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RELATED STORY: Minutemen brace for possible backlash
By Dan Shearer, Green Valley News
Scott Anderson knows it’s coming.
Anderson, who belongs to the 80-member Green Valley chapter of the national Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said he has never heard of Shawna Forde or her group, the Minutemen American Defense, but he knows others will associate his group with hers.
“I figured something like this was going to happen,” he said Friday after three people were arrested in connection with two murders in Arivaca. “We’re all going to be painted with the same broad brush.”
Anderson said he is pulling local Minuteman volunteers from the streets until about the end of the month to avoid potential confrontations.
Anybody joining the 12,000-member national Minuteman group must undergo a background check, an interview with a national officer and go through four to six hours of training, he said.
“Our rules are very strict,” he said. “We’re doing everything above-board according to the law.”
Even before the arrests Anderson knew his Minutemen had an image problem.
“I wish people could see our standard operating procedures,” he said. “We don’t impede the movement of anybody — we give them (suspected illegal immigrants) water and medical aid just like the Samaritans do, but then we call the Border Patrol. We can’t convince people of that.”
Forde shared the stage with Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist at a 2007 Elks Lodge event in Washington, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center profile on her, but her association didn’t last long. Within Minuteman group circles Forde is an outcast, according to a February article from the Daily Herald in Everett, Wash.
Hal Washburn, vetting officer for Washington state chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said Forde was encouraged to leave the group over questions about honesty and her inability to follow orders, according to the Herald. San Diego Minutemen lists Forde among people they won’t work with, calling her “unstable.”
Al Garza, vice president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said Forde had no connection to the group.
“We worked with Ms. Forde briefly before dismissing her in 2005,” Garza said in an e-mail. “We conduct a very stringent vetting process before engaging in any long-term association with any person or group.”
“Unfortunately we have no control over the use of the Minuteman name,” he said.
Gene Cafarelli, former Arizona director for the MCDC, said it had an “arms-length relationship” with Forde, and “never shared any operation nor any intel” with her group.
Anderson, who belongs to the 80-member Green Valley chapter of the national Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said he has never heard of Shawna Forde or her group, the Minutemen American Defense, but he knows others will associate his group with hers.
“I figured something like this was going to happen,” he said Friday after three people were arrested in connection with two murders in Arivaca. “We’re all going to be painted with the same broad brush.”
Anderson said he is pulling local Minuteman volunteers from the streets until about the end of the month to avoid potential confrontations.
Anybody joining the 12,000-member national Minuteman group must undergo a background check, an interview with a national officer and go through four to six hours of training, he said.
“Our rules are very strict,” he said. “We’re doing everything above-board according to the law.”
Even before the arrests Anderson knew his Minutemen had an image problem.
“I wish people could see our standard operating procedures,” he said. “We don’t impede the movement of anybody — we give them (suspected illegal immigrants) water and medical aid just like the Samaritans do, but then we call the Border Patrol. We can’t convince people of that.”
Forde shared the stage with Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist at a 2007 Elks Lodge event in Washington, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center profile on her, but her association didn’t last long. Within Minuteman group circles Forde is an outcast, according to a February article from the Daily Herald in Everett, Wash.
Hal Washburn, vetting officer for Washington state chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said Forde was encouraged to leave the group over questions about honesty and her inability to follow orders, according to the Herald. San Diego Minutemen lists Forde among people they won’t work with, calling her “unstable.”
Al Garza, vice president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said Forde had no connection to the group.
“We worked with Ms. Forde briefly before dismissing her in 2005,” Garza said in an e-mail. “We conduct a very stringent vetting process before engaging in any long-term association with any person or group.”
“Unfortunately we have no control over the use of the Minuteman name,” he said.
Gene Cafarelli, former Arizona director for the MCDC, said it had an “arms-length relationship” with Forde, and “never shared any operation nor any intel” with her group.
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