‘Freemen’ Plow Fields, Defying Law and FBI

In a new act of defiance, “freemen” tax protesters entrenched at a foreclosed wheat farm near here on Monday began plowing fields for seeding within view of the FBI agents who have had them surrounded for three weeks.

The field work at the so-called Justus Township infuriated the legal owners of the property, who are anxious to till the land themselves or lose out on the growing season.

But federal agents monitoring the freemen, who are wanted on charges of passing bogus checks and threatening the lives of local officials, have warned against using land on or near the enclave because of reports that the squatters are heavily armed.

The estimated 20 freemen have issued warnings of their own.

K. L. Bliss is among 11 people who have been told that if they use the property this spring, they will be tried in a freeman court and punished.

“Something has got to be done about this, and soon,” Bliss said. “There are four families facing heavy financial losses if they can’t get on that land.

“Yet these freemen are thumbing their noses at us, saying hell with the federal government, and hell with the landowners,” he added. “Heck, we thought the FBI was the cavalry coming to save us, but they turned out to a bunch of baby-sitters.”

The plowing began shortly after a group of men at the farm used jumper cables to start a mud-splattered, yellow tractor with tilling equipment attached to the back. Locals say the process of turning the soil and then seeding it could take as long as two weeks.

Another indicator that the freemen are preparing for a long, relaxed siege is a sign they put up over the weekend outside the main house of the 960-acre Justus Township. In black letters on a large white board, it says: “Grand Jury. It’s the law. Why not? Who fears the evidence?”

The sign refers to freemen demands that a common-law grand jury be formed to judge the validity of the state and federal charges against them.

The rallying point for the freemen was the foreclosure on local wheat farmer Ralph Clark, who is among those isolated at the ranch.

Based on dubious theories surrounding the shift of U.S. currency from the gold standard, Clark claimed he did not have to pay the $3.1 million he owes the Farm Credit Bank of Spokane.

Later, he and other freemen at the farm stronghold were indicted on charges of allegedly concocting and using worthless checks to defraud banks, public institutions and businesses of $1.8 million.

Now, Jordan residents are waiting to see when the standoff will end.

“It’s crazy--they flat don’t recognize that land isn’t theirs,” Bliss said. “It’s flagrant and it’s getting old.”

Meanwhile, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh on Monday toured the area near where the freemen are holed up. He was also taken to a dirt road near Jordan where an FBI agent died Sunday and he was driven along back roads near the ranch.

Special agent Kevin Kramer, 34, of Sioux City, Iowa, was killed Sunday in a car accident unrelated to the standoff.

Freeh earlier Monday visited Kramer’s family in Sioux City and met with colleagues of Kramer’s in Omaha, FBI spokesman Larry Holmquist said.