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First Bundy trial goes to a jury with defendants feeling like patriots, looking like vigilantes

John L. Smith
John L. Smith
Opinion
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Flashing an almost boyish grin behind a dark growth of beard, Eric Parker beamed with pride as he stood, armed to the teeth, on the northbound I-15 bridge overlooking Toquop Wash outside Bunkerville.
It was April 12, 2014, and Parker and two friends from Idaho had just finished participating in an armed standoff between supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy and members of federal law enforcement. He’d been scared, he said, but with so much back-slapping and Facebook boasting going on, it would be fair to conclude the protesters felt just a little like heroes.
For his part, Parker had driven with two friends, Scott Drexler and Steven Stewart, after heeding a call to arms in order to help force the return of Bundy’s trespass cattle. Thanks to the presence of more than three dozen armed men, many directly associated with militia groups from throughout the West, they’d managed to halt a court-ordered cattle roundup and back down the feds. On social media, there was no shortage of bragging about how those scared Bureau of Land Management and National Parks Service rangers had bugged out after being outflanked and outfoxed.
In social media posts and interviews after the fact, Parker and other defendants spoke about the importance of standing up for the Constitution and his belief that the government’s overreach endangered the Republic. Parker wasn’t a militia member, he said, but he trained with one group and appreciated their importance.
It was a less confident Parker who recently took the witness stand in his own defense as one of six defendants accused of acting as gunmen and threatening federal officers as part of a conspiracy to assist Bundy, who owes the government $1 million in grazing fees and assessments. An electrician by trade, Parker said he was moved to act after viewing images Internet video of Bundy family members being roughed up by BLM officers during the government roundup.
Although defendant Gregory Burleson admitted in an FBI undercover interview that he’d traveled from Arizona to Bunkerville expecting to kill “rogue” federal agents, others were less threatening. They basked in the glory of their victory.
Parker is a husband and a father with no criminal record. On direct examination from his capable attorney Jess Marchese, Parker appeared every bit a reasonable, law-abiding citizen.
But not even Marchese at his best could successfully explain away the photograph of Parker in a prone position aiming his semi-automatic weapon through a concrete jersey barrier on the bridge. It was what most defense attorneys would call problematic. The image has come to symbolize the standoff’s deadly potential.
As he insisted so earnestly on the witness stand, Parker may indeed have driven all night out of a sense of righteous indignation and patriotism to aid a rancher he didn’t know over a controversy he didn’t clearly understand. The three men might not have been Idaho militia members -- although they were welcomed at a militia camp on the Virgin River and were part of its security detail, and later caught a ride to the Toquop Wash with co-defendant and admitted Montana militia man Ricky Lovelien. Maybe they really are just good ol’ boys from Idaho, as one attorney called them.
But it will be a challenge for jurors, now deliberating their fate, to appreciate the nuance: Not with all those images in evidence showing the defendants locked and loaded. Not with their statements after the fact.
It’s no great stretch to surmise the BLM botched the roundup and the publicity battle. But that doesn’t mitigate the defendants’ dilemma: Whatever motivated them to drive to Bunkerville, most prudent people are likely to agree that bringing high-powered rifles to a public protest is an act of intimidation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre gave the prosecution’s rebuttal Thursday before handing the case the jury. “These people, these people,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion, “took the law into their own hands and used guns."
“... Today, ladies and gentlemen, we’re not on a stage, we’re not in a wash, we’re not on a bridge. We’re in a courtroom.”
As Myhre spoke those words, not a single defendant was smiling.
John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and author. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.
Photo of Cliven Bundy speaking at a forum hosted by the American Academy for Constitutional Education at the Burke Basic School in Mesa, Arizona. Source: Wikimedia via Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ.
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