David Fry is the Last Fan Standing in the Malheur Refuge - Willamette Week 2/3/16, 2:06 PM

* (https://instagram.com/willametteweek/)" (https://twitter.com/wweek)! (https://facebook.com/wweek) + (http://www.wweek.com/find-a-paper/) (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJc6b2Bf2olt5_XfQpZ5GJA) , NEWSDavidRESTAURANTS FryBARS is the(http://www.wweek.com/category/news/) Last Fan Standing (http://www.wweek.com/category/restaurants/) in the Malheur Refuge - MUSICARTS (http://www.wweek.com/category/bars/) (http://www.wweek.com/category/music/) (http://www.wweek.com/category/arts/) One of the final militants left at the occupation came to follow his online hero: LaVoy Finicum. CANNABISGUIDESCALENDAR (http://www.wweek.com/category/cannabis/) (/guides/) (/calendar/)

David Fry (Photo by Amanda Peacher/OPB News)

!"#$%&+() By Contributor (/author/Contributor) Updated February 2 at 9:37 PM Published 6:30 AM

BY JOHN SEPULVADO @JohnLGC About Contributor This story originally appeared on OPB.org and is (/author/Contributor) reprinted with permission of Oregon Public This is a non-staff contribution to Willamette Week. Broadcasting. Read the original, longer report

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here. (http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns- oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news- updates/david-fry-lavoy-finicum-malheur-refuge- occupatin-oregon/)

Ten days into the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, David Fry was looking (http://www.wweek.com/restaurant- forward to going home. Shunned by the alpha-male guide-2015/) militant leaders in the camp, Fry—a skinny, Restaurant Guide 2015 bespectacled 27-year-old from Ohio—was waiting to (http://www.wweek.com/restaurant- talk to one person before he left. guide-2015/) Our annual list of Portland's 99 "I want to say goodbye to LaVoy, but then I have to best restaurants. (http://www.wweek.com/restaurant- go home," Fry told OPB the afternoon of Jan. 14. "I guide-2015/) think I make some of the guys nervous here because Martin Cizmar (/author/cizmarm/) of the bad things people are saying about me." October 28, 2015

Those "bad things" included criticism that Fry MOST READ supported the radical terrorist group ISIS and had Multnomah County Sheriff Dan repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler online. Staton Monitored Panel That is Discussing Major Changes to His Office - Less than two weeks later, LaVoy Finicum would be (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/03/multnomah- shot dead on a highway, and David Fry would be one county-sheriff-dan-staton- monitored-panel-that-is-discussing- of the last four militant holdouts at the compound. major-changes-to-his-office/) (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/03/multnomah- county-sheriff-dan-staton- Online, Fry is quick to engage with anyone willing to monitored-panel-that-is- listen. A believer in conspiracies, Fry comes off as discussing-major-changes-to-his- office/) bombastic, paranoid and angry. In defending his anti-Semitic posts, he wrote on his Google+ account, Your Guide to the 2016 Oregon "ZIONIST JEWS ARE NOT TRUE JEWS!" Legislature (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/03/your- guide-to-the-2016-oregon- "He's had his problems, some of which he's brought legislature/) on himself," his paternal grandfather, William Fry, (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/03/your- guide-to-the-2016-oregon- told OPB. "He gets pulled over for busted taillights, legislature/) and instead of just rolling down his window and handing over his insurance, he screams at the A Top Deputy Alleges Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton officer, 'What the fuck do you want?'" Harassed Her and Degraded Officials With Ex (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/02/a- Fry's anger, often directed at authority, resulted in a top-deputy-alleges-multnomah- strained relationship with his own father, William county-sheriff-dan-staton-harassed- her-and-degraded-officials-with- "Bill" Fry Jr. explicit-language/) (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/02/a- top-deputy-alleges-multnomah- county-sheriff-dan-staton- http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/03/david-fry-is-the-last-fan-standing-in-the-malheur-refuge/ Page 2 of 7 David Fry is the Last Fan Standing in the Malheur Refuge - Willamette Week 2/3/16, 2:06 PM

"We used to both be Tea Party guys," Fry Jr. said. harassed-her-and-degraded- officials-with-explicit-language/) "But we would argue even about that. I would always say, 'Ballots over bullets,' and he would get real mad, Iconic Jimmy Mak’s Jazz Club Will and we couldn't talk about it." Be Redeveloped Into Apartments (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/02/iconic- jimmy-maks-jazz-club-will-be- David Fry was bullied in high school because of his redeveloped-into-apartments/) Japanese heritage. (http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/02/iconic- jimmy-maks-jazz-club-will-be- redeveloped-into-apartments/) "He was one of five people who wasn't Caucasian at the school," Bill Fry said. "With his brother being one of the other five."

After school, David spent his time doing odd jobs at his father's dental office, and getting in minor scrapes.

"Dear America, here's a letter I received from Pioneer Collections Agency telling me they want some money because I refused to pay some criminal court fines for smoking marijuana on a river and not wearing a life jacket," Fry said in a YouTube video, where he shows himself burning the collections letter. "This is obviously tyranny. This is bullshit."

Online, David Fry found an older, male ear to bend in Robert "LaVoy" Finicum. The Arizona rancher had become a confidant of the Bundy family in 2014 after Finicum came to the Bundys' Nevada ranch in April, during the family's standoff with the Bureau of Land Management.

Finicum began posting videos on YouTube and long screeds in militia chat rooms. Fry casually commented on those videos and posts, and shortly the two began a digital correspondence.

Fry helped Finicum self-publish his book, Only by Blood and Suffering, a post-apocalyptic novel set in the Western desert.

"He talked about LaVoy a lot," Fry Jr. said. "but before he left [for Oregon], and I think if LaVoy wasn't there, [David] wouldn't have left."

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Bill Fry said the last conversation he ever had with his son, he tried to talk him out of leaving for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

"And like we always do…we just blew up at each other," Fry Jr. said. The two haven't talked directly since then, although David Fry said he called while his dad was on vacation.

"I'd like to have him home," Fry Jr. said, crying. "But it's not about me, and I don't think that would help. It's about his belief."

On Jan. 14, LaVoy Finicum, as he was known to do, made peace in the camp between leaders and David Fry. The leaders, particularly Ryan Payne, an Army veteran, were upset about Fry's online support of ISIS.

Even after the issues were smoothed over, the rest of the militant group did not accept Fry. "I don't know anything about him," militant Jason Patrick told OPB on Jan. 27. "I think he's just gawking. He's not going to help us when the FBI rolls in."

But Fry stayed, along with husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson, and Jeff Banta, even after Patrick turned himself in; even after a jailed Ammon Bundy pleaded Jan. 28 for him to leave.

"I will stay here to the end," he said, after Bundy's plea for the remaining occupiers to surrender.

Read further coverage of David Fry and militants in Harney County at OPB.org. (http://www.opb.org/)

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jhooligan 3 hours ago The OPB interview with this guy and one of the others last week was chilling. They sound like normal (not very smart) people, you start to feel kind of sorry for them, then they’re all like “We’ll shoot anyone who tries to arrest us”. Wild. Here’s the interview: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/thinkoutloud/segment/harney- county-occupiers-speak-affordable-housing-portland-audit/

EXPLORE TOPICS AND CATEGORIES

Ammon Bundy (/Tag/Ammon-Bundy)(/Tag/Ammon-Bundy)

David Fry (/Tag/David-Fry)(/Tag/David-Fry)

Harney County (/Tag/Harney-County)(/Tag/Harney-County)

LaVoy Finicum (/Tag/Lavoy-Finicum)(/Tag/Lavoy-Finicum)

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