Idaho gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy arrested for trespassing

Idaho gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy, known for his involvement in armed standoffs with law enforcement, was arrested Saturday morning for trespassing at a hospital where he was protesting a child welfare case.

He was already scheduled to stand trial Monday for unrelated trespassing charges, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Bundy, who is running for governor as an independent, organized a protest over the weekend because he said his "very good friend Diego’s grandson was medically kidnapped because a medical practitioner called CPS [Child Protective Services] for a missed doctor appointment."

The 10-month-old child "was suffering from severe malnourishment" and was released from the hospital on March 4, the Meridian Police Department wrote in a press release.

During a follow up appointment, doctors discovered the baby had lost even more weight. His parents canceled two more follow-up appointments and were uncooperative with officials even though their child was at risk of death, law enforcement stated.

Eventually, police took the child into protective custody and brought him to St. Luke’s Meridian, Idaho, for medical care, according to Meridian police.

An anti-government activist known for his 2016 standoff with law enforcement at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and another in 2014 on federal land in Nevada near his family’s ranch, Bundy saw the events very differently.

"If this happened to [these parents], it could happen to you. We must stand against this medical tyranny," he wrote on Twitter.

Police stated Bundy and several supporters came to the hospital and "refused to leave the property when asked to do so."

Law enforcement made several attempts to get the group to leave, and when that failed, Meridian police arrested Bundy and three others. Bundy faces a trespassing misdemeanor.

His campaign confirmed his arrest on Twitter and said that he "was arrested in front of St. Luke's Hospital in Meridian for the crime of disagreeing with the hospital and CPS."

The campaign called it an "ambush arrest with no legal grounds." 

Bundy's campaign stated his friend's grandchild, Cyrus, was "medically kidnapped earlier in the night, due to a missed non-emergency doctors appointment." The campaign did not explain why police said the baby was severely malnourished and at risk of death.

He claimed on Twitter that "hundreds of people gathered with us at St. Luke’s in Boise to demand an end to medical tyranny and a prompt return of Baby Cyrus to his loving parents."

He will go on trial Monday for two misdemeanor trespassing charges and one charge of resisting or obstructing law enforcement after he was arrested twice in one day in April 2021 at the Idaho Capitol.