Shawna Forde, 41, Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, and Jason Eugene Bush, 34, have been indicted by a Pima County Arizona on two counts each of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder, as well as burglary, aggravated assault and robbery charges in the home invasion and murder of Raul and Bresenia Flores, and the attempted murder of the mother, Gina Marie Gonzalez.
The arraignment is scheduled for June 29 in Pima County Superior Court, Tucson Arizona.
Rick Unklesbay, chief trial counsel for the Pima County Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors have until 60 days after the arraignment to announce if they intend to seek the death penalty. Other than that, the DA declined further comment on the case.
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Who is the 4th person in the shootings of Brisenia Flores and her father? One name keeps popping up in places it doesn’t belong. Chuck Stonex
Authorities investigating the murders of 9 year old Brisenia Flores and her father, 29 year oldRaul Flores Jr, are saying there were four people involved and anticipate more arrests in the future. The mother, 31-year-old Gina Marie Gonzalez, was wounded by one of the suspects when they returned to the crime scene to retrieve a forgotten weapon.
Who might this 4th person be? A name keeps surfacing each time anything involving Shawna Forde occurs.
Chuck Stonex of Alamagordo New Mexico.
Back in January of this year, when Shawna Forde was reporting her alleged “rape” and comments on the Everett Herald website were questioning the validity of her story, like a white knight, Stonex came galloping to her rescue.
Stonex’ antics were reported on the website Immigration Clearinghouse, the same site that originally questioned Forde’s rape claim as a hoax
The article was entitled “Defender of Shawna Forde relies on lies, slander and racism to defend the indefensible and that put it mildly.
Advocate said;
The people who have been following the antics of Shawna Forde in the Everett Wa. Herald will recognize well the name CHUCK STONEX of Alamagordo NM, a rabid defender of Shawna Forde, self styled National Director of the 14 member Minutemen American Defense.
God help anyone who disagrees with Chucky as one young lady discovered.
Stonex begin commenting on the stories about Forde in the Everett Herald and attacking anyone who didn’t agree with his point of view, including this writer.
He took it one step further though. One young lady who posts as LUGOMX challenged STONEX. Here is one of her posts.
A resident of the Seattle area responded to the story of the “rape” and to Stonex’ previous comments.
Here is the text.
“Shoot, reload, shoot, call 911 is my SOP.” -Chuck Stonex, Minuteman.
“Shoot, reload, shoot, call 911 is my SOP.” -Chuck Stonex, Minuteman. ARE YOU SERIOUS????!!!!! That is murder, Chuck Stonex.
Please, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Any law enforcement officer who has read his comments, please, do your duty and investigate Mr. Stonex. _________________________________________________ Shawna Forde, Chuck Stonex, and these Minutemen, in my opinion, are racist. PERIOD.
We pay taxes for border patrol who are TRAINED to do so, for the safety of the border patrol agents as well as the people attempting to cross the border. These untrained “volunteer” minutemen go to the border to carry out their racist agenda, because they know that there will be no repercussions for mistreating their victims.
We can’t just “volunteer” as police officers and arrest criminal, pull people over, check for warrants and take them to jail! So why does the US allow people, (like Shawna Forde, a large majority of them likely associated with the KKK) carry out duties that are ALREADY assigned to paid, trained government officials???
As soon as you get racists patrolling the Mexican border-there are GOING TO BE PROBLEMS!!!
Just imagine how the KKK would treat a Mexican if they could get away with it! Hate crimes almost always make the news, the accused are usually arrested and charged with a hate crime, right? Yet it happens EVERYDAY at the border – with no consequences, no punishment!!!!!
These immigrants can’t just call the police if they are beaten or see a companion MURDERED!!! They have nowhere to turn for protection against these MINUTEMEN!!! Sure, they are crossing illegally, but does this give these minutemen the right to carry out an immediate execution!?!
If a government official abuses their power or commits a hate crime, I assume they would be pulled from the border. What government agency supervises these “volunteer” minutemen to protect the lives of these Mexicans who cross the border? They are mistreating, torturing and KILLING Mexican immigrants EVERYDAY, some of them used as target practice by these minutemen.
One of whom identifies himself as the “cockroach hunter.” Yet, no one does anything about it.
Three women, including a 16 year old girl were drowned after being pelted with stones when trying to cross the Rio Grande. Mexican officers recovered their bodies downstream, they were later identified as a mother, daughter and aunt. They are HUMAN BEINGS, people!
The majority come here because there are no jobs, they are homeless and hungry. What would you do if there were no jobs available for hundreds of miles, you had nowhere to stay, and there was no government assistance or unemployment and children to feed and care for??? They come here to survive, but they face death again at the hands of cruel individuals so full of hate that they are more than eager to take it out on defenseless human beings.
Anyone who would like to contact me, I will be pressuring law enforcement to investigate not only the newest false claim made by Shawna Forde for filing a false police report, but Mr. Chuck Stonex regarding his commments.
Thank you, Rick for standing up for what is right.
Anyone with half a brain knows she is falsely claiming her attacks to get attention. She will stop at nothing to carry out her racist agenda.
Thank you, also, Steve Johnson for your quote:
“Wack Jobs Aplenty I’m not sure who’s the bigger nutcase, Shawna or Chuck. It is not reassuring that anyone as unstable as this pair are walking around armed to the teeth. A piece of advice to you two; illegal immigrants are not the reasons your lives are a mess. Take a look in the mirror. Pathetic.” -Steve Johnson.
I’m no “keyboard warrior,” I’m the WIFE of a 100% LEGAL Mexican immigrant, and the MOTHER of 3 beautiful, innocent Mexican-American children. They are the future and they did nothing to deserve the prejudices they experience everyday. It scares me to death to know that someone who’s “SOP” is “shoot, reload, shoot, call 911? (Chuck Stonex)- whether it be on the border or anywhere for that matter. And I hope I’m not alone.
Denise Lugo
denise@REDACTED
This infuriated Mr Chuck Stonex so much that he did what is common amongst these vigilantes, he took the cowardly path of least resistance. He contacted the persons employer, or so he thought.
—– Original Message —–
From: Chuck Stonex – cstonex@msn.com
To: info@ivivid.net
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 9:23 PM
Subject: Denise Lugo aka LugoMexican1
Does Denise Lugo work for you? Read her radical and racial comments at the bottom of this article. Is she the kind of person you want to represent your company?
Please keep my address private in this matter. I believe some of her friends may be involved in these attacks.
Is this a man or what? An “American Patriot” no doubt. But Stonex apparently was not satisfied with the response he received from the ladies employer. He had to go one step further. He had to out her in public with his virulent hate.
But guess what? He got the wrong person and libeled a well respected surgeon.
Here’s Stonex’s next letter in which he blames his target for the problems HE caused the good doctor.
—– Original Message —–
From: Chuck Stonex
To: denise@ivivid.net
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 8:50 AM
Subject: LugoMexican1
If this isn’t you, you have caused her a lot of major problems starting with her employer.
I cannot imagine how anyone can have so much hatred in their heart and be so ignorant as you. If you were not so afraid of the truth, you could almost be a useful person instead of another bottom feeding Mexican parasite.
Denise Lugo, MD
I’ve redacted the portion of this email which gives this innocent Doctor’s resume and all personal contact information. However, it is available for any law enforcement or media outlets who request it.
…………………….Personal Information
After training in Boston, Dr. Lugo moved to the Seattle area. She enjoys participating in community outreach. On weekends, she enjoys hiking, art museums, walking her dog (Hungarian Viszla) and spending time with her family.
Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS)
Chuck
Stonex’ involvement in the Flores murders
It’s a little too coincidental that this person just happened to be in Arizona when the killings occurred.
The Sahuarita Sun and other papers are reporting Stonex’ involvement
Chuck Stonex, another member of the group who has since distanced himself from it, was visiting Arizona from his home in New Mexico at the time of the murders, and in an interview Tuesday said he bandaged Bush’s wounds at Forde’s request.
“I got a call that morning (May 30) that someone had been injured and they needed medical supplies,” he said. “They told me after the fact that they were injured by border bandits.”
Stonex traveled to Arivaca where Forde and Bush were hiding out at a safe house. He treated Bush’s wounds, which he described as minor, and returned to Tucson where he had a motel room.
Two days later, he spoke to Forde again.
“She said, ‘It’s getting real hot around Arivaca,’” he said. “‘We’re going to go to Tucson and rent a hotel room.’”
He met them in Tucson for dinner, then returned to New Mexico.
Stonex saw a television news report about the shootings and said he later was told by a Sheriff’s detective that Forde and Bush were involved. He said he was in Arizona to meet friends and patrol the desert around Tombstone and had no knowledge of or connection to the Arivaca murders.
Stonex said a Sheriff’s deputy told him that Bush has admitted lying to him to get medical help and that he was being “cooperative” with authorities. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has said they are still pursuing leads on more possible suspects.
And like the rest of the rat’s running for their nest’s, Stonex certainly did distance himself from Forde, after the fact. His statement:
LET IT BE KNOWN:
I wish it to be known by every one from this moment forward, that I am no longer associated, affiliated or involved with Minuteman American Defense, M.A.D., Shawna Forde or any other part of that organization.
From this point forward, I wish to sever any and all relationships, participation, association, ties or affiliation with Shawna Forde and Minuteman American Defense and it’s subsidies.
From Chuck Stonex, Former National Officer, MAD / New Mexico State Director
So let me get this right.
Chuck Stonex just happens to be in Tucson during the time frame the murders occurred?
Chuck Stonex is called to Arivaca Arizona to render medical aid for a minor gunshot wound knowing they are in hiding?
Chuck Stonex renders aid to the murderer Jason Eugene Bush without question and accepts the explanation of a smuggler shooting him?
Chuck Stonex does not report the gunshot wound to authorities?
Chuck Stonex claims he was there to patrol the border around Tombstone?
Why was Chuck Stonex not with his leader? Or perhaps he was!
Could Chuck Stonex, this “patriotic American”, who answers criticism with cowardly attacks on innocent women, be THE 4th Man?
“Shoot, reload, shoot, call 911 is my SOP” – Chuck Stonex, Minuteman
Problem is the mother is the one who called 9-11
The now defunct website of Shawna’s Fordes Minutemen American Defense listed child killer Jason Bush as having served overseas for several tours and having earned numerous medals, including the Bronze Star, Silver Star and the Purple Heart. But it appears that this person who calls himself “Gunny” is nothing more than a common criminal, whose record would preclude him from having served in any branch of the armed services.
“Gunny” refers to the E-7 rank of a Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, a rank that takes at least 8 years of service to obtain.
Jason E. Bush, charged Friday with murder in the stabbing death of a Wenatchee transient in 1997 — filed a declaration in Chelan County six months after the killing stating he was bipolar and schizophrenic and “cannot control my own behavior.”
Eleven years ago, Bush claimed that, “For most of my life since the age of eleven or twelve, I have had an experience of being outside of myself, of watching another person take over my body. I start going haywire, and I don’t know what I’m doing or why.”
Bush was not, at the time, a suspect in the slaying of Hector Manuel Lopez Partida, 29, who was stabbed on July 24, 1997, while sleeping near grain elevators in the 700 block of South Wenatchee Avenue.
Wenatchee Police linked him to the killing in late January, when DNA on a shirt found at the scene was resubmitted to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab and using new technology, came back to match Bush’s.
Bush’s declaration, filed Jan. 7, 1998, in Chelan County Superior Court, came in a request for a psychological evaluation as defense against charges for possession of stolen property and attempted theft.
But an Eastern State Hospital evaluation determined he was competent to stand trial, and he was eventually convicted and sent to prison for those and other crimes committed in Wenatchee in 1997.
Wenatchee Police, in an affidavit filed with the second-degree murder of Lopez, said Bush has longtime ties to the Aryan Nations.
Public records show he was convicted as a juvenile for burglary, grand theft and writing a check without funds in Bonner County and Kootenai counties in Idaho before he moved to Wenatchee.
Not long before moving to Wenatchee in May of 1997, he lived in Cowley County, Kan., where he was convicted as a young adult of battery against a law enforcement officer, burglary, attempted escape and trafficking in contraband in a penal institution.
In his early 20s, Bush apparently only lived in Wenatchee a short time — from May of 1997 until he was sent to prison in December of 1998.
During that time he committed three felonies — possession of stolen property, unlawful possession of a firearm and taking a motor vehicle without permission — and was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison. He was also charged with second-degree assault, but later pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, according to Chelan County Superior Court records.
The assault occurred in what was then called the Chelan County Regional Jail, where, according to the affidavit for probable cause, Bush walked into another inmate’s cell and “assaulted him repeatedly to the point (the victim) lost consciousness.” The inmate suffered fractures to his nose and cheekbone. Court papers say the assault was over sexual preferences. Another inmate told police at the time that the fight was unprovoked, and that Bush, who is much bigger than the victim, “bragged about having a black belt in tae kwon do.”
After he got out of prison in 2003, he moved back to Idaho, living in the Sandpoint and Hayden Lake areas through 2007, according to an affidavit filed Friday by Wenatchee Police Sgt. John Kruse.
Kruse’s statement also said that Bush has “long standing ties” to Aryan Nations groups.
Albert Robert Gaxiola, one of three charged with murder in an Arivaca home invasion, is escorted from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
Relief swept over Arivaca on Friday as the Pima County Sheriff’s Office announced three arrests in the brutal murders of a man and his 9-year-old daughter.
But along with it came despair at news that one of the suspects is a well-liked resident.
Albert Robert Gaxiola, described by friends and neighbors as “one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet,” was arrested in Tucson on Friday afternoon in connection with the May 30 murders of Raul Flores Jr. and his daughter Brisenia.
Gaxiola, 42, has relatives in Arivaca and had been working at the Rocking “A” Feed & Hardware store for about three years.
One Arivaca man, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was friends with Flores and Gaxiola. He said the quiet community that looks out for its own is shocked that Gaxiola could be involved in the crimes — especially the murder of a child.
“It’s kind of a slap in the face. Nobody would expect that,” he said. “He was a real nice guy. He loved kids.”
Still, he added, residents are relieved that someone is in custody in the face of rumors that drug cartels may have been involved, and that they could strike again.
Also in custody in connection with the incidents are Forde, 41, of Washington state, the head of a Minuteman splinter group called Minutemen American Defense, and Jason “Gunny” Bush, 34, alleged to be the trigger man and listed on the group’s Web site as “operations director.”
Sheriff’s officials said the three were looking for drugs and money to fund their efforts to keep illegal immigrants and drug runners out of the country.
All three have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of aggravated assault. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said officials are looking for other people in connection with the case.
Dupnik said Flores was “a large dealer” who likely had connections to large Mexican drug cartels and “has a history of being involved in narcotics.”
Most residents had an idea that Flores was smuggling drugs, the man said — his big car and money were a tipoff. But the real tragedy was that Brisenia had to pay the price.
Despite his flaws, Flores, known as “Junior,” was a good father, the man said; his daughters were “never dirty, always clean, well-dressed, polite, sweet little girls.”
Arivaca residents are now banding together behind their neighbors. Friday evening found a few women collecting donations to help support Flores’ wife, who was shot three times and is recovering, and his 12-year-old daughter, who was with her grandmother in Sahuarita when the shootings happened.
"As I walk into a familiar place that takes me back in time and see many weathered faces of my Friends but eyes jolly and full of laughter that you just cant help but grin when you walk in. Dressed for business and all but free, that's me! The perfect place to plan a murder!"
It was a somber scene as residents gathered at the midtown saloon. The conversations drifted from music to politics to sports, but always back to the events of May 30 as hugs and tears flowed.
Forde, the ringleader of the plot to murder and rob the Flores family, according to deputies, had sat at that bar months earlier while in town patrolling the border as part of her group, locals said.
Though they kept her at arm’s length, they said that she seemed normal, contrary to Dupnik’s assertion that she is “at best, a psychopath.”
Bush is unknown to residents.
Gaxiola, by all accounts, wasn’t involved in the Minuteman group, and his friends don’t know what could have motivated him to join Forde and Bush.
SOURCE: By Daniel Newhauser, Green Valley News
Shawna Forde, in her brand new bullet ptoof vest, looks right at home in the comm center of Camp Vigilence. Photo courtesy of Shawna’s Corner MAD
CONFIRMED: Shawna Forde has Direct Ties to National Minuteman Groups! Ties to Both Simcox and Gilchrist!
East County magazine has confirmed what many continue to deny and the GI Joe’s and other wannabe’s are furious.
The comments to this expose’ are coming fast and furious. As if often the case, when the cowards are caught, the become angry and the fingerpointing and name calling begin.
Here’s some examples to this article.
Submitted by kdreger on Tue, 06/16/2009 – 06:12.
Well, where do we start……….
Mr. OR Mrs. Editor
Your claims to have factual information are NOT firsthand reporting, you have no actual factual firsthand knowledge of any of the information in your so called article and I will give you examples.
1. Your claim that Frode attended training at Camp Vigilance is totally incorrect, I personally have checked signin sheets back to Jan 1, 2008 and she never was on the property in any fashion other that for 1 hour in August 08.
2. Your claim that Camp Vigilance is operated by Minuteman Civil Defense is also incorrect, it is NOT operated by that group, factually incorrect again. It is operated by Minuteman California Corp Inc. (Not at all associated with MCDC)
3. Your comment from Enrique Morones from Border Angels should also include his group. Ask him why his group failed to report a young missing woman and child in East county of Feb 2008 to the local & BP officials who was thought to be missing in the freezing cold of winter! Ask Morones why his group went to Mexico looking for this pair for a week and then came back to the US without letting anyone in the rescue area assist! Ask Mr. Morones WHO actually assisted him in a search for these two, ask him! Ask Mr. Morones about who took his 7 people into the mountains of the East county gun club area for over 7 hours looking for these two. Then ask him if that group was Violent!
4. Again you claim that MCDC maintains the Camp Vigilance facility, this also is incorrect, I am one of the camp leadership people, MCDC has never had a part in any leadership of Camp Vigilance Factually incorrect again. MCDC along with other groups operate out of Camp Vigilance.
5. More second hand hear say about Britt and Shana Forde going to Camp Vigilance. In August 2008 at roughly 2:00PM her group went to Camp Vigilance, presented a MCDC ID card, and our (New) caretaker let them onto the property. (That card was false identification, as it expired when MCDC let her go in 2006, so she presented false documents to gain access to the facility) . He showed them around, and they were able to convience him to even open our communications center. Upon doing this they procedded to take photos of restructed areas. At approximatley 3:00PM I got a call from the caretaker letting me know who was on the property, he was told to immediatley remove them from the property as they were not, nor never were or have been welcome at Camp Vigilance at which time he did so.
6. Your claim that SPLC classifies MCDC as a “nativist extreamist group” is also incorrect. MCDC is full of people of color, people from countries around the globe, how on earth could that be “nativist”? Anyway everone with half a brain knows that the SPLC is so far out there they don’t even register any longer as a creditable source for valid information.
If these people are found to be guilty of committing this hanis crime they will get just what is coming to them, and we stand behing any decission like that, criminals must be punnished! Every criminal, no exceptions.
As for Minutemen being some type of supremacist group, ask Ted Hays if we are that, he is one of us also. Ask Ted if he ever heard anything racist from us.
Now, please do all your readers a favor and check your facts, check them more than once, Journalism is a skill, a art form strive to be the best. Re-reporting is for people with no skills.
Respectfully,
Then we get the crap from this patriot!
Submitted by patriot04 on Mon, 06/15/2009 – 22:49.
Well Ms Raftery, you must be so proud of your publication. Writing fiction is your real talent. You make up “facts” spew forth your liberal BS and purposely mislead your readers.
What would they know? According to Alexa your readers are web bots in India.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/eastcountymagazine.org . Bet the Heartland Foundation would just love to know how well your spending their donations. What? You didn’t tell them about the web bots in India falsely boosting your web traffic?
Hmmm. Note to self. Write another email.
The folks at Camp Vigilance work very closely with law enforcement to stop idiots like your friend Enrique Morones from importing drugs, people and contraband illegally into the US. What Shawna Forde did was terrible. She acted independently and with the support of Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project who has nothing to do with Camp Vigilance and never has. Shawna Forde spent less than an hour at Camp Vigilance (thats Vigilance not Vigilante you moron) in 2008 using a fake ID to gain access. She was never trained there nor has she been a member there but then again those would be facts not fiction and you wouldn’t know anything about that now would you?
You are really good at fiction.
You are perilously close to a lawsuit. Keep writing your trash. We’ll own this rag before long and start telling the truth or maybe just shut it down since computers in India really don’t have much interest in East County San Diego anyway. After my next email, we probably won’t have to worry about that.
Semper Vigilans
Ho Hum., these cowards give the word “Patriot” a bad name which makes most true Americans want to puke when they see it.
So who is correct? The right wing whacko cowards or the reporter? I think the photo, taken from Shawna Fordes on website proves the point.
Shawna Forde and her minuteman partner Gunny Bush have been charged with the May 30 murder of Raul Flores and his nine year old daughter Brisenia.
The Minutemen are scurrying away from Forde now. As I have previously reported, Jim Gilchrist, the leader of the Minuteman Project, has had a long association with Forde. Heraldnet.com has reported that Gilchrist made it clear Saturday that his earlier support of Forde should in no way be construed as approving the actions now attributed to her. “Am I going to come to her support at this time? Of course not. How can I?” Gilchrist said.
Chuck Stonex, another MM leader and member of Forde’s group Minutemen American Defense, told the Associated Press: “This is not what Minutemen do. Minutemen observe, document and report. This is nothing more than a cold-hearted criminal act, and that is all we want to say.”
However, how can the Minutemen back away so quickly when they have coached and prodded Forde in her activities for years?
Take for example the Allied Recon of October, 2008. Forde and dozens of other MMs patrolled the border, taking credit for an arrest made by the border patrol. Pictures were taken of this event and posted on the M.A.D. website. Jim Gilchrist’s MMPC website boasts of partnering with Forde on this event. Look at the pictures. These border watches show the minutemen with an arsenal of weapons.
All the MM Leaders from Simcox to Schwilk to Gilchrist to Alipac were boasting on their websites of these border watches, the weapons, the camaraderie of using their night vision goggles, rifles at their side, loaded guns on their hips, looking for illeeeeegals!
Countless dead bodies have been found in that area of southern Arizona over the last several years. The city of Arivaca, the site of the May 30 murders, is close to this location.
Now they are calling Forde a loner? Come on!! They CANNOT backpedal away from this! They created her! They were all in this together.
Special Thanks to my good friend Dee
The accused ringleader and triggerman in the May 30 double murder in Arivaca are linked to white supremacist groups, police and family members said.
Accused ringleader Shawna Forde told her family in recent months that she had begun recruiting members of the Aryan Nations and that she planned to begin robbing drug-cartel leaders, her brother Merrill Metzger said Monday in a telephone interview from Redding, Calif.
“She was talking about starting a revolution against the United States government,” he said.
The accused shooter, Jason Eugene Bush, was charged Friday in the 1997 murder of a sleeping, homeless Hispanic man in Wenatchee, Wash.
“Bush has had long-standing ties to the Aryan Nations,” Sgt. John Kruse of the Wenatchee police wrote in a statement filed in Chelan County Superior Court.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department arrested Forde, Bush and Arivaca resident Albert Robert Gaxiola on Friday and accused them of killing Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia, 9, during a home invasion.
Florez’s wife was injured during the attack and returned fire, wounding Bush, investigators said.
Forde, 41, who has lived primarily in Everett, Wash., was the executive director of Minutemen American Defense, and she had named Bush the “operations director” for the group’s border-watch activities along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Forde introduced Bush as “Gunny” — without naming him — in a posting at the group’s Web site. She said he had “served six tours overseas” and had received a purple heart, silver star and bronze star.
A statement attributed to Gunny said, “My personal information is being withheld for security reasons . . . I am about to have a big bull’s-eye on me and I don’t want retaliation to reach my family. My goal is to bring the full force of our collective abilities down on the bad guys. this will make waves.
Tried to cast Forde out
In recent months, Jeff Schwilk, who leads the San Diego Minutemen, tried to cast Forde out of the movement, he said.
“I’ve been concerned about her and her impact on our movement,” he said. “Irrational people with assault rifles at the border is a recipe for disaster,” he said.
Forde’s brother, Metzger, worked for the organization at its inception years ago, but he quit, he said, “when it started to get too deep.”
He and other family members grew suspicious of Forde and started talking to police about her after her husband was shot in their Everett home in December.
That’s why, Metzger said, he had an audio recorder running when she visited his Northern California home in early May.
“She sat right here on my couch and told me that she was going to start an underground militia. This militia was going to start robbing drug-cartel dealers — rob them and steal their money or drugs,” Metzger said.
Gaxiola, 42, was apparently not a member of the Minutemen group, said Lt. Michael O’Connor of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
“We believe he was working with her for intelligence on drug activity in the Arivaca area,” O’Connor said.
Investigators think the May 30 robbery was intended to be the first in a series of such attacks intended to fund the border-watch group and a new venture, O’Connor said. Forde planned on starting a business of helping free kidnap victims in other countries, he said.
She also spoke of the venture to her brother, he said.
“She was telling me that they were going to start some sort of militia that was going to go overseas and aid and abet those who are kidnapped. She said she was going to go to Syria,” he said.
Pair of burglaries
A pair of burglaries targeting Metzger and a friend of his occurred on June 8 and may also be connected to Bush, Metzger said. Someone broke into his house and stole a safe, and a neighbor said a lookout standing on the street looked like Bush.
A friend of Metzger living in nearby Shasta Lake also was burglarized that day and said the burglar looked like Bush, Metzger said.
Bush’s alleged connection to the 1997 killing arose this year because DNA evidence was returned in January from a Washington state lab. The shirt had the victim’s blood on it, and Bush’s sweat in the armpit, said Chelan County prosecutor Gary Riesen.
The victim, Lopez Partida was wrapped in a blanket, sleeping outdoors in the early morning near a grain silo, when someone stabbed him seven times, Kruse wrote in his court statement.
Bush was cited for assault in June 1997, named as a suspect in a firebombing in July and was arrested for a felony assault on a fellow jail inmate in April 1998, Kruse wrote. Those, along with other convictions, sent Bush to prison in October 1998.
When he was released in 2003, Kruse wrote, Bush moved to the Sandpoint area of northern Idaho, a historic center of white supremacist activity. In recent days, confidential informants told Kruse that Bush said he murdered “a Mexican” in Wenatchee in 1997.
The increasingly racial component of Forde’s activities bothered Metzger, 48, he said.
“I’m not a prejudiced person,” he said.
Forde’s mother, Rena Lee Caudle, apologized for the actions her daughter is accused of in a Facebook message.
“My heart goes out to the poor woman who lost her nine yr. old daughter and I hope she gets as much help as she needs to get through it,” she wrote. “I am sorry that my child did this horrendous thing.”
I find this asinine statement totally self serving and without merit or lacking any sincerity. Considering that Minutemen American Defense has at best, 12 members and their jack of all titles is currently incarcerated, this statement to the media is an absolute joke.
Statement From M.A.D Officers
Rule Of Law Without Excuse
Minuteman American Defense (M.A.D.) and its officers wish to submit this following statement:
First we wish to offer our deepest regrets to the Flores family of Arivaca, Arizona for the loss of their loved ones by this terrible event.
MAD will cooperate totally and fully with any and all Law Enforcement agencies and the appropriate judicial system to bring this most terrifying event to a close.
MAD does not endorse or condone any events that are outside of the normal boundaries of law enforcement and we do work totally within the boundaries of law enforcement and with the total cooperation of all appropriate Law enforcement agencies.
MAD will continue to plan and activate border operations against illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the boundaries of the United States.
Minuteman American Defense has never and will not participate in any activities that will risk the lives of any human such as home invasions, sniper posts or ambush patrols or any terrorist tactics.
MAD will not participate in, condone or support any smear campaigns against it’s members such as those that are already started by others.
MAD will continue to observe, document and report any and all illegal immigration or smuggling activity that we observe on our properly committed border operations.
We respectfully request all active members to immediately contact this EMAIL with their current contact information, and if they are on an operation, your current location.
Please help us work through this tragic situation by cooperating totally and completely with law enforcement as they investigate this matter.
This is the only statement that Minuteman American Defense wish’s to submit to media at this time.
I got a better idea! The thousands of folks who visit this site daily need to click on that email link and flood them with your outrage.
While your at it, send a fax, email, make a call to Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding action against organizations such as this one, and the others that fan the flames of hate and racism.
Who does that email belong to?
It was a surprise and it wasn’t to learn a lying son of a bitch in Alamagordo NM is behind that address.
Why do I say that? This asswipe was very prominent in countering and defending Forde with the Everett Herald while claiming to not be associated with her.
Let’s give it our best shot people! Enough is enough!
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