Minutemen regroup after shootings

Two weeks after members of a fringe border-protection group were arrested in connection with a double homicide in Arivaca, Minuteman organizations are still scrambling to explain their dealings with the suspects while distancing themselves from the controversial Minutemen American Defense group.

Shawna Forde, MAD’s director and the one who authorities called the ringleader in a plot to rob and murder Arivaca drug dealer Raul Flores Jr. and his family, had ties to both Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project and the 12,000-member Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Jeff Schwilk, founder of San Diego Minutemen, an organization separate from the MCDC or Minuteman Project, said he warned other groups not to work with Forde after hearing her suspicious claims last year that she’d been raped and beaten by drug cartels in Washington state for investigating their operations.

“I could tell she was a danger to our movement,” he said. “Everything she would do would reflect on us.”

But Gilchrist’s groups didn’t heed his warning, he said, and supported Forde in her claims, which are still being investigated by Washington police.

“She was (listed as) his official border operations director on his Web site for more than a year (in 2008 and 2009),” Schwilk said. “He used her and she used him to promote each other.”

Stephen Eichler, the project’s executive director, disputes the claim, saying Forde “was not on the payroll; she was not an employee. They did not get their views of killing people in home invasions from Jim Gilchrist.”

Gilchrist spoke at a rally that Forde organized in Everett, Wash., in 2007, but Eichler said that’s common.

“Jim is motivating others and helping them sort of pick up the torch,” he said. “We go out and inspire folks.”

Heidi Beirich, research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said inspiring people to steep themselves in anti-immigration ideology and militantly treat immigrants as enemies can lead nowhere positive.

Beirich said she’s been watching Forde for years and she’s not surprised that Forde, who she called a “nativist extremist,” is tied to the murders.

“(Minutemen) have been inattentive to the issue that violence could spring forward in these groups,” she said. “They’ve been rather reluctant to condemn their own.”

Continued ties

Eichler said despite the fact that other groups kept Forde at arm’s length, he periodically posted articles she had written on the project’s Web site. Since the arrests, most of them have been removed.

One link that was active Saturday afternoon but removed later in the day included a September 2008 message from Gilchrist stating, “I salute all the brave Minutemen and Minutewomen of the Minutemen American Defense. Their bravery and dedication is a sterling example of true patriotism. The members of the Minutemen American Defense are a positive example for all Americans to follow.”

Another “Message from Forde,” since removed, was posted eight days after the May 30 murders of Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, but several days before Forde, Jason Eugene “Gunny” Bush and Albert Gaxiola were arrested in the case. It introduced Bush as MAD’s new operations director and stated, “We are in full operation we have people coming from Florida and other parts of the country to assist in gathering exclusive footage of drug cartel drug smuggling and humane (sic) trafficking.”

Forde sent the article to Gilchrist and Eichler on June 6 via an e-mail obtained by the Green Valley News.

Eichler responded in the e-mail the next day, writing, “Do you want a large volumne (sic) of volunteers to go to the border under your watch? If you are going to expand, then you will get all the way from lawn chair lookie lous to hard core combat ready Minutemen.”

In an interview, Eichler said he remembered the correspondence, but had no idea then that Forde might have been involved in the murders. Hindsight is 20-20, he said, but nothing tipped him off to Forde’s potential for violence.

“We facilitated the publicizing of her organization like we’ve facilitated many others,” he said. “We want to work with as many people as we can. But in doing so, there is still that risk.”

More red flags

Forde was also a member of the MCDC, founded by Chris Simcox, who has since left to run for U.S. Senate. Forde never completed her probationary period, however, and was fired after six months with the group in 2006-07, Simcox said in an e-mail.

“She was constantly found to be trouble; unbecoming behaviors included, deception, holding unauthorized meetings and promoting herself as a chapter director and spokesperson for the organization without authorization,” he wrote.

During the vetting process, she raised red flags, said Al Garza, the group’s vice president, including promoting retaliation against rival activists.

She again tried to infiltrate the group in 2008 by using a fake ID to enter its California training facility, Camp Vigilance, Garza said, but she was found out and removed.

“She is just a criminal that happened to infiltrate different groups for the information,” he said. “I won’t allow it again.”

But Garza stopped short of implementing a tougher vetting process and he’s continuing border operations as normal.

“At this point in time, we’ve done nothing wrong,” he said. “In the event we need to double clutch, we will do that, but at this time we haven’t needed to.”

But the 80-member Green Valley chapter of MCDC, which had no contact with Forde, has decided to scale back its border operations in response to the negativity surrounding Forde’s associations with Minuteman groups, member Scott Anderson said.

“We’re not running any patrols,” he said. “We’re just going to take a hiatus for a couple of weeks.”

dnewhauser@gvnews.com / 547-9749