Gun-Toting Vigilantes of the Minuteman Groups has been investigated by FBI. by MICKADEIT.
More craziness in Minuteman Land, and I'm more than happy to report the goings on for those of you pelt me with deranged e- and v- mail, insisting that these are just well-meaning Americans doing what our government is too afraid to.
Some are well-meaning, if misguided, but as I've shown time and again, there are so many nut jobs in the ranks that it was just a matter of time before we'd get this: A pair of You Tube videos that purport to show a San Diego border Minuteman nicknamed Lil' Dog shooting and hitting an illegal border crosser – and the grave where the victim is claimed to be buried.
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department has determined the grave shown in one video is a fake, but it is still investigating whether Minutemen were shooting at Mexicans – perhaps while they were still on the Mexican side. (The sheriff's action was first reported by Leslie Berestein of the San Diego Union-Tribune, a reporter I hired and supervised many years ago. Good to know she has retained the low tolerance for knuckle-dragging zealots I tried to instill in her.)
One video has been removed from You Tube because of a "terms of use violation," but one was still up as of yesterday afternoon at www.youtube.com/thecockroachhunter. Shot through a grainy night-vision scope it shows a silhouette moving on a ridgeline and contains dialogue of two men purporting to track the individual. One is clearly on a walkie-talkie; the other is next to the video recorder.
"What's your '20' (i.e.: location)?" asks one of the men.
"He's up there on the smuggler's trail," replies the other.
Then they appear to lose sight of the person. Suddenly the figure reappears from behind a rock.
"I'm going to take the shot!" one man yells, and then follows two flashes of light and the sound of two gunshots. The silhouette is no longer visible. "I (expletive) got 'em, dude! I (expletive) got 'em! … Dude, what are we gonna do?"
The other man replies, "Get the shovel, get some lime, and, hey, grab me a 12-pack, too, while you're up there."
The end of the video is a daylight shot of a grave in the desert marked with stones and a crude white cross.
As you recall, I was near Lil' Dog's semi-permanent outpost near Campo earlier this year. Deborah Courtney, the Minuteman member who was with me, told me Friday that she purposely didn't take me to meet Lil' Dog that day because they considered him a little too wacky. As for the provenance of these videos, Courtney just doesn't know. "We think it was theatrical. We hopeit was theatrical."
Even if it is theatrical, it still shows you how sick some of these individuals are. And to think that I once momentarily had second thoughts about labeling them "gun-toting vigilantes."
Meanwhile, in Orange County, Courtney and the other former/current/never-were (depending on who you believe) Minuteman board members fighting founder Jim Gilchrist have encountered their own bit of strangeness.
Their attorney, Richard Gilbert, filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against Gilchrist in the ongoing battle over who really isThe Minuteman Project: Gilchrist or Courtney, et al. And indeed, Courtney filed under the corporate name, The Minuteman Project.
Shortly after her filing, Courtney was reviewing the file online when she discovered that another attorney, Guy Mailly, had filed a motion to substitute as the attorney for The Minuteman Project. Mailly is Gilchrist's attorney.
To Courtney and Gilbert, it appears Mailly is trying to pull a fast one – hijack the lawsuit by getting himself declared the attorney of record.
In court on Friday, Judge Randell Wilkinson seemed a little shocked, too, when Mailly stood at the plaintiff's table. He told him to move down to the defense table.
This sounded like one of the more audacious legal maneuvers I'd ever heard, but Mailly was unrepentant late Friday afternoon. He says he wrote Gilbert a letter saying he was the legitimate attorney for the Minutemen and "they didn't get back to me, so I filed the motion."
Mailly believes that Wilkinson will ultimately declare him the rightful attorney. "We will proceed and we will succeed, and then we will dismiss the case," Mailly told me. Next hearing: Sept. 19.
3 comments:
A land that does not enforce its laws is not a country I want to live in! Yes there needs to be a balance, but the real problem here is the countries like Mexico and other central American countries whose governments FAIL there citizens, and force them to press north!
If you want to come to this country, fine do it legally, we all welcome legal immigrants, we want you to assimilate into our culture and be part of the American fabric!
We just do not need 20 million of the poorest that other countries have to offer! Those countries need to stand up and take care of there own, we also need to take care of our own! We have thousands of US Citizens without health coverage, that go unfed every day, that drop out of school each year! Lets take care of our house, then go to the neighborhood and help!
We also must enforce punishment for employers who hire cheap labor, and treat them like slaves of the 21st century!
As for these fellows being patriots, you could not find a better bunch of really red white & blue people, they have been in every war since the battle of the bulge to Iraq, and are very proud to be Americans! They do what our federal government refuses to do!
And you must remember they are NOT hate mongrels like your post indicated, they have no beef with Mexicans, only the Mexican Government!
And yes it is about protecting our borders, if you were ACTUALLY go to the southern border for a weekend and observe what goes on there you would come home a changed person! I know, I did! And I was terrified at what goes on down there with the drug runners, and human trafficking.
So, lets educate ourselves here, it is NOT about RACE! It is about protecting the freedoms of the American Citizens; we all love and want to pass down to our children and grand children when we are gone.
If you would like to see what actually goes on down in CA, come down to the border with us one weekend, but a word of caution here! Be prepared to have the crap scared out of you from what these people are doing to one another, and the environment there and to US!
It is good to have differing opinions, and we respect those who differ with us, but until those people who carry those opinions actually partake in what is happening at the BORDER in person, they will have no idea about the reality of every day life in the border towns of CA.
Ouch, name calling again! Well you are just about as far out as it gets, IF you also actually do your home work you will find that these fine people are not ALL "rightwing", most of these people are actually in the middle of the road, with a number of them leaning LEFT!
And again, you throw our more accusations about things in general about the group, get off your horse, and see for your self what goes on at the borders! Or maybe you are "too Busy at your computer spreading lies all day"...
Hi Noopenborders,
Thanks for stopping by and throw your anger and discourage on me.
I am just sitting on an open table to discuss both sides of the subject.
Sometimes the true hurts and we need to able to receive a constructive positive criticism.
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