Montana - authorities are on a manhunt for an "extremely dangerous" former militia leader who triggered a shootout with cops and fled into the wilderness with a cache of weapons.
David Burgert, 47, a former head of a violent anti-government militia group, traded gunfire with Missoula County deputies along a logging trail after a slow speed car chase near Lolo, Mont., on Sunday, cops said.
The ex-Marine and backwoods survivalist started the 30-mile pursuit after cops tried to pull him over for driving wildly at a rest stop, authorities said.
After ignoring repeated commands to surrender, Burgert pulled his Jeep Cherokee onto a remote side road and started shooting, cops said.
Officers returned fire, but Burgert managed to flee into the woods on foot with a pack of gear, Missoula County Undersheriff Mike Dominick said.
No one was hurt, and local police called in a posse of federal and state agents to continue the hunt through the rugged terrain of the Lolo National Forest in western Montana.
"He is armed and extremely dangerous," Missoula County Undersheriff Mike Dominick said.
Burgert left behind stores of ammo and two automatic rifles, leading authorities to believe he had planned for a standoff.
"He was prepared for a confrontation," Dominick told the Associated Press. "He drove purposely onto the logging road and he engaged the deputies with one to three shots."
Agents found more ammo in another one of his cars, and officials believed he might have stashed food, weapons and another SUV along a planned escape route.
By late Monday, a band of 65 federal and state agents - including members of the FBI, National Guard and U.S. Marshals - had expanded the search beyond the swath of forest near Lolo using helicopters and tracking dogs.
But so far, there was no sign of the real-life Rambo.
"They think they lost him" Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry told Montana's Daily Inter Lake newspaper. "They do not necessarily think they have him contained in that area."
Burgert is the former leader of Project 7, a Montana militia that plotted to assassinate local officials, kill cops and ultimately topple the government, according to the FBI.
Feds labeled the crew a domestic terrorist group.
In 2004, he was sentenced to seven years in prison on weapons charges. Before his sentencing, he was diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder, according to the Associated Press.
During a traffic stop last week, he told a highway patrolman that "he wasn't going to be taken down like last time" and that "it would take a SWAT team" to bring him in, Dominick said.
He's described as 6-feet-2, 230 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. He was wearing a blue shirt and a fanny pack.
Cops think he's carrying a handgun and a rifle, and he could be driving a 1987 Jeep Wagoneer loaded with more weapons.
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