Meet The Child-Abusing Arsonists That Inspired The Oregon Militia Standoff
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The circumstances of both fires are worth examining. The first occurred in 2001. According to prosecutors, several members of the Hammond family set this fire “less than three hours after Steven Hammond illegally shot several deer on BLM land,” a claim they corroborate by citing testimony from D.H.*, Dwight’s grandson and Steven’s nephew. The fire, moreover, “consumed 139 acres of public land and destroyed all evidence of the game violations.”
D.H. also testified that his uncle Steven gave him matches and told him to help start the fires. Some time thereafter, D.H. says that he was separated from the rest of his family and found himself surrounded by burning flames. To escape harm he sheltered in a creek.
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D.H. also testified that, after the first fire, “Dwight told me to keep my mouth shut, that nobody needed to know about the fire, and they didn’t need to know anything about it.” According to D.H., Steven, who was sitting next to Dwight at the time, added that his nephew should “keep [his] mouth shut.” D.H. said that he complied with these instructions because he was “afraid of Steven and Susie [D.H’s grandmother, Dwight’s wife].”
D.H. appears to have had good reason to fear his family. In 2004, D.H. told a sheriff’s deputy about several times that he says he was abused. In one incident, Steven allegedly punched D.H. hard enough to knock him to the ground and “took [D.H.’s] face and rubbed it into the gravel” during an argument over how D.H. was performing his chores. In another incident, after D.H. was cited for being a minor in possession of alcohol, Steven allegedly punished D.H. by driving him ten miles from the family ranch and then making him walk home. In a third incident, after D.H. was cited as a minor in possession of tobacco, Steven allegedly “made him eat two (2) cans of Skoal Smokeless Tobacco and then again walk from Diamond, Oregon to the Hammond Ranch.”
A fourth incident is particularly striking, however. D.H., who reportedly has been diagnosed with depression, used a paper clip to carve the letter “J” into one side of his chest and the letter “S” onto the other side. In response, Steven allegedly “told him that he was not going to let [D.H.] deface the family by carving on himself.” D.H. said that Steven then used sandpaper to remove the carved letters from D.H.’s chest — sanding each side for at least five minutes. Steven also allegedly told D.H. that “he would filet the initials off” his chest if the sandpaper did not work.
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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/04/3735722/meet-the-child-abusing-arsonists-at-the-center-of-the-oregon-militia-standoff/
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