Ammon Bundy arrested in Idaho trespassing case, police say
Far-right activist Ammon Bundy, who is running for governor in Idaho, has been arrested after allegedly refusing to leave a hospital in connection with a child-welfare case, police said.
Bundy was arrested about 1:15 a.m. Saturday on suspicion of misdemeanor trespassing at St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center in Meridian, west of Boise, the Idaho Statesman reported.
Bundy is well-known for participating in armed standoffs with law enforcement, notably at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016, which left one man dead, and on federal land near his family’s ranch in Nevada in 2014.
He’s also scheduled to stand trial this week on three charges from a previous trespassing case at the Idaho Capitol.
Ammon Bundy built his name on confronting government. Now he wants to be Idaho’s governor, pledging to protect conservative values by turning federal land into private development.
The arrest Saturday concerned a 10-month-old baby determined to be “suffering from severe malnourishment” and at risk of injury or death, the Meridian Police Department said in a news release. The baby’s parents had refused to let officers check on its welfare after the family canceled an appointment.
Bundy urged his followers to go to the hospital to support the family.
Bundy wrote on Twitter on Saturday that “last night my very good friend Diego’s grandson was medically kidnapped because a medical practitioner called [child protective services] for a missed doctor appointment. If this happened to them, it could happen to you.”
One other person was arrested on suspicion of trespassing at the hospital, and two people were arrested earlier Friday in a related incident on suspicion of resisting or obstructing police.
Bundy, best known for leading the 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, has launched a militia network that he describes as ‘neighborhood watch on steroids.’ Experts say it has strong overlap with right-wing extremist groups.
Bundy, of Emmett, Idaho, was charged in the Oregon and Nevada standoffs. He was acquitted in Oregon, and the Nevada charges were dismissed after a mistrial.
He is set to go on trial Monday on two charges of misdemeanor trespassing and one charge of resisting or obstructing officers after he was arrested twice in one day at the Idaho Capitol in April 2021.
At the time he was subject to a one-year ban from the Idaho Statehouse because of previous trespassing, when he refused to leave an auditorium at the statehouse in August 2020 during a protest of the Legislature’s special session and was rolled out of the building by police in a chair.
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