In February 2024, American anti-government agitator Ammon Bundy posted a video with a provocative title to his YouTube channel: ‘Need to know the place Ammon Bundy is?’
Earlier in 2023, Bundy was ordered by an Idaho courtroom to pay greater than US$50 million in damages after accusing the state’s largest hospital of kid trafficking and main a marketing campaign of harassment towards its workers. A number of months later, in November 2023, a warrant was issued for Bundy’s arrest by an Idaho choose.
He promptly went into hiding together with his whereabouts not publicly identified — till now.
Whether or not he meant to or not, Bundy supplied simply sufficient data within the February video — a number of frames of a college district calendar on a fridge — to steer Bellingcat to his location in Washington County, in southern Utah.
Bellingcat reached out to the Ada County Sheriff’s Workplace, which issued the arrest warrant, for touch upon this piece; we acquired no reply on the time of publication.
“I’ve no considerations, I’ve not been hiding however working and offering for my household”, stated Bundy in a message despatched to Bellingcat shortly after the publication of this text. “At anytime peace officers may discover me if they need. I pray that Utah has a stronger sense to guard free speech than Idaho does”, he wrote.
Who’s Ammon Bundy?
Ammon Bundy is a outstanding American anti-government militant, a one-time candidate for governor of the state of Idaho and the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. In 2014, Cliven Bundy and his sons led an armed standoff towards Bureau of Land Administration rangers who had been trying to grab lots of of cattle that the Bundy household had reportedly let graze on public land with out paying taxes since 1993.
In 2016, Ammon Bundy led the takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, one other standoff with regulation enforcement which culminated within the dying of a rancher and the indictment of 27 of the occupiers. Whereas a number of of the activists concerned in each clashes with federal officers had been handed jail sentences, the Bundys had been discovered not responsible of any prison fees within the Malheur incident, and the Nevada standoff case resulted in a mistrial. Ammon Bundy was later convicted of trespassing and sentenced to group service after storming the Idaho State Capitol throughout a 2020 protest towards coronavirus-related laws. Somewhat than full the required group service, Bundy as a substitute tried to submit hours he had spent working for his marketing campaign for governor.
Robert Futrell, a professor of sociology on the College of Nevada at Las Vegas, instructed Bellingcat that Ammon Bundy was somebody “who sees himself main the righteous few towards the depraved — outlined as these he and his household and followers see as limiting their rights.”
Based on Futrell, who researches social actions and political extremism within the U.S., the Bundy household together with Ammon ascribe to a “distinctive apocalyptic model” of the Mormon religion, and see themselves as being on a mission from God. They consider, says Futrell, that the U.S. structure was divinely impressed and that the inspiration of the USA is a step towards establishing a ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ on Earth. The Bundys, stated Futrell, “use this divine imaginative and prescient to justify every kind of actions.”
In 2023 Bundy spearheaded a sequence of protests towards Idaho’s greatest hospital, the St. Luke’s Boise Medical Middle, after the state’s well being and welfare authorities eliminated and hospitalized a child, reportedly the grandson of certainly one of his associates, for malnutrition.
The actions of Bundy and his associates led to a lockdown on the hospital and the doxxing and threatening of medical doctors, law enforcement officials and youngster protecting providers (CPS) employees in addition to a neighborhood choose.
In July 2023, an Idaho jury discovered Ammon Bundy and several other associates accountable for $52.5 million in damages in a defamation case stemming from the kid’s hospitalisation. All through the authorized proceedings, Bundy refused to seem in district courtroom, resulting in his arrest in August 2023 on contempt fees.
“The defamation lawsuit vastly diminished [Bundy’s] stature and organisation,” stated Devin Burghart, president and government director of the Institute for Analysis & Training on Human Rights (IREHR), who produced a report on the actions of Bundy’s community. Burghart was an knowledgeable witness for the plaintiffs in Bundy’s civil case.
In November 2023, a brand new arrest warrant for a second contempt cost was filed towards Bundy after he failed to seem for the primary day of the trial regarding his earlier contempt cost.
In an electronic mail to the choose, Bundy wrote, “My complete life has been consumed by political prosecutions and I need to now do what is important to maintain my household.”
After which, Ammon Bundy disappeared.
‘Need to know the place Ammon Bundy is?’
Within the aforementioned February 24, 2024, YouTube video, Bundy talks to the digital camera whereas strolling by means of a home. In a number of frames close to the start of the footage, as Bundy walks by means of a kitchen, what seems to be a college calendar is seen on the fridge.
As reported in The Atlantic, rumours rapidly surfaced after Bundy’s disappearance that he had fled to southern Utah, however there have been no first-hand accounts or substantive proof. On this foundation, Bellingcat looked for on-line variations of native faculty calendars within the space, and located a match — a calendar for Iron County Colleges in southern Utah for January to Could 2024.
This was not the one video Bundy posted because the November 2023 warrant.
Bundy has a faithful following on social media the place he frequently posts movies to tens of 1000’s of followers. It took solely weeks after Bundy’s disappearance for him to resume his on-line exercise.
For instance, between December 2023 and March 2024, Bundy posted 4 movies from an indoor location. The constant background and wall ornament throughout this footage signifies that he has very possible been staying in the identical place since December 2023.
Two of those movies supplied additional corroboration of Bundy’s location in southern Utah.
A day after posting the video together with the varsity calendar, Bundy posted an 18-minute livestream to YouTube titled “Why our nation won’t survive.” On this video, Bundy paces outdoors whereas chatting with the digital camera.
Seen in these movies are numerous distinguishing options that allowed Bellingcat to slim down Bundy’s location to a particular property in Washington County, close to its border with Iron County. Bellingcat has chosen to not publicly determine the precise location on this article.
Step one within the geolocation course of was to find a bunch of mountains within the background of a number of of the frames.
Bellingcat recognized attainable mountains close to Iron County and looked for attainable vantage factors of these mountains utilizing Google Earth and Google Road View imagery.
Through the use of the photofit operate on PeakVisor, a instrument initially created for mountaineers, Bellingcat discovered that the panorama in Bundy’s livestream matched to Mount Baldy in Washington County, Utah, as considered dealing with south-west.
A view seen in certainly one of Bundy’s livestreams from February 21, 2024, allowed us to match the mountains to those hills positioned in Washington County, which allowed us to find the place the livestream was filmed.
Livestreaming from Utah
A subsequent livestream from Bundy gave extra affirmation of his presence in southern Utah. On March 18, 2024, he posted one other livestream to YouTube, titled ‘$10.000 continues to be up for grabs’.
Bundy filmed the eight-minute video whereas driving a truck on a freeway with certainly one of his youngsters within the passenger seat. Throughout the video, he acknowledged that members of his household “came around us final week” and that he and his youngster had been at the moment “driving up north collectively.”
Due to visible clues alongside the freeway as Bundy drove, Bellingcat was capable of geolocate the video to a northbound stretch of Interstate 15 in southern Utah. Considered one of these clues was a crimson signpost alongside the facet of the highway.
The video was filmed totally in Beaver County, which borders Iron County to the north.
The IREHR’s Devin Burghart cautions that, regardless of his community diminishing in measurement due to the defamation ruling, Bundy and his followers may nonetheless be harmful. Burghart instructed Bellingcat that Bundy exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to construct a community of tens of 1000’s throughout the U.S. and Canada.
“[Bundy] cultivated a harmful community of militia members, conspiracists, anti-vaxxers, white nationalists, and others into a military of followers,” Burghart stated. “Whereas he could also be in hiding, remnants of that community nonetheless stay.”
Leah Sottile, a journalist who has coated the Bundy household extensively, described Bundy as a “far-right provocateur” and additional warned that his followers may pose a hazard sooner or later, based mostly on their actions prior to now.
“Ammon Bundy has persistently sought assistance from well-armed individuals since he got here into the general public eye in 2014,” Sottile instructed Bellingcat. “Given his ever-increasing rhetoric and this sample of in search of armed vigilantes to assist him, I can’t see why he, or the individuals round him, would do something totally different now.”
This text was up to date on March 28, 2024 to incorporate remark from Ammon Bundy.
Michael Colborne and Tristan Lee contributed analysis.
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