Arizona Minutemen Get Cocky

Not only did they decide to go after an alleged local drug dealer (and fund their efforts by stealing his drugs and selling them), but they killed one child witness and tried to hunt down another. They seemed to have even bigger plans - an international militia, traveling the world, killing supposed 'terrorists' and stealing their stuff in order to finance their operations:

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."

...MAD isn't formally affiliated with Jim Gilchrist's anti-immigration Minuteman Project, or with its off-shoot, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), both of which also conduct border patrols. But it appears Forde used to be active with the MCDC, and in this video from 2006, she's introduced both as a member of the Minutemen and as a "representative" of the more mainstream anti-immigration group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which is quoted frequently in the media on immigration issues.

...Metzger told the Daily Star that Forde had said she planned to start an "underground militia" that would steal money and drugs from drug cartels (Flores, one of the Arizona victims, was a suspected drug dealer.) Metzger said he had secretly recorded a recent conversation with Forde, because he had grown concerned about her violent rhetoric, and had spoken to police about her.

And, reports the paper, investigators believe the attack was intended to be the first in a series of such crimes, with the goal of funding MAD and another venture. What was that venture? According to Metzger: "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."