shot.''

"He said, 'No bro, you can't ask me that right now,''' Scott recalled.

McConnell asked Astarita once again, saying he just had to know if any of their agents had shot, Scott said.

"You know you can't ask me that right now,'' Astarita responded, according to Scott.

That's when Scott interjected. "Yes he can ask that question,'' he said he told Astarita. "There's admin things that have to happen'' to document shootings.

Astarita then said, according to Scott, "No, we're good.''

McConnell that night told his boss about Astarita's remark.

"That response was a pet peeve of mine,'' McConnell said. "I took it as a flippant response. I was kind of like he's wasting my time. ... Why was he messing with me?''

But on cross-examination, McConnell acknowledged that while he didn't like the response, he took it to mean that Astarita wasn't injured and hadn't used his rifle as authorities moved in to arrest the leaders of the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon.

"You do not feel as though you were deceived?'' Astarita's defense lawyer Robert Cary asked.

"Correct,'' McConnell said.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones earlier threw out a count of making a false statement related to the exchange. But Astarita still faces two counts of making a false statement to other FBI supervisors and obstruction of justice during an investigation interview with Oregon state police detectives.

He's accused of lying about having fired two shots at Finicum's truck before two state police officers fatally shot Finicum moments later. One of the disputed shots hit the roof of Finicum's truck as he stepped out and the other missed. No one has admitted taking those shots at the roadblock after Finicum sped away from the initial stop a mile south on U.S. 395 outside of Burns.

Prosecutors also called several Oregon State Police SWAT officers and FBI agents to the witness stand Tuesday. The FBI agents included members or supervisors of the agency's blue, gray and gold Hostage Rescue Teams involved in the Jan. 26, 2016, police stop and roadblock.

Among the highlights:

-- FBI agent Gregory J. Ferner and his police dog Zoro were hiking at Oregon's Smith Rock when Ferner got the call to head to Burns as quickly as possible to help arrest the refuge occupiers. He arrived about five minutes before the FBI and Oregon State Police SWAT teams headed out to U.S. 395.

Ferner said he heard another FBI agent, Tim Dugan, yell a "cuss word" at a state trooper who fired a rubber bullet at occupation organizer Ryan Payne when authorities first stopped the leaders on the highway and Payne had put his hands out the front passenger window of Finicum's truck.

FBI agent Justin Travis Elkins said he had his eyes trained on Payne at the initial police stop, and the state police officer's firing of a rubber round "was totally unexpected.''

Dugan turned to the state police officer and yelled, "WTF was that?!'' Elkins confirmed. He said Payne was complying with commands, and the officer's shot escalated the vehicle stop.

Ferner later sat in a truck with Astarita after Finicum was shot and described Astarita's demeanor as "typical nervous kind of relief'' reflecting that he was rattled that a colleague had narrowly missed being run over by Finicum's truck and that Finicum had been killed.

-- FBI agent Jedediah Oakley, a member of the Hostage Rescue Team's gold unit under McConnell, said he arrived at the roadblock and saw Finicum out of his truck. He tried to get a clear sight on him with his rifle but couldn't because Finicum was moving through the snow.

"I probably would have used deadly force,'' Oakley said, after watching Finicum reach into his jacket but the agent couldn't get a fix on him. Investigators later said Finicum had a loaded gun inside his jacket.

Oakley testified that he noticed the rear tires of Finicum's truck spinning - a point that the defense is expected to use to bolster its argument that Finicum's truck likely had settled in the snow. Defense lawyers contend government forensic experts failed to account for that when determining the source of the bullet that struck the roof of the truck's cab.

-- State police SWAT trooper Jeremiah Beckert said he provided cover for fellow SWAT officer Bob Olson, who fired 40mm rubber rounds of pepper spray into the passenger side window of Finicum's truck after Finicum was killed to try to get the passengers to surrender.

Beckert said he was standing near Astarita at the scene and Astarita was "unusually amped up,'' moving around a lot and "barking commands.'' His reaction was in marked contrast to other officers at the scene who were calm and collected, Beckert said.

-- Olson, the state police SWAT officer, also said Astarita's behavior stood out after the shooting.

"He seemed a little overboard in his emotions - almost seemed like a rookie to me,'' said Olson, with state police for more than 10 years and five years with its SWAT team.

Olson also said he helped arrest Ryan Bundy, one of the occupation leaders who had been riding with Finicum.

Bundy told him: "When you guys were shooting, I think I was hit in the shoulder,'' Olson recalled. Olson cut through Bundy's "buttoned-up western shirt,'' his sweatshirt and cotton shirt and found what looked like an entry bullet wound, he said.

While Bundy was on his knees on the east side of the road handcuffed, Astarita walked over and looked as if he was examining Bundy's right shoulder. A dashcam video from a state police car caught the moment, which was played for jurors.

Astarita also knocked off Bundy's cowboy hat.

"Astarita smacked his hat off his head,'' Olson testified, adding that there was no reason for him to have done so.

Olson reported also seeing an unusual "nice neat pile'' of less-lethal 40 mm rounds beside a white state police truck parked in the middle of the roadblock. The pile was near "two to three'' brass-colored rifle casings he noticed as officers tried to arrest others in Finicum's truck, he said.

But later that evening, Olson said, the brass rifle casings were gone.

-- Scott, one of the Hostage Rescue Team agents, also is a paramedic. He said he assessed Finicum lying in the snow. He found no pulse, no respiratory rate. He put a cardiac monitor on Finicum but found no activity. "There was really nothing to do for him at that point,'' Scott said.

Scott then turned his attention to Ryan Bundy. He asked for Bundy's consent to treat his shoulder wound or laceration. Bundy declined and Scott alerted others that they should call for civilian medics to respond. Bundy was taken to Harney District Hospital, Scott said.

While at the roadblock, Scott said he spotted two spent rifle casings near the front of the FBI truck that formed part of a "V'' in the northbound lane of U.S. 395.

-- Timothy Swanson, chief of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team's blue unit that Astarita was on, was monitoring the stop and arrest of the refuge leaders via a live video feed from the FBI aerial plane while in Boise, Idaho.

A day and a half later, once in Burns, he learned there was an unaccounted-for bullet strike to Finicum's truck and an "inference'' or "insinuation'' that rifle brass casings had been picked up from the scene.

Swanson said he met with each of his agents individually and asked them if they had fired. Astarita, agent John Neitert and an agent identified in court only as B.M. each told him they hadn't.

He also addressed them as a group, telling them he needed to know whether any of them had fired, that from his military experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan it's possible people don't know if they pulled the trigger and that he believed all the shots that day were legally justified. All said they hadn't fired.

"At that point I had no reason to believe any of them were lying to me,'' Swanson said.

Swanson, though, never asked the agents if they had picked up any shell casings at the scene.

"I couldn't even fathom someone would pick up brass casings at a shooting I believe was legally justified,'' Swanson said.

-- FBI agent Lincoln Lukich, also a medic, said Astarita asked him at the roadblock after Finicum was killed, "Have you seen anything on the ground?'' Astarita didn't specify and Lukich said he didn't ask and didn't think the question was odd.

-- FBI agent Anthony Loscalzo, assistant team leader for the Hostage Rescue Team's blue unit, was shown the FBI's infrared video of agents walking around the shooting scene at the roadblock about 5:30 p.m. that day.

Asked by a prosecutor if he was among those men, "I don't believe I was,'' he said.

Asked to clarify, Loscalzo said, "I don't remember walking around taking those actions.''

Asked if it would be odd for officers to traipse through a shooting scene, Loscalzo said no. Officers might have been bored and tired, he said. He said he didn't remember seeing anyone picking anything up.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian