The recent murders of a Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions and of a guard at the National Holocaust Museum have stoked fears of a rise in right-wing extremist violence -- just as that much-maligned DHS report predicted. And now it looks like we've got another one to add to the list...
According to local law enforcement, three people posing as police officers forced their way into the home of Raul Flores in Arivaca, Arizona, about 10 miles from the Mexican border, on May 30. They shot and killed Flores and his nine-year-old daughter, and wounded Flores' wife. The three, Shawna Forde, Jason Bush, and Albert Gaxiola, were arrested and charged last Thursday and Friday.
But here's where it gets interesting: Forde's brother, Merrill Metzger, has told the Arizona Daily Star that Forde had been talking recently about "starting a revolution against the United States government," and had said she planned to recruit members of the Aryan Nations as part of a plan to rob drug cartels.
It sounds like Forde had started putting that plan into action. Bush, accused of being the triggerman in the killing, was also charged Friday in the 1997 murder of a sleeping Hispanic homeless man in Washington, reports the paper. According to law enforcement authorities in the state, Bush "has had long-standing ties to the Aryan Nations." In 2003, they say, Bush moved to the Sandpoint area of northern Idaho, a historic center of white supremacist activity.
Both Forde and Bush also have ties to the fringe of the anti-immigration movement. As Josh noted last week over at TPM, Forde leads Minutemen American Defense (MAD), a vigilante group that conducts patrols of the US-Mexico border. And according to a recent post on MAD's website, since taken down, the group recently signed up Bush -- said to be a Special Forces veteran, and identified only as "Gunny" -- and put him in charge of "command decisions, Recon and Tactical training."
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/more_rightwing_violence_anti-immigrant_suspects_in_1.php?ref=fpa
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