The killings happened far from here, near the Mexican border in the tiny Arizona town of Arivaca. Shawna Forde, the central player in a long, tawdry and ultimately deadly drama, was found guilty Monday of the
murders of a father and his 9-year-old daughter.
It’s a story with so many tangents that maybe you’ve been like me. Maybe, during Forde’s murder trial in Tucson, Ariz., you focused on life here rather than on this distant and convoluted saga.
On Tuesday, I reread much of Herald investigative reporter and editor Scott North’s coverage of Forde going back several years. The plot includes gunshots fired in Everett, in 2008 and 2009, at Forde’s ex-husband — seriously wounding him — and at Forde herself.
She claimed she was raped and beaten, and pointed fingers at drug cartels. Even before she blew town, those claims were collapsing under the weight of her lies.
The Arizona chapters of Forde’s story stem from her forays into border activities. The one-time Everett City Council candidate was active in the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, a group that seeks to keep U.S. borders secure from people who would enter illegally.
After running afoul of members of that group while acting as a state organizer, Forde started Minutemen American Defense, her own border-watch group. Right up until the day she was arrested, Forde was in close contact with other Minutemen leaders, including Jim Gilchrist, who sent her recruits and printed her press releases about border operations.
Prosecutors in Arizona said the 2009 killings of Brisenia Flores, 9, and her 29-year-old father, Raul Flores, were part of a home invasion robbery that Forde hoped would finance her border activities. Two other suspects are expected to be tried in the killings, which a Pima County prosecutor said were planned by Forde.
In all my reading to make sense of it, I couldn’t find the answer to one question: Was Forde a true believer in the border-security cause?
Nothing convinces me of that, not in the thousands of words I’ve read about Forde. And as much as I disagree with vigilante tactics, I don’t believe the Minutemen movement in and of itself is responsible for the deaths in Arivaca.
What is clear is that Forde is a practiced manipulator. North’s reporting showed that she was a ruthless self-promoter who stole from and deceived just about everyone she met, including Minutemen leaders in Washington.
Some of those who were true believers in the cause looked past Forde’s character flaws. She was able to support and arm herself, while grabbing attention she apparently craved.
What I think this complicated case does is spotlight an ugly truth. Many people who knew that Forde played only by her own rules let her do that. They knew better, but they helped her.
Why?
Fear.
As our nation struggles with a terrorist threat and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a dangerous level of blame for all our ills — crime, unemployment, deficit spending, just name it — is aimed at immigrants.
How ironic that one woman’s supposed war on illegal immigration and drug trafficking should bring the bloody mayhem that so many fear from outsiders.
How ironic that Forde has been convicted of the murders of two U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil. That’s right: Raul and Brisenia Flores were Americans, born and raised. North checked.
We see and hear examples of misguided blame all the time — at least I do. On Monday, I spoke with a caller who had applied for but hadn’t been accepted into low-income housing. He shared with me many of his troubles, including an issue with his housing application and his poor health. He said police had once been called when an argument was heard at his home.
Yet the targets of his wrath, when he spoke of why he hadn’t gotten public housing, were immigrants. “Russians,” he said.
Anti-immigration language cranks up the heat on talk radio and cable TV. “Take Back America” isn’t just a tea party slogan or a political book title. It was a phrase on T-shirts sold by Shawna Forde.
Blaming any group for all our problems is a dangerous game. The Forde case shows what misery is wrought when that blame turns to violence.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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