N
ativists wrote in after our July 16 "Border M.A.D.ness" cover story about Minuteman leader Shawna Forde (left), saying either Forde was a misunderstood patriot driven to participating in the killing of a reputed Mexican drug runner and his little girl because of a troubled past or that she was a woman real Minutemen knew was trouble from the start.
(See the cover story here and Stephen Lemons' earlier article on the murders on our Feathered Bastard blog, particularly a statement by Mesa neo-Nazi J.T. Ready in the comments section.)
The truth is, Forde, a former prostitute and petty criminal, was held close by leaders of the border-vigilante movement from the get-go. They started disavowing her only after she was arrested, along with a white supremacist and another man, in the Arivaca, Arizona, murders. (See Lemons' analysis in our Bird column here.)
Now more news has come in on the gun-nut neo-Nazi who helped her carry out what was meant to be a robbery of drugs and money from Raul "Junior" Flores, now dead, to help fund the border activities of Forde's Minuteman American Defense group.
Former Aryan Nations soldier Jason Bush of Wenatchee, Washington, is now accused in two other murders, one of a Latino homeless man in Wenatchee, stabbed seven times while sleeping; the other of a white East Wenatchee victim shot in the back of the head who, Bush apparently told a police informant, "was a traitor to his race."
When we consider that both alleged Washington state murders were carried out when the victims were defenseless, it makes white-supremacist sense that helpless 9-year-old Brisenia Flores was one of the victims in Arivaca.
Our sister paper, the Seattle Weekly, has the full story on Bush's alleged crimes in Washington state. It was Weekly writer Rick Anderson who penned the aforementioned cover article on how Forde (and Bush) came to what cops contend was a murderous conclusion.
By the way, Forde has told Minuteman leaders that she wasn't involved in the killings of Flores and the little girl.
