Since Forde and her confederates were collared for the murder of 9 yo Brisenia Flores and her father Raul, she’s been depicted by some mainstream media outlets as a marginal player from a marginal group in the larger nativist movement. In reality, Forde is part of a nativist tide that has coughed up a wide array of crackpot flotsam and jetsam. Rather than an aberration, she’s the perfect example of how a lumpen nobody can become a somebody in Minuteman and nativist circles, just by strapping on a gun and espousing hate-filled rhetoric.
Indeed, the Southern Poverty Law Center recently noted that, at one point, Forde claimed to represent the most mainstream and powerful of nativist organizations, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR. In a 2006 debate on a Washington state TV show, the former prostitute and grunge-band promoter was identified with the label “Minuteman & Activist, FAIR.” FAIR has since denied any connection to Forde, claiming it is being smeared by the Montgomery, Alabama-based SPLC, despite video of Forde’s appearance on the show being available on YouTube.
Forde’s also been connected to former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who’s made a career out of courting the lunatic, know-nothing fringe. The Colorado Independent, part of the non-profit Center for Independent Media, has said a representative for Tancredo’s then-presidential campaign attended a 2007 rally organized, in part, by Forde and M.A.D. Though Tancredo didn’t attend the rally, he sent a letter of regret, thanking attendees for their support.
Erstwhile Tancredo campaign chair Bay Buchanan, sister of far-right commentator Pat Buchanan, dismissed the Tancredo letter as a standard, boilerplate rejection and stated that Tancredo and Forde had never met, “to the best of [the congressman's] knowledge.”
Forde’s M.A.D. was formed after she left the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, founded by Chris Simcox, who is now a long-shot hopeful for the 2010 Arizona Republican primary nod against U.S. Senator John McCain. Simcox has admitted that Forde was part of his operation at one time, but he has called her “an unsavory character” and “pretty unbalanced.”
That’s a highly ironic characterization considering Simcox’s past, which includes a conviction in 2004 on a federal gun charge and incessant claims of financial impropriety from MCDC defectors. Then there are the complaints of his two ex-wives, ranging from allegations that he tried to molest his 14-year-old daughter to the testimony of his second ex that, when angered, “he broke furniture, car windows, he banged his head against the wall repeatedly, and punched things.”
Sort of like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, you can play the same game with Shawna Forde, though you might only need two degrees. Or none. Jim Gilchrist, one of the co-organizers, along with his now-enemy Simcox, of the 2005 Minuteman Project (which Gilchrist retains as the name of his California-based organization), has admitted giving money in the past to a member of Forde’s group and to contacting Forde by phone not long after the killings in Arivaca.
Since Arivaca, Gilchrist, sometimes considered a “moderate” by Minuteman standards, has pulled from his Web site positive references to Forde and her group. However, Gilchrist was a tireless supporter of Forde before the murders, appearing with her at rallies, posting announcements from M.A.D. on his site, defending her online as “a stoic struggler who has chosen to put country, community, and a yearning for civilized society ahead of avarice and self-glorifying ego.”
The American Border Patrol’s Glenn Spencer also has had a lot of ‘splainin’ to do since Forde’s capture, which occurred not long after Forde left his ranch in Sierra Vista on June 12. In a “full disclosure” memo he published June 22 on his Web site, Spencer confesses, “Last summer, I let Forde and her daughter use [the American Border Patrol's] RV for about a week.
He describes how, on the day of her arrest, Forde showed up on his doorstep and asked to “use our family room to do some work on her laptop.” Spencer allowed her to do so and says she left after about 20 minutes. Later, Spencer says, a sheriff’s SWAT team arrived with a warrant and searched his home. Spencer claims they took nothing.
Interestingly, a former member of M.A.D., Chuck Stonex, has admitted to receiving a call for help from Forde the day of the killings and treating a wound on the leg of Forde’s accomplice, white supremacist Jason Bush. According to Stonex, Forde told him that Bush had been shot by a smuggler. Stonex, who is from New Mexico, has stated that he was in Arizona to attend a barbecue at Spencer’s ranch when he got the call from Forde.
For those in the anti-immigrant movement, Forde has turned into a tar baby that remains stuck to them no matter how hard they try to shake it loose.
William Gheen of the North Carolina-based ALI-PAC, or Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, has been ruthlessly using Forde’s extensive contacts to his fellow nativists as a cudgel with which to verbally whack his enemies, who include Gilchrist and Spencer. But as the pro-immigration blog Long Island Wins has observed on numerous occasions, even Gheen once mentioned Forde as a “leader in this movement.”
The truth is, Forde was one of them. And even her violence is not a one-off. You need only recall the saga of Casey Nethercott, ex-leader of the vigilante group Ranch Rescue, who after capturing two migrants in 2003 on his ranch in Hebbronville, Texas, allegedly threatened them, pistol-whipping one. Nethercott was later convicted on gun charges, and the two immigrants he apprehended ended up owning the 70-acre property after the Southern Poverty Law Center sued Nethercott on the immigrants’ behalf.
Mad-dog Arizona rancher Roger Barnett has been successfully sued on more than one occasion for holding immigrants and non-immigrants captive with the help of his AR-15 rifle. Barnett’s said he’s detained thousands of immigrants, and some of those he’s detained claim he’s threatened them and cursed them with racial slurs. In one case, he was ordered to pay $98,000 in damages. In another, more than $73,000.
One need only watch documentaries such as Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest’s Walking the Line, which followed Spencer, Nethercott, Simcox, and other border activists, to see how close in psychology they are to Forde. Or pay a visit to Dennis Gilman’s YouTube site HumanLeague002 and observe his videos of various Shawna Fordes in the making. Like Forde, Phoenix nativists walk around with guns on their hips and squawk repeatedly about “invaders” from Mexico and about shooting defenseless civilians.
And people are shocked by the Arivaca killings? They should be surprised that sort of thing doesn’t happen more often.
SOURCE: MURDEROUS INTENT – PHOENIX NEWS
Related posts:
- Convicted double murderer Shawna Fordes fate is in the hands of the jurors now
- Defense offers mitigating circumstances (excuses) why Minuteman Shawna Fordes life should be spared
- Appeal filed in Arizona Supreme Court challenging Minuteman Shawna Fordes death sentence
- US Border Guard Founder and Border Vigilante JT Ready applauds and supports Shawna Fordes actions
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