Freemen Meet With Fbi Agents Face-To-Face Meeting Is The First Since Standoff Began In March

Members of the antigovernment freemen met face-to-face with FBI agents for an hour and 40 minutes Thursday, the first such meeting since a standoff at the extremist group’s rural compound began March 25.

Colorado state Sen. Charles Duke, after meeting with the freemen for 2-1/2 hours Thursday morning, returned in the afternoon with two FBI agents. They met with four freemen negotiators near the gate of the 960-acre farm-and-ranch complex, exchanged what appeared to be tentative handshakes as the meeting began.

The seven men stood outside in a steady rain for the entire meeting.

A local resident at the scene identified two of the freemen as Rodney Skurdal and Edwin Clark, who are among the leaders of the extreme right-wing group.

Clark is a member of the farming and ranching family that owned the land before a bank foreclosed on it in 1994. Skurdal, of Roundup, Mont., was identified earlier by negotiator James “Bo” Gritz as one of a few hardcore members of the group who would be least likely to want to surrender.

A television reporter identified a third freeman involved in the talks as Russell Landers, a North Carolina man and fugitive from Colorado, who is accused of filing phony property liens against officials.

The fourth freemen was Dale Jacobi of Thompson Falls in northwestern Montana, a former police officer in Calgary, Alberta.

“We didn’t necessarily push for closure (agreement) today, that’s for future meetings,” Duke said later at a roadside news conference outside the FBI operations center near Jordan.

He said the same group would meet today.

Asked if he still believed he could facilitate the freemen’s surrender, Duke sounded somewhat less optimistic than before he arrived. It is “too early to know,” he said.

Gritz reportedly has told the FBI that the only solution is a non-violent raid by the agents who encircle the farm complex. His recommendation came in a report he wrote to the FBI, the Denver Post reported Thursday.

Gritz also said the group in the farm complex numbers 21 instead of the 18 to 20 cited by the FBI, including three young girls.

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