"Minutemen" Member on Trial in Murder of Girl, 9

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CBS News

TUCSON - A woman went on trail Tuesday in Arizona accused of gunning down a 9-year-old girl and her father in their own home. The story was overshadowed by news of President Obama's big speech and by the other Arizona shooting which has gripped the nation, but it's no less shocking.

Shawna Forde, the head of a fringe anti-immigration patrol group called Minutemen American Defense, is charged with two counts of first degree murder.

Prosecutors say she organized a raid on the home of Gina Gonzalez and her husband Raul Flores on May 30, 2009. Forde allegedly believed Flores was involved in drug trafficking and that she and her associates would be able to seize cash or drugs in order to help fund their patrol efforts.

According to police, Forde led the raid, shouting order to two male accomplices (who will stand trial in March) during which Raul was shot multiple times and killed. Gina Gonzalez was shot twice, but survived to hear her daughter, Brisenia Flores, plead for her life before being shot twice and killed.

CBS News affiliate KOLD reports that the trial began Tuesday in Tucson with vivid testimony from Gonzalez herself.



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/26/national/main7284894.shtml?tag=stack

[Taverner]

1. Rot in hell, Shawna!!!

[patrice]

2. K&R

[sasha031]

3. I do not wish well of this woman

life in prison without the possibility for parole would be fair I think.

[damntexdem]

4. 'Just an isolated individual. And her accomplices. And her organization.'

'And the wider organization that now denies her extensive involvement.'

'Move along, now! Nothing to see here!'

;-)

[Old and In the Way]

5. She needs to be locked away for the rest of her life.

As do her accomplices.

[riverwalker]

6. another Beck fan, no doubt....n/t

[sasha031]

8. oh yes, defiantly

[Mojeoux]

31. A search of "Minutemen American Defense" has a link to" Glen Beck defending the Minitemen."

They're proud to have it on their site.

[Kennah]

7. Defense argues Forde was not present

I would note that Charles Manson was not present for the Tate/LaBianca murders, but he's locked away.

Prosecution is saying she was there, but as the head of the group it seems she could be charged with conspiracy.

I expect she's going away forever, if she does not get the death penalty.

[Mojeoux]

32. The Woman she shot says she was there.

So the defense is calling the woman who lived, the woman who's child was killed, a liar.

[MineralMan]

9. Wonderful folks. Funding racism with drug sales.

And stealing the money or drugs and murdering people, to boot. That's our anti-immigration tea party right there. Wonnerful folks. Reel Amurkins, all.

[DBoon]

10. "but the Left is just as bad!"

no matter how many murders are committed by right wing fanatics, there will always be this false equivalence

Someone will bring up something the Weather Underground did 40 years ago as proof

On Edit: and to pimp my own post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x275638

[KansDem]

18. That's right... "Both sides do it!"

Or, if you're Palin quoting Reagan: it's the individual and not society who should be blamed for this...

•Mar. 2009 - Michele Bachmann (R-MN) states that she wants the citizens of her state "armed and dangerous".

•Aug. 2009 - Someone dropped a gun from their pants at a Giffords town hall meeting in Arizona.

•Jan. 2010 - Sharron Angle gives famous "second amendment remedies" speech, and also states "we have to take Harry Reid out."

•Mar. 2010 - Tom Perillo's (D-VA) brother came home to find a severed gas line after Tea Partiers posted his address online, thinking it was the Congressman's address.

•Mar. 2010 - Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said that the windows of her Niagara Falls office were broken and she received voicemail referencing snipers.

•Mar. 2010 - Eric Cantor (R-VA) discovers that even Republicans aren't immune to having their office windows shot out. Perhaps his constituents figured out he doesn't celebrate Christmas.

•Mar. 2010 - Monroe County Democratic Committee (N.Y.) were vandalized when bricks were thrown through the windows.

•Mar. 2010 - Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) angrily shouts "baby killer" while Bart Stupak (D-MI) speaks on the floor of the House or Representatives. Afterward Stupak released tapes of violent threatening "baby killer" messages left on his voicemail, presumably not also by Neugebauer.

•Mar. 2010 - RNC Chairman Michael Steele said Nancy Pelosi should be put on "the firing line."

•Mar. 2010 - John Boehner (R-OH) states, in an interview, that congressmen who vote for the health bill would be 'dead men'.

•Apr. 2010 - Sarah Palin tweets "Don't retreat, instead reload" to her followers.

•Jul. 2010 - Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) office windows were shot at.

•Oct. 2010 - Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) offices were sent white powder through the postal service.

•Jan. 2011 - Explosive packages sent to the Maryland capitol building, the Maryland Department of Transportation and to the office of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

And still this list from “Crooks and Liars”

• July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

• October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

• December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

• December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

• January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

• February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

• April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

• April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

• May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

• June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

• February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)

• March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

• March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

• May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

• May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

• May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

• July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

• September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

And this list:
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

...but "both sides do it." :eyes:

[DBoon]

19. You should add the event in this post to that list

murder to fund an anti-immigrant vigilante group fits in perfectly

[KansDem]

20. Thanks...

Unfortunately, it appears that such a list is needing to be updated...often :(

[nolabear]

11. Armed vigilantes. Listen up, Tea Party. THIS is your America.

[go west young man]

12. The article has the hair color confused.

The suspect is obviously a brunette. One can see that by CBS's own photo.
Therefore the witness did not give false information. CBS apparently has.

[fantomas]

13. Looks like she's blonde in other online pics

The pics on this defense site have her as a blonde. Maybe she bleached her hair because she hates anything "brown" i.e. Mexican but can't do it in jail anymore?

http://www.justiceforshawnaforde.com/

I guess this is the kind of militia that all those tea baggers want. And she's got crazy YouTube videos too, standing next to the "Rape Tree" because she cares about the "safety of women" ??

[LanternWaste]

25. Good thing people can't change hair color...

Good thing people can't change hair color...

[Dogtown]

14. Horrific story

:cry:

[Judi Lynn]

15. This monster's website claims she's proud of Governor Brewer.

What more typical endorsement would you ever expect for their nightmarish governor, anyway?

Hoping they will have the ability to keep this sociopath in prison for life. She should never be allowed out again.

Thanks for the information her trial's underway. Recommend.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. Dawg the Bounty Hunter

[udbcrzy2]

17. This is a death penalty case

Forde ordered this young girl be killed. She was shot at point blank range twice in the head and begged for her life while the guy reloaded his gun. The mother survived and now has to deal with all this grief. They have this trial schedule for 4-weeks. I hope the mother can get a little bit of closure.

[LeftishBrit]

21. What a devastating story

How can people be so evil?

[Blue_Tires]

22. Strange how all the media, pundits and congresscritters who nationally

propped up the minutemen as some kind of patriotic, non-racist, legit, grassroots organization (remind anybody of another group from recent memory?)have been dead silent for a few years now...

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Doctor.]

29. Far too kind a fate. n/t

[ck4829]

24. K&R

[JI7]

26. the Story was not overshadowed by Obama's speech or the Gifford event Shooting

the whore media did not cover this as much as they should have when it actually happened.

[joshcryer]

27. First I'm hearing of this. Sad. :/

[The Doctor.]

28. Things like this make me wish there is a hell.

That poor girl, that poor mother had to hear her little girl beg for her life!

My GOD, please let this woman burn in hell.

[Tripod]

30. I hope they never get out of prison.

[LeftishBrit]

33. Incidentally..

the homegrown fascist militia in Sinclair Lewis' 'It Can't Happen Here' were called the Minutemen. I assume that the current Minutemen are not noted for their awareness of old political novels, and so it wasn't deliberate; but still the coincidence is eerie.

[Tansy_Gold]

34. Incidentally. . .

Minutemen were members of teams of select men from the American colonial militia during the American Revolutionary War. They provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats, hence the name.

The minutemen were among the first people to fight in the American Revolution. Their teams constituted about a quarter of the entire militia. Generally younger and more mobile, they served as part of a network for early response. Minuteman and Sons of Liberty member Paul Revere was among those who spread the news that the British Regulars (soldiers) were coming out. Revere was captured before completing his mission when the British marched toward the arsenal in Lexington and Concord to collect the weapons stored there.

The term has also been applied to various later United States civilian-based military forces to recall the success and patriotism of the originals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutemen



The term goes back much further and more famously than the novel.

TG, TT

[LanternWaste]

37. I imagine one need merely...

I imagine one need merely look at their actions to better observe whether the name is derived from themes of patriotism, or from themes with quite a bit less concern for the equitable treatment of all Americans.

That is I think, not incidental.

[Tansy_Gold]

38. Generally

those who adopt the name "minutemen" believe they are patriots defending their concept of "America." Sometimes that concept is all-white, all-christian, straight male dominated. You may not agree with that America, and I may not agree with that America, but there are those who do. And some of them lay claim to the title "minutemen."

I was merely pointing out that the term was in the American socio-political lexicon long before Sinclair Lewis used it.




TG, TT

[Blue_Tires]

35. "...to help fund their patrol efforts..."??

I thought it was pretty well established that the minutemen weren't "patrolling" anything, just being another armed gang shaking down drug runners and people traffickers...

[AlphaCentauri]

36. the minutemen are using intimidation in court to confuse witness

Forde supporter disrupts murder trial, then barred from courthouse
http://www.kvoa.com/news/forde-supporter-disrupts-murder-trial-then-barred-from-courthouse/



Changing her appearance
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/border-vigilante-trial-murder-tucson-arizona-12780889