Threats to police and public officials started within hours of the Jan. 26 death of armed militant Robert "LaVoy" Finicum and they haven't stopped, officials said.

"We're going to shoot to kill," one anonymous caller said in a message left for Gov. Kate Brown the morning after Finicum died.

"You killed an unarmed rancher so now one of you must die," said another caller to her office.

The message referred to Finicum, 54, who was shot by state troopers as he tried to evade arrest. Finicum and other leaders of the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were on their way from the bird sanctuary to a community meeting that Tuesday afternoon when troopers and FBI agents stopped them. All but Finicum surrendered. Two troopers shot three times as he reached for what investigators later said was a concealed loaded pistol.

Reports of Finicum's death started the cascade of threats and they surged again when investigators earlier this month announced the details of how Finicum died.

State troopers, FBI agents and federal officials "will be murdered in retaliation," a Tillamook County man wrote on his Facebook days after the shooting. The man raged against police and urged more of them be killed.

"If they live in your neighborhood, burn their houses down, with their wives and kids, after their lights go out," the man wrote.

The Deschutes County Sheriff's Office, which investigated Finicum's death, this week released a sampling of threats collected by investigators. The threats contain sometimes vile language. Police redacted the names and other identifying information from the records.

Authorities said at a news conference in Bend earlier this month that they had documented up to 80 threats against police officers and others. As a result, investigators haven't identified the officers or FBI agents involved in the traffic stop that led to Finicum's death.

"Those officers have very real threats again them," Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson said at the time.

Oregon State Police are investigating the threats. The governor's office reported Friday that threats related to the refuge takeover and Finicum shooting continue to come in against Brown. They all get turned over to police.

One email to Brown demanded the release of refuge occupiers jailed on federal charges and that the officers involved in Finicum's death be indicted. Otherwise, the writer said, "I am going to begin returning fire."

A week after the Finicum shooting, one writer asked in an email to police whether troopers and FBI agents had used an illegal roadblock to trap the Arizona rancher.

"If this is so, let me know so we can set up road blocks and kill OSP and FBI because they stand against what we believe in," the messenger wrote.

In a Facebook post, another person offered $1,000 for the identities of the officers involved in the shooting.

Authorities learned this week that some people are aggressively hunting the identities of the troopers who fired the fatal shots at Finicum. An online radio broadcaster publicly identified a trooper, whose name and home address soon found their way onto militant Facebook postings. State police wouldn't comment, but law enforcement sources confirmed the trooper had no role in Finicum's death.

Malheur County District Attorney Dan Norris, who oversaw the Finicum investigation, said such acts underscore the need to continue to keep the officers' names confidential. A bill to protect the troopers' names faltered in the Legislature and the governor has said she expects their names to be released "in due course" but offered no timetable.

The records also revealed that the Crook County Sheriff's Office four days after the Finicum shooting took a call from a trooper's wife.

"Sometime between late night and early morning, someone spray painted the words OSP, Cop, with arrows pointing to their residence," an agency official reported in an email.

One person said in an email to the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office that the officers involved in the Finicum shooting were lying.

"All of you will pay on earth or when God judges you. That, sir, you can count on," the email said.

Another email questioned how well Americans understand the law, concluding, "If they even taste of it, the law says war is levied on the people's portion of civil government, and they must face death."

-- Les Zaitz