Arizona ignored threat of border militia exposed by Anonymous



Arizona ignored threat of border militia exposed by Anonymous

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON -- Anonymous' Lulzsec hacktivists exposed Arizona police files last summer, revealing white supremacists and border militia were widespread, dangerous and heavily armed in southern Arizona.

Those hacked files revealed that armed white supremacists and border militia were largely ignored by Arizona police. Further, the Arizona media, out of fear, did not report the facts from those hacked police files or expose the danger. In fact, the Arizona media, refused.

On Wednesday, JT Ready, leader of the US Border Guard who appeared in photos and videos heavily armed on Arizona border patrols, apparently killed four people, including his girlfriend, her daughter and a 15-month old baby, in a murder-suicide that left five people dead in Gilbert, in the Phoenix Valley.

At the root of white supremacy in Arizona is the Arizona government, responsible for laws targeting people of color and the recent banning of Mexican American Studies in Tucson public schools and dozens of books by award-winning Chicano and Native American authors.

JT Ready had his friends and influences in the Arizona government.

When Anonymous’ Lulzsec exposed the Chinga La Migra files in the summer of 2011, Censored News published an article, with a video showing JT Ready, heavily armed, and on patrol in Arizona.

The article is: “Hacked data reveals US Marines as contract killers, hunting migrants on the border.” http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/hacked-data-reveals-us-marines-contract.html

Censored News also published another report from those hacked files in July, showing the danger to Arizona border residents. Border residents of the Sasabe area, bordering the Tohono O'odham Nation, were never informed of these dangers.

“In the leaked files of Chinga La Migra, a police report describes an encounter with a heavily-armed man at Sasabe and states there is a ‘mercenary-type; action planned for this area.

“In this second e-mail from police files, agents working in the town of Sasabe in March said they were approached by a man who engaged in a conversation with agents.” The agents said the man had a Glock pistol Saiga shotgun, 10 round magazine and a 20 round drum magazine.

“He stated that he is soon to receive funding in the amount of $350,000.00 from what he described as ‘Concerned citizens’ and that he planned to use this funding to bring up to five men into the area," the police report states.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacked-police-data-assassins-plan.html

Later, in October, when JT Ready showed up heavily armed at the start of Occupy Phoenix, Native Americans and anarchists responded with alarm at the presence of Ready and heavily armed members of the National Socialist Movement.

The Phoenix Class War Council said, "This attitude towards the NSM scum played out, quite predictably, along racial lines, with whites being the only ones to express attitudes of tolerance towards them. This points to the continuing importance of addressing racism and the continual appeal and relevance of racial privileges within the movement. Indeed, we can expand this argument to the whole attitude of the bulk of the white movement towards the police. Experiencing policing in quite different ways than people of color in general, white middle class liberals mistake their own experience for that of others, and routinely attack anyone who questions the alleged 99 percent status of the police, or points out their quite obvious tendencies towards violent action, as violent themselves. To question the violence of the police is to be violent, according to this backwards analysis."
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/neo-nazis-show-up-armed-to-counter.html

As for those Arizona police files exposed by Anonymous’ Lulzsec, there remains many files revealing the extent of white supremacy and racism in Arizona, and the failure of Arizona police and the US Border Patrol to protect and save lives.

In one of those files, Arizona police point out that a ranch where police go to practice roping near Nogales is also a route of the Mexican drug cartel. The e-mail expresses interest only in the safety of the officers, and no concern for the safety of the people of southern Arizona. The cartel told officers to “look the other way” when they are off duty.

In another e-mail, Arizona police point out that the US Border Patrol based in Why, Arizona, near Lukeville, are leaving migrants to die in the desert south of Phoenix.

The extent of the white supremacy movement in Arizona is also revealed in those files, and the extent to which Arizona police ignore them.

Also exposed in those Arizona police files were the ATF Project Gunrunner's Weapons of Choice, with photos, from 2008. Project Gunrunner began in Laredo, Texas, in 2004, a fact that most media ignore.

The only high point in those police files exposed by Lulzsec is the information on a vote by a Phoenix area chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. It is a vote of no support for racist and anti-immigrant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The Chinga La Migra files, I, II and III remain online.

UPDATE May 7, 2012: --Arizona border militia JT Ready shot the 15-month old baby in the head during the murder-suicide. Also, according to this article, weapons seized at the scene will be part of investigations into domestic terrorism. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/05/04/20120504court-document-sheds-more-light-into-shooting.html
The same area where JT Ready led heavily armed 'border patrols' in southern Arizona is the same area where migrants were found murdered. These areas include the Eloy, Arizona, region, where vehicles were attacked and migrants murdered, and also along the Arizona border.
This report by Derechos Humanos shows some of the murdered migrants whose bodies were found, and the locations in Arizona: http://derechoshumanosaz.net/projects/arizona-recovered-bodies-project/

Hacked data reveals US Marines as contract killers, hunting migrants on the border

Hacked data reveals US Marines contract killers, hunting migrants on the border

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photo: San Xavier crosses for migrants who died in the Sonoran Desert by Brenda Norrell

(Updated on Sunday 11 pm: Assaults on migrants and the patriots at Caballo Loco Ranch)

The hunting and murder of migrants by US Marines along the Arizona border was among the first facts revealed, after LulzSec hacked the Arizona Department of Public Safety on Thursday.

The data exposes the fact that Arizona law enforcement officers were aware that migrants were being hunted by off-duty Marines patrolling the border with assault weapons. The information was in a report for the month of October, 2008, by Arizona's HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Investigative Support Center.

"In other incidents reported in October, U.S. Border Patrol agents encountered two subjects who claimed to be members of the Border Watch Group the Blue Lights based on the Caballo Loco Ranch. The subjects, armed with pistols and at least one M4 rifle, were dressed in full desert camouflage uniforms, similar to those of the United States military. They stated they were not members of the Minutemen, but paid contract employees who ‘get the job done’ and ‘were not just volunteers.’ They possessed valid United States Marine Corps identification cards."

Arizona and federal agents have largely ignored the militia and white separatist groups patrolling this area, along the border of the Tohono O’odham Nation, south of Three Points, and southwest of Tucson.

An Internet user who called himself "Marine 1," posted online at the Patriots Border Alliance and described Operation Ice Storm scheduled for January of 2008 and based at the Caballo Loco RV Ranch.

Marine 1 posted this message: “Being only 7 months old now, we are enjoying success beyond our imagination, and it is fully credited to the PBA Minuteman Volunteer. Without your support and dedication to our mission, our efforts would go without notice. Since being asked by many Minutemen this past Spring to form a border watch group, we have performed one weekend and one 30 Day Muster in Palominas Arizona and New Mexico. We have stood in protest and supported the ongoing events at Pruitts Furniture Store in Phoenix, and we continue to be active and help stop illegal immigration across the land."

The posted message included directions to the Caballo Loco RV Ranch: From Tucson, take Hwy 86 West to Three Points. Take Rt 286 South, just before mile marker 34 make a left turn onto a dirt road, follow that for 8 miles. The road is well graded and suitable for cars. The dirt road is marked with a sign, "Caballo Loco RV Ranch."

The 'patriots' have continued to gather in this area. In March of 2011, Riflestock was held in this area and promoted online. "Riflestock is not intended to be a border operation, itself, though the ability to see the damage done, take pictures of illegal critters, and, perhaps, scare the hell out of some of them, by our sheer numbers, and to actually visit the site of America's ongoing war with illegal border crossings, is in the offering," according to the web post.

In Arizona's HIDTA report of Oct. 2008, there were more details on the assaults on migrants under the subheading, "Border Banditry and Assaults on Illegal Aliens."

"Border bandit groups continually target illegal aliens and narcotics smugglers. They rove the desert, lying-in-wait to rob or assault them. This occurs both in Mexico and after they enter the United States. The most common area in Mexico is just south of the International Boundary. In Arizona, the most common areas for this type of activity are: Green Valley; Sasabe; Arivaca; Nogales; the west desert near Casa Grande; and on the Indian Reservations. Incidents reported for October included: armed bandits in Mexico robbed illegal aliens, one of whom was shot; bandits in Arizona robbed illegal aliens, one of whom was sexually assaulted," the report states.

Although border rights organizations have pressed for investigations of assaults, rapes and murders of migrants in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona law enforcement and border agents most often ignore the crimes.

A large percentage of the migrants in the Arizona border region are Indigenous Peoples from Central and South America, including many Mayan women and children from Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guatemala. Assaults, murder and rapes by the US military, Arizona law enforcement, the US Border Patrol and anti-immigration groups and other hate groups, are often ignored or concealed.

As it released the hacked data, Lulz Security said in a statement, “We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.”

“Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarrassing personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust ‘war on drugs.’”

Arizona officials confirmed on Thursday that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Twitter account received a message from LulzSec, after Arpaio complained of heat from the media on Thursday.

"The media has been giving me a lot of heat lately but nothing compared to tent city! You think you're hot? It's 128 degrees there today!" said Arpaio, who uses the name of RealSheriffJoe on Twitter.

Lulzsec responded, "Media? Heat? You? Chinga La Migra!" using the Spanish words for "F--k the Border Patrol."

Arpaio continued to tweet away on Friday, announcing that he would be speaking to the Gun Owners of America tonight in Reno. Yesterday, after Lulzsec's tweet, Arpaio said he met yesterday with Brazilian Counsel General Jose Alfredo Garicia Lima. Arpaio said "illegal immigration" was among the issues discussed.

As the data was slowly released on Thursday night, Arizona human rights activists waited to learn more about police spying on peaceful protests by immigration and border rights activists.

Tagged "SB 1070 Protests and Civil Disobedience," the data is a bulletin from the Arizona Counter-Terrorism Information Center. The bulletin states that police were watching demonstrators from Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff as they prepared for civil disobedience in reaction to SB 1070 on July 26-31, 2010. However, the bulletin also points out the non-violent nature of the July 22 act of civil disobedience at the courthouse in Phoenix. It also states that counterprotesters at events thus far were non-violent.

On the subject of racial profiling, boingboing.net concludes, "Even after controlling for other explanatory factors, racial/ethnic disparities exist for warnings, repair orders, citations, arrests and seaches. Further analyses of searches and seizures illustrate that hispanic, black and native american drivers were significantly more likely to be searched compared to whites." (This report was previously made public in regards to Native Americans being racially profiled by Arizona law enforcement.)

There is also an admission about the intent of an officer for police brutality. It follows a guide to social networking sites which cautions officers not to boast about beating arrestees on Facebook, because that may be of use to defense attorneys, according to boingboing.net.

One of the notable postings introduced to the jury was that the officer watched the movie "Training Day" (a motion picture that displayed corrupt police behavior and brutality) to brush up on "proper police procedure." One of his postings said, "If he wanted to tune him up some, he should have delayed cuffing him." In another he added, "If you were going to hit a cuffed suspect, at least get your money's worth 'cause now he's going to get disciplined for a relatively light punch."

Meanwhile in Arizona, O’odham and other Native Americans continue to call for an end to the militarization of the border and their homelands. Indigenous rights activists continue to document the abuses of the US Border Patrol in their homelands, from California to Texas.

In Arizona, border rights activists continue to search the Sonoran Desert for those dying and dead, and battle for the right to legally give water to dying migrants on the Tohono O’odham Nation.

While the United States provides media spin to avoid responsibility for the drug war in Mexico, the fact is there would be no drug war without the appetite for illegal drugs in the US.

Recently it was also revealed that the weapons used in the violent drug war come not just from illegal weapons trafficking in the US, but also from the ATF. ATF agents revealed that they were ordered to let weapons “walk” across the border into Mexico, supposedly in sting operations. Ultimately those ATF weapons, in at least two cases, were used to kill US federal agents.

Further, the US has not fully disclosed its role in training members of the Zetas who were initially US Special Forces trained in the US.

In related news, the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed that a neo-Nazi accused of making illegal explosive devices apparently was interested in supplying those munitions to anti-immigration groups patrolling the U.S.-Mexican border in Arizona, according to court documents. Jeffery Harbin, a member of the white supremacist National Socialist Movement, was allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs at home.

A federal grand jury indicted Harbin, 28, of Apache Junction, Ariz., on three counts of possessing explosive devices in January.

This video, dated June 2010 and previously released, shows the militia dressed in camouflage that hunt for migrants with assault weapons on the Arizona border: