Fbi Camera Focused On Freemen Farm
The FBI installed a large surveillance camera Saturday on a hill overlooking the farm complex where the anti-government freemen have been isolated by federal agents for four weeks.
The FBI does not comment on its operations in the eastern Montana standoff. Network television technicians at the scene said the TV camera, in the back of a Ryder rental truck, had a lens that could magnify 66 times and might be equipped for night vision.
One photographer said it was the type of camera the networks use in covering football games.
It appeared the camera was being operated from a small country church at a nearby crossroads where FBI agents and Montana Highway Patrol officers maintain a checkpoint.
Five people who had driven from Mesa, Ariz., to Jordan to organize a “love and light gathering” were turned back Saturday from an FBI checkpoint about seven miles from the freemen’s compound.
The two men and three women distributed leaflets in Billings earlier in the week, asking people to join them in Jordan “until hostages are released.”
“We came up here to pray … that innocent people and innocent children aren’t hurt,” said Richard Leonard, who wore a headband and said he was from “wherever I’m at.”
About 18 men, women and children are believed to be inside the 960-acre complex. Neighbors said the group has weapons and enough supplies to last months.
On Saturday two men and two young girls were seen in the compound, planting by hand in a garden plot near a stream that runs through the property. The girls are believed to be the 8- and 10-year-old daughters of Gloria Ward, who is in the compound with her husband, Elwin.
Ward is wanted in Utah on felony charges of custodial interference for taking the children out of state.
The only casualty so far in the 28-day standoff has been FBI Agent Kevin J. Kramer, 34, of Sioux City, Iowa, who was killed April 14 when his pickup truck slid off a muddy dirt road near Jordan and overturned. The death was not directly related to the standoff.
Two memorial services for Kramer were planned Sunday in Jordan, one for FBI agents and an evening service open to the public at the Presbyterian church.
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