Militia Leaders Urge Calm in ‘Freemen’ Standoff

Militia leaders issued an appeal for calm Wednesday as antigovernment activists began trickling into central Montana in support of a dozen armed “freemen” in their 3-day-old standoff with state and federal law enforcement agents.

As a soft, wet snow fell on the dreary buttes around the freemen’s remote ranch, the Militia of Montana said that it had sent representatives to the bustling tent city of law enforcement agents several miles outside the ranch to try to help negotiate a peaceful surrender.

“We’re working with the FBI, trying to get a peaceful solution,” David Trochmann, spokesman for the Militia of Montana, said in an interview.

“I’m definitely concerned right now. We have to all keep cool heads. It’s hard to keep people back from around the country. They’re all concerned. They’re afraid there’s going to be another Waco up there. We’re trying to shut them down. We’re telling them we don’t need any more [men] than we have right now.”

Militia leaders and law enforcement officials said they hope to avoid a repeat of the sieges near Waco, Texas, and at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, when similar standoffs against heavily armed activists ended in violence.

Federal, state and local law enforcement officials have maintained a low-key presence so far, gathering resources several miles away from the freemen ranch while attempting to negotiate a surrender of 10 suspects named in federal indictments unsealed this week on charges of passing phony checks and money orders.

Two men, LeRoy Schweitzer and Daniel Petersen Jr., were arrested without incident Monday when FBI agents lured them out of the ranch house.

“We believe there are 10 other indicted parties possibly at the site, but we can’t confirm those 10 people are there,” said FBI spokesman Ron VanVranken.

“We are engaged in talks, trying to convince them to come out so they can answer to the court,” he said. “We are trying to approach this in a positive way, with the goal of resolving it peacefully. There have been no shots fired, no injuries, which we are thankful for.”

Trochmann said that Militia of Montana representatives have arrived to try to talk by telephone or radio to one of those believed to be at the ranch, Dale Jacobi, who used to own a business near the militia’s headquarters in Noxon, Mont.

But he said militia members were concerned about rumors that military troops would be enlisted in the standoff.

“We’ve got rumors of military involvement, and that better not be, because that changes the whole character of things,” he said.

FBI officials refused to discuss what agencies were involved or how many law enforcement units had been dispatched.

The 930-acre wheat farm and sheep ranch owned by freeman leader Ralph Clark lies about 30 miles northwest of Jordan, itself the most remote town in a state known for its wide open spaces.

Visitors to the freemen’s self-declared “Justus Township” were warned away by armed patrolmen. One television crew’s camera was seized by the militants, who have declared themselves exempt from local and federal laws and answerable only to the Constitution.

The standoff brings to a head more than a year of tension and bafflement in nearby Jordan, where the militant freemen have placed $1-million bounties on the sheriff, the county prosecutor and a federal judge and filed harassment liens against the properties of various government officials and citizens after the government enforced a bank foreclosure on Clark’s ranch several years ago.

“They [the freemen] threatened to take over my personal possessions, my personal property, my real property, including anything my husband owned,” said Garfield County Clerk Joanne Stanton, who processed hundreds of legal filings under the freemen’s self-declared common law court. “There were always these little digs--’proceed at your own peril.’ Failure to do as they ordered would cause harm.”

The freemen threatened to hang Garfield County Sheriff Charles Phipps from a bridge for “common law crimes” connected to the foreclosure of the ranch where Clark was born.

In one phone call last year to county officials, an unidentified caller said: “Just be forewarned, because you’ve really bitten off more than you can chew.” Freeman members arrested in a nearby county were found with a map of Jordan locating the county attorney’s office and home.

Phipps had to call up an 85-member citizens’ posse in 1994 after three dozen freemen occupied the county courthouse in Jordan and threatened to “try” local officials.

Ranch foreclosures throughout the economic downturn of the early 1990s fed the freeman movement, which has gained widening support throughout rural Montana. Rodney Skurdahl, one of the suspects believed to be at the ranch, moved to Montana when he lost his job in Wyoming.

The freemen turned the tables on their misfortune, declaring that the Internal Revenue Service owes them $400 million in damages and issuing their own money orders as currency. Among the federal charges are allegations that up to $19.5 million in fraudulent checks and money orders were written.

“Skurdahl and Schweitzer were filing liens on every county in Montana and several states. People would go to sell something and Rodney had a lien on it,” said Musselshell County prosecutor John Bohlman.

On Wednesday, there was a sense of relief in Jordan that the situation might finally be coming to an end. “Goodbye, LeRoy. Hello, FBI,” read a sign on the local bank.

“These people are very happy that they [law enforcement] are finally here. The guy at the garage said they haven’t seen this many feds since Custer,” said Garfield County prosecutor Nickolas Murnion.

“The feds came in two years ago looking for poisoned eagles, and the town was in an uproar over the federal agents,” he said. “This time it’s almost like a liberated feeling. Smiles. Glad they’re here.”

Law enforcement officials said they believe that there are women and children among those still at the Clark ranch, but they could not say how many.

“There are some wives up there, some of whom may or may not be involved in what’s going on,” Murnion said.

FBI officials refused to say how Schweitzer and Petersen were arrested, but local news reports said that the agency staged an elaborate deception with an undercover agent posing as someone offering to build a ham radio antenna on the ranch property.

The arraignment of Schweitzer, 57, and Petersen, 53, was postponed by a federal judge in Billings on Tuesday, who ordered the two men removed from the courtroom because of repeated outbursts in which they loudly declared it a kangaroo court.

A preliminary hearing also began Wednesday for a third suspect, Lavon T. Hanson, who was arrested separately on federal charges of conspiring to defraud financial institutions.

Law enforcement authorities said they could not rule out the possibility that militia representatives from around the country would arrive to support the freemen, but they would not say whether they had identified any.

Motorists near the ranch were being stopped Wednesday and their identities carefully checked, but otherwise there was little indication of a strong law enforcement presence near the property.

Trochmann said he did not know how many volunteer militia members had arrived. “It’s a big, big area, and there are very few roads.”

He said militia members were concerned by reports that U.S. special forces units had come to Montana, a report denied by the FBI.

“We had rumors that 200 special forces were up there training at Caspar, Wyo., and flew up toward the Billings area,” Trochmann said. “Now where did they go?”