Police: Ammon Bundy arrested in trespassing case

PTI, Mar 13, 2022, 10:28 AM IST

Far-right activist Ammon Bundy, who’s running for governor in Idaho, has been arrested after refusing to leave a hospital in connection with a child-welfare case, police said Saturday.

Bundy was arrested at about 1:15 am 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.

The arrest Saturday concerned a 10-month-old 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, of Emmett, 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 for 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 Statehouse due to previous trespassing when he refused to leave an auditorium at the Idaho 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.