Fbi Tightens Compound Security
Two people visited the barricaded freemen Tuesday, but there was either no sign of militia leaders from Michigan and Ohio who said they were coming to Montana on relief missions or they made no attempt to reach the freemen compound.
Security was noticeably tighter around the 960-acre farm complex where the anti-government extremists have holed up for 23 days.
FBI agents and Highway Patrol officers blocked all traffic from one road leading to the compound and searched vehicles more thoroughly than usual before allowing them to enter the rural area northwest of Jordan.
A man and woman in a sedan entered the compound with FBI permission about noon, but agents said officers at checkpoints were not told who they were. The FBI customarily allows visits by some relatives of the approximately 20 people inside.
Agents at the main checkpoint turned away a former member of the Branch Davidian religious sect, Wally Kennett, who said he was a reporter for a Hatch, N.M., newspaper, The Courier. Two companions who he said were reporting for a California newspaper were allowed to enter the restricted area while Kennett waited at a checkpoint.
FBI agents would not say why he was barred. Kennett said they were unable to verify that an outstanding warrant had been cleared.
Kennett, 32, said he left the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, a year before it was destroyed by fire during an assault by federal agents after a 57-day standoff.
A freeman on a tractor finished plowing an alfalfa field Tuesday. It appeared to signal that the freemen, most of whom are farmers by trade, have no intention of surrendering soon.
Michigan militia leader Norman Olson and colleague Ray Southwell arrived in Billings from Detroit Monday. Don Vos, described as the brigadier general of the Columbiana County Unorganized Militia in Ohio, also was reported to be in Montana, but was not seen near the freeman compound.
Olson tried to meet with the FBI field commander in Jordan but was rebuffed by five agents.