On the night of June 21, members of the Patriots Defense Force militia allegedly planted a bomb at a Bureau of Land Management cabin in Mount Trumbull, in northwest Arizona, with the intention of blowing the building apart. A Utah man, William Keebler, who leads the group, apparently orchestrated the failed attack in response to what he views as federal government overreach and the mismanagement of natural resources...
Court documents state that Keebler intended to blow up government vehicles and buildings, not people, though he also wanted to create a second bomb that might be “used against law enforcement if they got stopped while driving.” Keebler had also considered bombing a BLM office near the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City, but decided on the more remote Arizona location instead. The Mount Trumbull facility is near the grazing allotment of LaVoy Finicum, the activist who was shot and killed by the FBI in a confrontation at the end of the armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this year. Keebler knew Finicum and scouted the location of the bomb attack with him last year.
