[xzins]

What it doesn’t explain is why the need for armed agents to confront them in the first place. They were driving to a meeting which included THE SHERIFF of all people.

Leave them alone.

Let it run out, play out, get old.

Who cares that they occupy a firefighter’s shack?

I don’t.

Some homeless guy gets shelter there, then more power to him.

[Scirparius]

What it doesn’t explain is why the need for armed agents to confront them in the first place. They were driving to a meeting which included THE SHERIFF of all people.

That is where I think we see the hand of the political class and upper level bureaucrats. Forcing an armed confrontation with the protestors serves their ends (advancing the gun control agenda, increasing the specter of "homegrown" terrorism, etc.), and they know the media will back their message.