BURNS, Ore. — BJ Soper has never supported the nearly monthlong occupation of a national wildlife refuge by armed anti-government activists. He sympathized with their frustrations about the federal government, but he thought calm negotiation was a better strategy.

Then on Tuesday, an Oregon state trooper shot and killed LaVoy Finicum, a cowboy-hat-wearing grandfather who acted as the occupiers’ spokesman.

Protesters stand in front of the Harney County Courthouse in Burns, Ore., on Friday. “I’m angry” one activist said. “We’ve got a man that’s dead. Over what?” The Associated Press

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Now Soper is furious, and he’s calling for people from all over the country to come to Burns to show their outrage at Finicum’s “ambush.”

“I’m angry,” Soper, 39, said late Friday, joining two dozen protesters in a light sleet outside the Harney County Courthouse. “We’ve got a man that’s dead. Over what? I don’t want to see any more bloodshed, and that’s not what I’m condoning. But at some point when American people keep getting killed by their government, people are going to fight back.”

Finicum’s killing has re-energized anti-government activists, even as the occupation at the nearby Malheur National Wildlife Refuge seemed to be running out of steam. Only four occupiers remained holed up at the refuge, while 11 others have been arrested. Their jailed leader, Ammon Bundy, who was arrested in the same operation in which Finicum was killed, has called for the three men and one woman still at the refuge to go home peacefully.

FBI VIDEO AMBIGUOUS

The FBI took the unusual step of releasing a video of Finicum’s shooting, which officials say shows him reaching at least twice for a holstered handgun. But the video, taken from an FBI aircraft, is of poor quality and is ambiguous, and it has only added to the conviction of Finicum’s supporters that his killing was nothing less than an execution.

“It was an assassination,” said Monte Siegner, 79, a Harney County resident at the protest who was holding a sign that said, “Ambushed and assassinated.” “He had his hands up,” Siegner said. “He didn’t have a gun in his hands, and he wasn’t threatening no one.”

FBI officials have withheld further comment on the shooting until a formal investigation concludes. But they have repeatedly said they want a peaceful resolution to the standoff. Greg Bretzing, the FBI spokesman who presented the video, said that “our negotiators are working around the clock” to end the standoff.

“I want to acknowledge the stress and disruption that the occupation of the refuge has caused has to the people of Harney County,” he said. “We know this is difficult. We know that you want this concluded as soon as possible. We are doing everything we can to bring this to a resolution safely and quickly.”

‘THE FBI HAS LIED TO US’

Soper, of the Pacific Patriots Network, which he described as an organization that helps people in need, said FBI officials have not been honest.

“They were ambushed in that canyon,” Soper said. “There’s no doubt about it. It was planned, it was premeditated. The FBI has lied to us from the get go, and we’re tired of it. They said they wanted a peaceful resolution, there was never an attempt to negotiate, and now a man’s dead.”

He said protests would continue daily “until some sense of reason is re-established here.”

He said he had put out calls on social media for people from around the country to come to Burns on Monday for a peaceful demonstration to show their anger over Finicum’s death and the government’s response to the wildlife refuge occupation.

“It’s time the American public knows exactly what’s going on out here,” Soper said. “It’s time for the militarized federal presence to end.”

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