BURNS, Ore -- The armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was dealt a blow Tuesday when eight leaders of the group were arrested and another was killed.
Ammon Bundy and other militia members had been holed up in the bird sanctuary since the beginning of the year as part of a protest of what they considered government overreach and mismanagement of public lands.
The occupation took a toll on the nearby town of Burns, where school was closed, refuge employees were unable to return to their jobs and outsiders descended on the roughly 2,800-population town.
Mary Thomas, owner of The Doughnut Hole on Monroe Street in Burns, said she's trying not to pick sides in the issue that has increasingly divided her community.
Friction aside, the occupation and the surrounding hubbub has brought big business to the little doughnut shop during the traditionally-lean month of January.
"I want to stay as neutral as possible, because I don't mind who comes through my front door," Thomas said. "Whichever side he is, I'm happy."
Still, Thomas said she will be glad when the standoff is over. She said she wished it could have ended without bloodshed, a hope that was dashed when LaVoy Finicum of Arizona was shot and killed by law enforcement Tuesday. Another leader of the occupation, Ryan Bundy, was also shot in the arm but survived.
Thomas said she's not sure how the occupation will play out going forward. Several members of the group are still at the refuge.
"I'm a little nervous - I'm not sure what to do, but I'm just going to do it day by day and see what happens," she said. "That's all I can do."
Schoolteacher and Harney County resident Sandy Volle said she worried the disruption to her town was far from over.
"I'm glad that we have the leadership gone, but there's a lot of other people around the country that feel like they do," she said. "As a community, we really just want people to let us be here to solve our own problems," she said. "We don't want a bunch of other people coming in here and continuing this occupation and keeping us hostage, basically."
Volle said she was eager to see the occupiers ousted. The issue of Bundy and his crew had turned friends and neighbors against each other, sparking deep division across a typically close-knit town, she said.
"It has just ripped us apart," she said.
Volle said she is from a ranching family and shares some of occupiers' concerns about threats to western ranchers' land and the role of federal agencies.
But she was adamant that threatening violence and interrupting people's lives was the wrong way to address those issues. Volle said she is praying for peace for the community.
"There's just become so much division between friends and families and it's sad," Volle said. "It's just sad, and we're just tired of it. We just want our community back."
The Harney County Sheriff's Office will hold a press conference with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI at noon Mountain Standard Time. The conference will be streamed live on KTVB and KTVB.COM.
