Forde Found Guilty In Brisenia Flores Death

Arizona anti-immigration zealot Shawna Forde was found guilty today of two counts of murder in the home invasion that resulted in the deaths of 9 year old Brisenia Flores and her father.Raul Junior Flores.  She was also found guilty of attemnpted murder in the shooting of Flores' mother Gina Gonzalez.

The trial began January 5, and prosecutors are planning to seek the death penalty in this case.

The 43 year old Forde was the founder and leader of the Minutemen American Defense group that on May 30, 2009, along with her co defendants Albert Robert Gaxiola and Jason Eugene Bush claimed they were police officers looking for fugitives in the process of executing a home invasion.   

Flores and his daugher were killed, while Gonzalez was wounded, survived and later called 911.   Forde's co defendants are currently awaiting trial.

One down, two to go.


   

A Tale Of Two Arizona 9 Year Olds

By now everyone has heard the story about 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, who died along with five other people in the attempted assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

President Obama mentions the born on 9-11 girl in his Tucson speech during the memorial service.  Pleas for national civility followed in her name and an overflow crowd complete with the 9-11 flag waving in the breeze attended her funeral that got national television coverage..

But for 9 year old Brisenia Flores of Arivaca, AZ, there wasn't any overflow crowd at her funeral.  There was no national news coverage of her funeral, continuing cable coverage or national outrage over her murder.

On May 30, 2009  Brisenia's home 11 miles north of the border was invaded by a group led by Shawna Forde of racist anti-immigration Minutemen.

The right wing extremist Minutemen had been on a mission to jack up drug dealers to fund their 'patriotic' activities of unsolicited vigilante patrols of the Mexican border.    Forde also has ties to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform which was declared a hate group in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  She appeared as their spokeperson in a 2006 PBS show about immigration issues and had formed her own Minuteman group called the Minuteman American Defense.

Forde and friends had been given inaccurate information that the Flores home had drugs and cash inside it. In the early morning hours of May 30 Forde and her accomplices forced their way into the house claiming they were law enforcement personnel looking for fugitives.   They killed Brisenia's father Raul and shot her mother Gina Gonzalez three times, who survived the shooting by playing dead.

In Terry Green Sterling's story posted to The Daily Beast, according to prosecutors, when Brisenia asked the gunman "Why did you shoot my mom?" the man put a gun to her head and fired the two bullets that killed her.    The Flores family's other daughter fortunately was staying with her grandmother at the time.

The trial of Forde, Jason Bush and Albert Gaxiola is taking place in Tucson and ironically was postponed in the wake of the Tuscon shootings.   Forde and friends are facing the death penalty if convicted and one of the witnesses will be Gina Gonzalez..
     

Arivaca, AZ also happens to be in Pima County as well.  Sheriff Clarence Dupnik earned the ire of the right wing when he said in the wake of the Giffords shooting::   

The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Sheriff Dupnik was not shy about expressing himself in the wake of the Flores tragedy either.   He called the murder of Brisenia at the time 'one of the most despicable acts I'd heard of.'

I have the same questions as the Crooks and Liars blog story does.   Why hasn't the rest of America heard about it?   Is it because it happened to a Latino family?  Is it because it rips the so called patriotic 'were not racist' neighborhood watch mask off the Minutemen vigilantes running around in the desert playing with automatic weapons and hatin' on Latinos?

Or is it because once again it points out the connection between right wing political rhetoric,.talk show hate speech and the violence it leads to that cost a 9 year old Latina girl and her family their lives?

It also sadly points out the Grand Canyon sized chasm in terms of the level of attention that's garnered by two Arizona nine year olds and the value placed on their lives.

How Not To Win A Political Debate

While we Texans wait for Gov. Chicken Rick to set up a debate with Bill White, the Arizona governor's race debate will probably become one of those shown in political science classes for quite a while.

Check out Jan Brewer's stellar performance in her debate against Democratic gubernatorial candidate and current attorney general Terry Goddard

This Is H.O.W. Names New Executive Director

This Is H.O.W. is a Phoenix based 501c(3) charitable organization that provides a transitional living environment for Trans persons in crisis.

On August 1 the This Is H.O.W. Board of Directors appointed Antonia “Toni” D’orsay as the new Executive Director of the organization and committed itself to expanding on the services it offers to transgender individuals in the Valley.

“I’m humbled by the honor, and committed to carrying This Is H.O.W.’s mission and the vision of its Founder, Regina Gazelle, forward through these troubled economic times." Ms. D’orsay said.

The organization was founded in 2006 by Regina Gazelle, and is dedicated to the betterment of the lives of Trans (transsexual, transgender, and gender variant) persons experiencing crisis situations such as homelessness, substance abuse, familial abuse, and transition related difficulties.

The organization is currently conducting a fundraising drive and this weekend is coordinating a day of service from 8 AM MST to 5 PM MST on the 21st and 22 for the purposes of cleaning, painting, reorganizing and redecorating the This is H.O.W. facility.

Congratulations Toni on the new ED position and may you and the Board of Directors be successful in keeping alive and expanding the vision of this organization.

Federal Judge Smacks Down Parts Of The SB 1070 'Hate On Latinos' Law

Federal U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton earlier today gave the 'Hate On Latinos' law a serious legal smackdown.

"The Court by no means disregards Arizona's interests in controlling illegal immigration and addressing the concurrent problems with crime, including the trafficking of humans, drugs, guns and money," Bolton wrote. "Even though Arizona's interests may be consistent with those of the federal government, it is not in the public interest for Arizona to enforce preempted laws."

SB 1070 will still take effect at midnight, but Judge Bolton's ruling blocks implementation of the most controversial and odious parts of it.

Judge Bolton delayed the parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times. SB 1070 took aim at day laborers by making it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places. Judge Bolton also blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) is running for governor and was put in the awkward position of having to defend a law he opposed and had this to say about the ruling.

"Rather than providing the leadership Arizona needs to solve the immigration problem, Jan Brewer signed a bill she could not defend in court which has led to boycotts, jeopardized our tourism industry and polarized our state. "It is time to look beyond election year grandstanding and begin to repair the damage to Arizona's image and economy."

Judge Bolton was appointed by President Clinton and of course the 'activist judge' sniping has already begun by the right wing. Gov. Jan Brewer has already indicated the state will appeal.

But this was just round one of a legal tussle over this bill that will probably end up being decided by the Supreme Court.

But score one for our side.

It's A Dry Hate In Prescott, AZ

For those of you non-POC's who for some reason think the 'Papers Please' law in Hateizona 'isn't racist' or didn't have those motivations behind it, peep the latest news courtesy of Wonkette.

Seems as though the Reich wing sheeple of Prescott, AZ have been screaming anti-Black and anti-Latino epithets at a 'Go Green' mural being painted on the walls of the most diverse elementary school in the city.

The 'Hate on the Mural' campaign was spearheaded by an KYCA-AM (1490) radio talk show host and Prescott City Councilman named Steve Blair.

According to the Prescott Daily Courier an archived broadcast last month has Blair mistakenly complaining that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American. "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"

The mural is taken from photos of the kids who attend Miller Valley, and some of them happen to be Black and Latino.

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of Prescott's most prominent intersections.

"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

Of course Blair is executing the usual right wing tactic of denying he instigated it and simultaneously accusing the victims of making it up.

Umm hmm. If it didn't happen, then why are the Black and Latino kids being painted out of the mural on the orders of the school principal?

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Good people of Prescott, AZ...we're waiting for you to speak up.

Y'all didn't learn anything from the last boycott Hateizona suffered from for its intransigence on the MLK holiday, did you?

There Arizona Goes Again- Hatin' On Latinos With New Unjust Laws

If Arizona was trying to convince reality-based people beyond the conservasheeple that the new 'Papers Please' Law wasn't directed at Latino/as and wasn't going to result in racial profiling. they seriously undermined that argument.

In another boneheaded move sure to increase the calls for a boycott, the Republican dominated Arizona Legislature passed a bill April 29 that outlawed ethnic studies programs:

HB 2281 would make it illegal for a school district to have any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity “instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

It also would ban classes that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”

The measure was aimed directly at the Tuscon Unified School District’s popular Mexican-American studies department, which school officials say provides only “historical information” — not “ethnic chauvinism” as the state school superintendent has alleged.

One state lawmaker tried to show how ridiculous the legislation is by proposing that schools be barred from teaching about 9/11 because it would result in hatred toward Arab-Americans; the measure failed.

The Mexican government struck back by issuing a travel warning advising its citizens visiting Arizona to use extreme caution in doing so.

The Wall Street Journal also published a report about a new Arizona Department of Education policy in which they began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English”:

Of course Arizona state education officials are spinning this as a move that they're spinning this as a move intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly.

But by who's standards? Are you going to impose the same accentless English standards on someone with a British accent? A Canadian one? An Australian one? A New England accent? A Southern accent?

Or only Latinos, since Arizona schools have significant numbers of teachers who are native Spanish speakers?

Some school principals and administrators in the state have expressed concerns the Arizona Department of Education is imposing arbitrary fluency standards that could undermine students by thinning the ranks of experienced educators.

Arizona universities are already beginning to feel the effects of the 'Papers Please' law. Out of state students accepted to schools such as Arizona State and the University of Arizona are notifying those schools they are declining or are transferring out of the state to other colleges. Faculty and staff at Arizona colleges are also expressing concerns about the draconian law.

These latest legislative and policy attacks aimed at Latinos are only going to increase calls from leaders across the spectrum from members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa for an economic boycott of Arizona.

There is already pressure being applied on Major League Baseball to pull the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix, especially in light of the fact that 40% of its ballplayers hail from Latin American nations.

You can bet that the NFL will not put a Super Bowl in the state until this law is repealed, and the same goes for the NCAA with its Final Fours.

If you're asking where my peeps are on this issue, the Congressional Black Caucus has condemned the law. We have long memories about laws specifically aimed at us starting with the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act to the post Civil War Jim Crow statutes that permeated Southern lawbooks until the 1960's.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee, (D-CA), and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, (D-TX), chair of the CBC’s Immigration Task Force, called the new law “patently unconstitutional.” President Obama called the law 'misguided' and asked the Department of justice to look into the constitutionality of it.

Rev. Al Sharpton among other African American leaders are joining the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in calling for an economic boycott of Arizona.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc, the oldest African-American Greek organization has responded to those calls by moving its July convention that was to be held in Phoenix to Las Vegas.

Arizona will have a hard time drawing any convention to the state for a while except probably one that Phoenix has put in a bid for.

The 2012 Republican National Convention.