Police say Kenneth Medenbach drove the vehicle to town from the Malheur national wildlife refuge – and it’s not his first tangle with the law

The standoff with armed militia in Oregon escalated on Friday after police swooped in on one of the protesters to make the first arrest in connection with the two-week occupation of a federal wildlife refuge.

Kenneth Medenbach, who was arrested for unauthorized use of a government vehicle, is a chainsaw sculptor and longtime nemesis of the government with a history of previous entanglements with the courts over the occupation of federal lands.

He is the first militiaman connected to the armed occupation to be arrested since the bird sanctuary in rural Oregon was unexpectedly taken over on 2 January.

Medenbach, 62, was detained outside a Safeway supermarket in Burns, Oregon, some 30 miles from the Malheur national wildlife refuge, according to a statement from the Harney County sheriff’s office.

He appears to have driven from the occupied compound to a local supermarket in a vehicle allegedly stolen from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the refuge. The sheriff’s office statement said that law enforcement officers recovered “two vehicles stolen from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge”.

Medenbach’s company, Chainsaw Creations, lists cabins, furniture, and signs for sale, as well as sculpted animals, with a specialty in bears and eagles. A biography on the website for a gallery that sells his woodwork says that Medenbach was born in Massachusetts, the second-youngest of five children, and that he spent 40 years in the construction trade.

This is not Medenbach’s first tangle with the law. He is currently out on bail, according to court documents, awaiting trial for a seven-month residential occupation of government land between May and November 2015.

Medenbach was tried and convicted of the same crime in 1996. According to a forest service officer who testified at that trial, Medenbach was living in “an eight-by-ten-foot tent with a metal flue and wood-burning stove, a nearby campfire, and various cooking and sleeping equipment”.

According to a court memorandum, the magistrate said that Medenbach posed a risk to public safety and said that he had referenced Ruby Ridge and Waco, two sieges that ended in violence. At a detention hearing, the government said that Medenbach had tried to protect his campsite with “50 to 100 pounds of the explosive ammonium sulfate, a pellet gun, and what appeared to be a hand grenade with trip wires.”

Convicted and given a six-month suspended sentence, Medenbach appealed the case to the federal ninth circuit court, where he argued that federal ownership of unappropriated public lands was unconstitutional. He also filed a civil suit to demand that federal judges no longer swear an oath of affirmation under the constitution, a position he defended in this blog post from January 2015.



According to one local report, the two vehicles, one a pickup truck and one a passenger van, bore door signs reading “Harney County Resource Center” – the new name occupiers have given to the sanctuary. The man police suspected of driving the second government vehicle into town already had gone into the grocery store before police arrived, the report said.

The arrest, which marks the first confrontation between law enforcement and the armed occupiers, came hours before Ammon Bundy, the leader of the militia, and the other armed men had planned to hold a meeting with the local community at which the occupiers said they planned to discuss ending the protest.

It is unclear how central a figure Medenbach was to the occupation at the refuge, or how long he had been staying there. However, his commitment to the extreme ideology of rightwing constitutionalists is not in doubt.

Medenbach spoke with The Guardian on the 2nd of January at the public rally in support of the Hammonds, held in the same Safeway car park where he was arrested. When asked why he was attending, he offered similar constitutional theories as those offered by other militia members. He claimed to have been involved in this stand-off as a member of the Oath Keepers militia.

He was extensively profiled in the 1999 book Terrorists Among Us: The Militia Threat, by retired Indiana police captain Robert L Snow. At the time, Snow wrote, Medenbach was building his own home on five acres of land in Crescent, Oregon, out of “discarded refrigerators, water heaters, and other such material.” Medenbach, according to Snow, subscribed to the legal theory that state bar associations are unconstitutional, and so courts have no authority over him.



“I’m willing to pay the price for my convictions,” Medenbach told Snow. “Someday, when the laws become too stringent, people will start waking up.”

Armed militia have been seen driving the government vehicles around the refuge ever since they took over the site in protest over federal land management policies earlier this month. Legal experts have told the Guardian that the occupiers could face hefty fines and more than 10 years of imprisonment.



A USFWS spokesperson Megan Nagel said: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is grateful for the quick actions from law enforcement. We will continue to work with law enforcement to recover vehicles bought and paid for by the American people to care for their national wildlife refuge.”

It was unclear Friday whether the scheduled 7pm meeting between the militia and local residents would go ahead. The militia leaders had said they planned to speak directly with residents and explain their plans to leave the federal land. Officials in rural Harney County, who have become increasingly outspoken against the militia, have denied them access to public buildings, saying they refuse to host a group that supports the illegal takeover of government property.

On Thursday, Bundy was expressing doubts about whether the meeting would happen at all if the militia couldn’t find a venue.

Harney County judge Steve Grasty said he was grateful that officials have made an arrest. “At some point, criminal actions become so blatant that they just can’t be ignored,” he said. “At some point, criminal actions become so blatant that they just can’t be ignored.”

He said law enforcement is trying to end this without violence, but must make every effort to hold people accountable for their crimes. “Perhaps that’ll give Bundy and his friends incentive not to be driving around these vehicles,” he added.



Corey Lequieu, a 45-year-old occupier who is still at the refuge, said he was reluctant to believe the reports of his fellow militiaman’s arrest. “It may not even be true. I’m hoping it’s not true,” he said. “I’m very leery about their press releases and press conferences. That sheriff has lied before.”

Jason Wilson contributed reporting.