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Accused Far-Right Killer Has Bizarre, Troubled Past
So this morning, the story of Shawna Forde -- the alleged ringleader in the recent murder of a nine-year-old girl and her father near the US-Mexico border -- appeared to be pretty run-of-the-mill stuff: it looked like your standard plot to start a "revolution against the US government" by recruiting members of the Aryan Nations to a vigilante anti-immigrant border-patrol group, in order to rob Mexican drug cartels, then use that money to free kidnap victims in Syria.
Dog bites man, we figured.
But now, after piecing together various reports, a fuller picture of Forde's background -- and her whacked-out anti-immigrant obsession -- has started to emerge. And it sounds like that's just the half of it. Here's what we know about her:
* Forde, 41, has juvenile convictions for felonies, prostitution and other crimes in Snohomish County, Washington. She's been married and divorced four times, and has been fired from numerous jobs.
* In 2007, she ran for the city council in Everett, Washington, on a platform that emphasized opposition to immigration. But she fell short after being convicted of shoplifting a container of chocolate milk.
* She's spent much of the last three years combing the Arizona desert for signs of illegal immigrants. She believes that illegals are helping terrorists sneak "dirty bomb" materials into the US, posing a grave national security threat. She also believes that federal government is in league with the UN to allow unchecked immigration.
* At a 2006 PBS-sponsored forum at which she claimed to be both a member of the Minutemen and a representative of the supposedly more mainstream anti-immigration group FAIR, Forde railed against immigrants and declared: "We will not stop until we get the results that we need to have."
* In addition to running her own border-patrol group, Minuteman American Defense, she had also worked with the more established Minutemen Civil Defense Corps movement. But Jeff Schwilk, the leader of the San Diego Minutemen, has said she was so unstable that he tried to get rid of her. "I've been concerned about her and her impact on our movement," he said. "Irrational people with assault rifles at the border is a recipe for disaster."
* The Arizona robbery and murder with which she's been charged may not be her only such crime. Piecing together several news reports, it appears that in early May, Forde visited her mother and brother in Redding, California. Forde works on the side as a hair stylist, and while she was styling the hair of Lynette Myers, a friend of her mother's, Myers told her that she'd recently received a large inheritance in cash, and planned to keep it at home. A few days later, Forde called her mother, Rena Caudle, and asked her for Myers' address, saying she wanted to send her a package of hair-care supplies. The package never arrived. But the following month, Myers and her husband reported being robbed at gunpoint by two men dressed as US Marshals. The couple has since identified one of them men as Jason Bush, the ex-con with ties to Neo-Nazis who's suspected of being the triggerman in the Arizona murders. Police are now investigating Forde's possible role in the crime as well.
There's more though...
* Late last year and into January of this year, Forde was at the center of a string of what she said were violent attacks. First, her husband was shot in what was reported as an ambush at his home in Everett. A week later, Forde herself called a local newspaper to report that she had been beaten and raped at the same house. She claimed the attack was retaliation for her work on the border, and blamed the Salvadoran street gang MS-13. She posted pictures on her website -- since removed -- showing what she said were injuries to her thighs and buttocks. Forde was quickly accused by bloggers of perpetrating a hoax, and even the anti-immigration Americans for Legal Immigration PAC indicated they were suspicious of her story. Then weeks later, she was found in an alley in Everett with gunshot wounds to her arm.
And now she's been charged in the Arizona killings. Forde's own family sounds like they've had enough of her. Her mother said that after Forde's arrest, she declined Forde's request to use her as a reference in hope of being released on $1 million bail. And her brother says, "She's a sociopath. She lies so much she believes her own lies."
Josh
Zachary
"Irrational people with assault rifles at the border is a recipe for disaster."
Ya think?
June 16, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that's laugh out loud funny. Especially since that's the core of opposition to the MinuteMen.
June 17, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
1. There are different groups using "Minutemen" in their names; the two major groups have strict rules forbidding violence except in self-defense and so on.
2. The "core opposition" to such groups isn't really concern about people being armed on the border. The "core opposition" is that they might be effective. And, that would cost some powerful people money and additional power.
3. I realize that journalistic ethics fly out the window at this site, but Zachary Roth's mention of FAIR is a smear, since they've pointed out they had nothing to do with her. I'll be adding the smear at this page to that post later. (Note: the use of the word "supposedly" cancels out the other weasel words Roth uses.)
P.S. Whenever you see someone - like Zachary Roth - highlighting things like this, see if you can figure out how the second point above applies.
June 17, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Taking the law into one's own hands, as these racist lunatic fringe froot loops do, is INDEFENSIBLE. And it is not a smear to state those facts about them.
In addition, they rely on an anti-Constitutional LIE about the intent of the Second Amendment -- which YOU'D know if you'd read the ENTIRE Constitution instead of only the distorted/out-of-context snippets you like.
June 17, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope that some of the readers of this site will realize where our CAPITALIZING friend went wrong. There are some groups that engage in illegal activity; I'm not seeking to defend them. There are others that are quite careful to not engage in illegal activity; I am defending them.
P.S. Back in 2005, the ACLU tried their darnedest to get the MMP on something, and failed. This is the best they could do.
P.P.S. Note also that the ACLU is collaborating with the Mexicangovernment in a scheme that will help that government profit from illegal activity inside the U.S.
June 17, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of which is bullshit. The Second Amendment ONLY guaranteed the states -- GOV'TS -- that they could keep their militia. Which militia were ALWAYS UNDER the law, not in spite of and running around outside it. That's a fundmental principle you IGNORE.
The far-right lunatic fringe whining about the Second Amendment not having been "applied to the states" through the Fourteenth Amendment is STOOPID: it is a FEDERAL securing of that STATES' right. HOWEVER, as the Constitution makes clear, those militia REMAIN under the regulatory thumb of CONGRESS. READ the ENTIRE Constitution, not only the distorted out-of-context snippets you like. Relevant here: US Con. Art. I, s. 8, c. 15 and 16, which read in full, respectively:
"15. [The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute [ENFORCE] the Laws of the Union, [and] suppress Insurrections . . . ."
There is NO "right of revolution".
"16. [The Congress shall have Power] To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."
Congress "provides" by enacting LAWS -- by means of which the militia (as example) is REGULATED -- none of any of that being new with the Constitution and Bill of Rights. And that is the form of the "discipline prescribed by Congress".
NOr, as should be obvious from c. 16 above, the Second Amendment does not "protect" FROM the rule of law --
1. The Bill of Rights was framed by the first Congress -- populated by Founders/Framers -- under the newly-ratified Constitution.
2. Ratification of the Bill of Rights was completed on December 15, 1791.
3. SUBSEQUENTLY, on May 8, 1792, Congress -- populated by Founders/Framers -- enacted the "Militia Act," which implemented Art. I, S. 8, C. 16, and applies to and operates THROUGH the Second Amendment, the entire scope of which is WELL REGULATED MILITIA.
There si no other LEGAL militia.
Moreover: the LIE is that the Second Amendment "protects" an "individual right" to the private, individual ownership of guns. That the Second Amendment "protects that "right" FROM the rule of law, FROM regulation. Even activist extremist Scalia admits that gun control laws are CONSTITUIONAL.
By contrast with that LIE, the debates of the Second Amendment included ONLY ONE posited "individual right" -- which was ultimately VOTED DOWN. The first draft of that which became the Second Amendment reads as follows, the final clause of it being that POSITED "individual right":
"The right of the people [PLURAL, as in, "We the people"; it is not, "I the people," or, "We the individual"] to keep and bear arms* shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia [NOT "individual"] being the best security of a free country [NOT "individual"]: but no person [INDIVIDUAL] religiously scrupulous of [AGAINST] bearing arms, shall be compelled [INVOLUNTARY] to render military service [in the militia] in person."
_____
*The "right of the people to keep and bear arms" phrase was drawn from the MILITIA clauses of four state constitutions/bills of rights adopted during 1776-77, and 1780.
_____
That the last clause was VOTED DOWN OBVIOUSLY means the Second Amendment has nothing whatever to do with "individual" ANYTHING. It is therefore IRRELEVANT to the issue of private, individual ownership of guns, and the regulation thereof.
AND: the militia is a PUBLIC institution; the private individual -- OBVIOUSLY -- is NOT a public institution. There has always been a distinction made between bodies of law regulating public institutions, and bodies of law governing private individuals.
Those you are defending are, at very minimum, history- and law-illiterate -- and ENEMIES of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson agrees with that fact; from the "Declaration of Independence":
"[King George III] has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."
That is why the Founders, even before they framed the Constitution, and then the Bill of Rights, ALWAYS -- as had their ancestors -- kept the militia UNDER the rule of law: it's ultimate purpose is to defend the system of laws/GOV'T.
It's not a complicated principle: No sane non-suicidal society leaves dangerous substances and objects lying around unregulated. Public safety takes precedent over individual "right" -- always has, always will. Guns have been regulated under law since the advent of guns; there never was a time when it was otherwise.
As for the ACLU and your stupid's conspirabunk about it: the ACLU's "client" is the BILL OF RIGHTS, and ONLY the Bill of Rights. The hogwash about it assisting the Mexican gov't in some capacity is exactly that: hogwash.
June 18, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"1. There are different groups using "Minutemen" in their names; the two major groups have strict rules forbidding violence except in self-defense and so on."
And the term "Minutemen" is taken from a Massachusetts-Bay militia about which they know absolutely nothing, and to which they bear NO resemblance. That Massachusetts-Bay militia operated UNDER the rule of law, not IN SPITE OF it. They were STRICTLY regulated in order to PREVENT their "defending against" the gov't.
Exactly as the states' militias are UNDER the rule of law, and "The Militia Act" of 1792/"Title 10" as enacted by the US Congress. Which YOU'D know if you'd ever READ the Constitution you pretend to "defend".
You are defending an anti-Constitutional "movement" comprised of history- and law-illiterate America-haters.
June 17, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the term "whackjob" was invented precisely for people like this woman.
June 16, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not "an ordinary, garden-variety Republican" ???
http://www.thereaganwing.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&page_id=784
Huh, who could have known??
Certainly not the Reagan Wing Republicans of Washington State.
June 16, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Holy Cow. That webpage is whacked out.
June 17, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
But...but... has she been forgiven by Jeebus?
June 16, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
undoubtedly.
June 17, 2009 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Via his proxy HERSELF of course.
June 17, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shoplifting chocolate milk? Seriously?
The rest of the story clearly ID's her as a racist sociopath, that just marks her as a blithering idiot nutcase on top of it all.
June 16, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Shoplifting chocolate milk? Seriously?"
You've got to understand how sociopaths think. Their entire existence is focussed on getting what they want. There's no empathy, no sympathy, and frequently not much reflection on whether something is a good idea or even whether the risks are worth the reward. Just "I want this, what do I have to do to get it?"
Thus she wanted the chocolate milk, so she took it. It's lucky she didn't have to kill somebody to get it, because that would have just been something she had to do to get what she wanted.
Anything they know she has done is a fraction of 1% of the stuff she's actually done.
June 17, 2009 12:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Their entire existence is focussed on getting what they want. There's no empathy, no sympathy, and frequently not much reflection on whether something is a good idea or even whether the risks are worth the reward. Just "I want this, what do I have to do to get it?"
Sounds just like Rove, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld
June 17, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seems the only item left off her list is "tax protester."
June 16, 2009 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Jeff Schwilk, the leader of the San Diego Minutemen, has said she was so unstable that he tried to get rid of her. "I've been concerned about her and her impact on our movement," he said. 'Irrational people with assault rifles at the border is a recipe for disaster.'"
Not too much calling of the kettle black there, eh?
His "Minutemen" organization is based upon ignorance -- or rejection -- of actual American histroy. The "Minutemen" of the "revolutionary" (and pre- and post-) era were ENLISTED in accordance with existing legal requirements, well trained, and authorized and operated UNDER the law, not in spite of it.
But that's typical of far-right lunatic fringe gun-nuts: the "defend" the rule of law by rejecting the rule of law.
June 16, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish that this bizarre information about Forde was an indication that the various groups with whom she's aligned philosophically are otherwise "normal."
Of course, it doesn't.
June 17, 2009 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like a perfect cell mate for Chuckie Manson.
June 17, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
In a really perverse sick way I'm kinda missin' J Edgar right about now. He'd have anybody who ever said hello to her in for questioning about now. If this were a leftie group of course they'd be rounded up. But the righties and O'Reilly and Beck will somehow turn this into some distortion of what she really is. It's amazing how many truly disturbed mentally ill people are into this stuff like the Holocaust museum psycho and how much the so called mainstream media gives them cover and inflames them. Before Fox and Rush and MSNBC they would have just been sitting on their front porch listening to their "stories" on tv in the background and putting out the crazy stuff. And they would not have been able to get their hands on guns. Where do they buy their law enforcement uniforms? Or is there a Butterick pattern for those?
June 17, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was just pointed to this commentary by Beck about the Holocaust shooting which he originally attributed to politically correct thinking. This is part of what is fanning these mentally ill crazies.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/26514/
"...There's going to be a witch-hunt for two groups: the Jews and conservatives.
"Those who have read history know that when things go bad, the Jews become scapegoats; and it's happening again.
"Meanwhile, there have been Department of Homeland Security reports about right-wing extremists. And left-wing bloggers and others have blamed conservative talk radio hosts like me for stirring the pot, even though we're just pointing out that it's boiling.
"Common sense tells you this is not the work of conservatives, but rather the work of someone who is possibly racist or crazy, or most likely both. Common sense also tells you there are very hateful people on the left as well.
"The world will use any excuse to come after unpopular groups. Whether you choose to ignore it or not, there's no longer a question of if the pot is boiling. We can all see the pot is boiling.
"Now the question is how do we pull ourselves together to defend ourselves against a common enemy?"
And this man has the television, the radio and his website to put his nutso views out there.
June 17, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Common sense is much too common." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Common sense is none too common." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
June 17, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the geography of her face, we can assume life has not been an easy ride for this woman.
June 17, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
And he has a ton of idiots that believe him, too.
June 17, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it too much to hope that this lunatic met with Pres. Bush or VP Cheney or any sitting GOP US senator or governor? It's GOP all over.
June 17, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink