Freemen Detain Reporter, Photographer

An Associated Press reporter and photographer were detained briefly by armed anti-government fugitives on a public road in eastern Montana Thursday.

They were jostled and searched, and film was taken from the photographer’s camera, before they were released with warnings not to return.

AP newsman Tom Laceky, a 30-year veteran of the news cooperative based in Helena, and AP photographer Doug Pizac, based in Salt Lake City, encountered the so-called “freemen” on a county road outside of Jordan where a low-key standoff has been under way for months.

The freemen deny the legitimacy of existing government and existing law. Their band in Garfield County includes nine fugitives, facing criminal charges ranging from tax offenses and contempt of court to threatening the lives of public officials.

They are heavily armed, and authorities have not attempted to arrest them, saying they fear a violent confrontation such as that at Ruby Ridge.

Reporter Laceky and photographer Pizac were in the area to update the AP on the standoff. Laceky said he has tried for weeks to arrange an interview with the freemen, in telephone calls and through intermediaries, but all attempts were rebuffed.

So he and Pizac were simply driving a county road next to the fugitive compound to get an idea of the countryside and shoot some generic photos of the area for possible future use.

He said he stopped the AP’s rental car at a daunting mud puddle near the ranch, and freemen cars blocked their path forward and backward. Men carrying rifles and wearing holstered pistols confronted the two journalists.

“They pushed and slung us around a bit and yelled at us a lot, but they never pointed a gun at either of us, and we left without even a bruise,” Lackey said of the encounter.