Details are emerging from the investigation into the Arizona murder of a nine-year-old girl and her father tying two of the three accused both to national Minutemen groups and to the white supremacist group Aryan Nations. Since the murders Minuteman groups have tried to distance themselves from the accused, describing them as lunatic loners without genuine Minuteman ties. The facts, however, would seem to indicate otherwise.
San Diego's East County Magazine links accused ringleader Shawna Forde as well as accused shooter Jason Eugene Bush, both pictured here, to the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) founded by Chris Simcox. According to this report, Forde briefly attended a San Diego County MCDC training camp known as "Camp Vigilance" in August 2008. Forde showed an MCDC badge upon arrival, indicating that she had been vetted by the group.
Meanwhile, the Colorado Independent links Forde to former Colorado congressman and immigration firebrand Tom Tancredo, observing that Tancredo's 2008 presidential campaign participated in a July 2007 event in Washington State organized by Forde's group, Minuteman American Defense (MAD), in association with conservative group The Reagan Wing. Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist delivered a speech at the event, as did Forde herself, and California congressman Duncan Hunter spoke to the audience by phone (Everett Herald). Representatives of Fred Thompson's 2008 campaign were also slated to participate.
The Colorado Independent notes that Forde and Tancredo also share ties to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Tancredo has a long and well-known relationship with FAIR, and Forde participated in a televised 2006 town hall meeting in Yakima, Washington at which she was repeatedly identified as a FAIR representative (Tancredo has come under fire recently for his harsh attacks on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, including his charge that she is a "racist" and that a respected Latino organization to which she belongs, the National Council of La Raza, amounts to a "Latino KKK." In 2008 Tancredo staffer Marcus Epstein plead guilty to charges of assaulting an African American female passerby in Washington DC, calling her "n-word" and striking her on the head. Epstein remains executive director of Tancredo's PAC, "Team America.").
Additionally, the Arizona Daily Star reports statements from Forde's immediate family indicating that Forde was actively recruiting members of the Aryan Nations to rob "drug cartels" and to start "a revolution against the United States government." Accused shooter Bush also has long-standing ties to the Aryan Nations, according to a police statement cited in this report.
Materials including photos recently removed from the MAD website also place Forde at an April 15 "tea party" event in Phoenix at which Forde's favorite protest sign was one reading, "Stop the Obama-Nation of America." Forde, Bush, and a third suspect were charged June 12 in Pima County, Arizona, for the murder on May 30 of nine-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul, allegedly in the commission of a home-invasion robbery targeting Mexican Americans thought by Forde to be involved in "drug cartels" or "the Mexican mafia."
Pictured here with the murder victims is wife and mother Gina Flores, who was also shot but survived (KOMO):
Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com
