What Right Wing Extremists? (Update)
Here’s an update on the story of the anti-immigrant “activists” arrested on suspicion of murdering two people (including a 9-year old girl) in southern Arizona; Jason Eugene Bush (aka “Gunny”) has now been charged with another murder: the 1997 stabbing of a homeless Mexican man.
An anti-immigration crusader, who faces murder charges along with a former Everett woman in a double slaying in Arizona, was also charged Friday in a 1997 Wenatchee killing.
Jason Eugene Bush, 34, was charged in Chelan County Superior Court in the stabbing death of Hector Lopez Partida, 29, a homeless man.
An informant told Wenatchee police that Bush had bragged about killing “a Mexican” behind a store and that Bush had ties to white supremacist groups, according to court documents. Prosecutors say he was linked to the death through DNA evidence.
Bush and two others, including Shawna Forde, 41, who grew up in Everett and ran for the Everett City Council in 2007, are charged with two counts of murder in Pima, Ariz. During a May 30 home-invasion robbery, a woman was wounded and her husband and their 9-year-old daughter were killed.
A sheriff in Arizona said Forde, Bush and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, wanted to steal money from the man, whom they suspected to be a drug dealer, to fund operations of Forde’s Minutemen American Defense, an anti-illegal-immigration group focused on the Mexican border with Arizona.
One of the group’s stated missions was to gather video of drug smuggling and human trafficking by drug cartels, according to its Web site.
The “Minutemen for American Defense” website contained this short bio of Bush, although I don’t know if any of it has been confirmed:
We are honored to have Gunny aboard. He served 6 tours over seas, where he has several medals. He received a Purple heart, Silver and Bronze star, Combat Infantry Badge and a Presidential citation for his actions in the Special Forces.