Clive Bundy Ranch Standoff

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BUNKERVILLE — More than 100 head of Cliven Bundy’s confiscated cattle were released from a corral outside of Mesquite after a 20-minute standoff between angry and armed ranchers and law enforcement officers Saturday.

With rifles pointing toward each side and tensions reaching a critical level, federal land officials backed off and agreed to give up the cattle to Bundy’s family and supporters.

The mid-afternoon release by the Bureau of Land Management was hailed as a victory among supporters who had forced the closure of Interstate 15 after marching to the holding pen on the sides of the highway, although environmentalists condemned the agency’s decision.

The BLM, upset that Bundy has refused to pay about $1 million in grazing fees to the federal government for two decades, had seized at least one-third of his cattle earlier this week in a raging debate that captured national attention and whose purpose was also to protect a critical habitat of the threatened desert tortoise.

But on Saturday the BLM decided to halt the roundup, fearing for the safety of its agents and the public.

Bundy was overcome with joy when told of the pullout earlier Saturday, and his enthusiasm was catching. A crowd just outside his ranch cheered as he shouted, “Good morning America! Good morning world! Isn’t it a beautiful day in Bunkerville?”

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie served as a negotiator between Bundy and the BLM late Friday night, but neither side said they anticipated protesters to march toward the corral.

Gillespie just moments earlier had told Bundy supporters to remain peaceful. It’s something he’d been saying all week as the Gold Butte clash heated up. The feud was held up as just another example of how the federal government takes its actions to an extreme, infringing on landowner rights.

But in Gillespie’s short speech to the crowd on the banks of the Virgin River, where Bundy’s cattle once grazed, he failed to elaborate on what federal agents planned to do with the 170 penned-up cattle.

So after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, singing the National Anthem and saying a few prayers, protesters took matters into their own hands and mobilized in an attempt to free them. They were kept at bay by sheriff deputies and an array of federal agents in what turned into a tense standoff. One person said officers used bullhorns to tell marchers to keep away or they’d be shot.

“There have been no shots and nobody has been injured and my men are working real hard to keep the calm,” Gillespie said by telephone from the scene. “But emotions are high, and we’re going to make sure that it ends peacefully.”

Las Vegas police issued a statement saying business owners in Mesquite had received threats because of the conflict. Extra officers will remain in the area throughout the weekend.

And the Metropolitan Police Department said more officers will remain in the area over the weekend and more officers have been assigned to the Clark County Fair “to ensure everyone’s safety.”

Protesters’ actions cap a weeklong fight that has pitted armed federal agents against Bundy, a 67-year-old rancher who claims the land is either his for his cattle to graze on or it belongs to the state of Nevada, but it certainly doesn’t belong to the federal government.

Theresa Casella, who came to Nevada from Phoenix to protest, said she couldn’t believe that the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service were pouring millions of dollars into impounding Bundy’s cattle, which is his livelihood.

“Wasn’t that a hangable offense back in the day?” she said, half jokingly from the passenger seat of her pickup. “And now we have the federal government doing it? Back in the day, that was called rustling, I think.”

The roundup of what government called “trespass cattle” occurred in an area that spans 1,200 square miles in Clark County.

“We the people in this area have nothing to fear,” said Bundy, wearing a cowboy hat and a T-shirt bearing his family name. “We can carry our weapons if we like because we have Second Amendment rights, and those are God-given rights. Those Second Amendment rights are our rights. But, and I say ‘but,’ because we don’t have to carry them right now because we’re afraid. I’m telling you that right now. Because there’s been a lot of people who’ve been afraid, and I know that feeling. Just yesterday evening I was really afraid. … Today, we have been confirmed by our creator that we do not have to be afraid.

“This is his battle. This is his battle.”

For its part, the BLM released little information once the roundup got underway a week ago, often canceling press conferences at the last minute. Mostly the message was the same: it was seizing Bundy’s cattle because it has repeatedly to get Bundy to pony up his debt or suffer the consequences.

The Bundy ranch itself, whose cattle operations have existed since the late 1800s, became a fortified compound overnight, courtesy of militias who came from throughout the West to protect Bundy from what they perceived as “government tyranny.”

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