Gilbert mass shooting: Horror in wake of vigilante's final act
Militia leader J.T. Ready kills 4, then self in Gilbert, sources say
by Dennis Wagner - May. 3, 2012 07:37 AM
The Republic | azcentral.com
For several years, Arizona vigilante J.T. Ready conducted armed, civilian patrols along the U.S. border, urging the use of violence to prevent smuggling and illegal immigration.
On Wednesday, the former Marine, who was running for Pinal County sheriff, went on a shooting rampage in a sedate Gilbert neighborhood, killing four people before he took his own life, authorities believe.
The victims ranged from a 15-month-old infant to a 47-year-old grandmother. Investigators have yet to list a motive for the killing spree, but early indications suggested an explosion of domestic violence rather than a political act.
The shootings occurred at a beige, middle-class home in the 500 block of West Tumbleweed Road, near Cooper and Warner roads, a housing tract between a Methodist church and residential lakes. Friends and neighbors said the victims knew one another and all either lived at the address with Ready or had resided there until recently.
On Thursday morning, Gilbert police confirmed the identities of the victims given to a Florida relative, Hugo Mederos on Wednesday evening.
The victims were:
• Lisa Mederos, 47, Hugo's former wife.
• Amber Mederos, 23, daughter of Hugo and Lisa, who was employed at a nearby Wendy's restaurant.
• Jim "Jambob" Hiott, 24, Amber's boyfriend, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan.
• And Lilly, Amber's 15-month-old daughter.
Hugo Mederos said his other daughter, Brittany Mederos, was at the house and heard gunfire, but was not wounded.
"She was in the bedroom when she heard the gunshots," he said, after speaking with Brittany by phone. "She heard everybody screaming. She heard the baby crying."
Sgt. Bill Balafas, a Gilbert police spokesman, said the wounded baby was taken to Maricopa Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. "There were signs of life, that's why we transported her," Balafas said.
"This is a domestic situation. We do have a witness that our investigators are interviewing," he added, referring to Brittany.
Balafas said the three females were discovered inside the house; the two men were found outside.
Gilbert police were joined at the scene by members of an anti-terrorism task force, according to an FBI spokesman. What's this got to to with terrorism??? It was a domestic shooting!!! Oh well, I guess the FBI will use any excuse to create jobs for it's agents. As darkness fell Wednesday, victims' bodies had not yet been removed. Investigators retreated from the house after discovering a pair of 55-gallon drums in the backyard. Fire officials determined that the contents were not an immediate danger, but the investigation was further delayed when bomb-squad members found munitions in the house and called in federal agents.
Ready, a prospective candidate for Pinal County Sheriff, was founder of U.S. Border Guard and a member of the Minuteman Project, both nationally prominent anti-illegal immigration organizations. At one time, he also belonged to the National Socialist Movement, which espouses White-supremacist theories.
On Wednesday afternoon, someone posted a message on Ready's Facebook page: "Reports are unconfirmed that a cartel assassination squad murdered J.T. Ready and several of his friends and family. ... This page's admin will keep you updated of the situation as soon as possible."
A message on the U.S. Border Guard website said members were "extremely saddened by the untimely loss of our founder" and expressed sympathy to the victims.
Ready, 39, has advocated deadly force to stop smugglers and immigrants from entering the United States illegally. He became a significant figure in Arizona politics recently because of his purported neo-Nazi views and his association with former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who was recalled last fall.
Pearce did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment. However, Pearce has in recent years disavowed his association with Ready.
In 2008, Ready became a Republican precinct committeeman in Legislative District 18. Because of his extreme views, several GOP congressman in Arizona sent a letter to Maricopa County Republican Party leaders asking that Ready be removed from that position.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups nationally, characterized Ready as a racist and "an outright neo-Nazi" who once declared, "I firmly believe in having a minefield across the border. This is 100 percent effective."
Harry Hughes, a member of the National Socialist Movement who also took part in armed border patrols, expressed shock at Wednesday's mayhem.
"I think this is horrible," he said. "I want everyone to know J.T. Ready was the last person on Earth I'd figure to have done anything to hurt a child. It really caught me off guard. Despite all the rhetoric and the stuff we're going to hear about him being the evil Nazi, he was a good man."
Wednesday evening, Hughes was being interviewed by police, federal agents and prosecutors at his Pinal County residence in Maricopa, which Ready listed as his home address in elections paperwork that also showed Amber Mederos as campaign treasurer.
Meanwhile, a group of friends wept and commiserated at the Wendy's restaurant in Gilbert.
Heather Morton, a former employee, said J.T. Ready had worked at a nearby auto shop, met the Mederos sisters while dining at the restaurant where they worked and became involved with their mother. She said Ready moved into the family residence but was so "cruel and controlling" that Amber Mederos moved out a few months ago with her daughter and fiance.
Morton said Ready tried to boss the girls and criticized Amber's baby for being half Hispanic. "He said, 'She's 50 percent ugly,' that's how he described her," she added.
Nancy and Bud Napples, owners of the apartment complex where Jim Hiott and Amber Mederos moved, said they were a "young couple, just starting out."
Bud Napples said Hiott had been looking for work since November and recently landed a job. He watched Lilly during the day while Amber worked at Wendy's. Things were looking up for the young family, Nancy Napples said.
"They both had work, and he was so happy about that ... He had Lilly in his arms, and he was just happy."
Hiott, a member of the South Carolina National Guard, returned from U.S. Army deployment last year in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he served in an artillery unit providing security for reconstruction efforts.
Linda Hiott, a sister in Walterboro, S.C., said he was a normal guy: "He liked fast cars. He liked to go to church and go fishing."
Nancy Napples said the little girl was "a delight," with dark hair and blue eyes. "It's strange to see a couple on the verge of the rest of their lives ... and have that happen," she said. "I'm sorry for their families and the little girl that didn't really have a chance."
Police swarmed into the development known as Lago Estancia and blocked access after the slayings were first reported around 1 p.m. Footage from a media helicopter revealed at least one body lying outside.
Neighbors in the normally placid community were stunned and frightened, especially early on when it was unclear whether a gunman remained on the loose. The area was cordoned with yellow police tape while neighbors retreated into their homes, and several nearby schools were locked down.
Cathi Rand, a nearby resident, expressed outrage at the slaying of a baby. "You want to commit suicide? How dare you take children's lives."
Tammy Cowden, a neighbor who lived next to the family for about 20 years, described Lisa Mederos as "a stay-at-home grandmother who doted on her granddaughter."
"I heard the gunshots," Cowden said. "I heard three of them. ... My dog wouldn't stop growling."
"It is just horrible," added Paulie Hale. "Just really, really sad. This is a family neighborhood."
Republic reporters Jim Walsh, Laurie Merrill, Lindsey Collom, Michael Kiefer, Allie Seligman, JJ Hensley, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Craig Harris and Gary Nelson contributed to this article.
White supremacist J.T. Ready left tracks in politics
SourceGilbert mass shooting: White supremacist J.T. Ready left tracks in politics
by Gary Nelson - May. 2, 2012 10:28 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
J.T. Ready, the avowed White supremacist and militant critic of illegal immigration who authorities believe was the gunman in Wednesday's multiple murder-suicide in Gilbert, cut a swath through Arizona politics before -- and after -- it became apparent he represented the far-right fringe of the political spectrum.
Along the way the barrel-chested former Marine became entwined for a time with one of the state's most powerful political leaders and appeared on the radar of at least two national groups that track potentially violent extremist movements for his views and armed patrols of the Mexico border.
Authorities believe Ready, 39, shot and killed four people in a Gilbert home before turning a gun on himself.
Ready was allied briefly with former state Senate President Russell Pearce, and the two posed together for photographers during an anti-illegal-immigration rally at the state Capitol in June 2007. By the next year, as Ready's ties to neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups became more apparent, Pearce disavowed him.
Pearce, who was defeated last November in a recall election, is now first vice chairman of the Arizona Republican Party and is running again for the Senate, this time from the new District 26 in Mesa.
Party spokesman Shane Wikfors said Pearce would not comment on Ready's death. "He's not going to want to have anything to do with him," Wikfors said. "We categorically, absolutely had nothing to do with him."
Marc Pitcavage, national director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, said the group has long been aware of Ready's activities.
The group's website describes Ready as a "neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant extremist," tracing his activities in Arizona from 2004 onward.
"We have monitored J.T. Ready for many years now," Pitcavage said. It began with Ready's early activities as a border vigilante but soon led to the realization that Ready was "a full-fledged White supremacist."
For a time, Pitcavage said, Ready was a "mover and shaker" for the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group with about 330 members nationwide. Ready was one of the group's two principal leaders in the Phoenix area, Pitcavage said.
An online biography of Ready includes several quotes in which he advocated restoring the country as a "White, European homeland," called for militant action against Jews and advocated using "lawful, deadly force" when appropriate to protect the Mexican border.
Pitcavage said it would be premature to link Ready's extreme political views to the explosion of violence that ended five lives on Wednesday. "When the shooting spree is directed toward family members, or what were essentially the closest thing he had to family members, those are usually personal rather than ideological motives," Pitcavage said.
Ready also had been tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil-rights organization that monitors hate and extremist groups. Like the ADL, the center carries a biography of Ready on its website.
It notes that Ready apparently got his start in politics as president of the Mesa Community College Republican Club and became increasingly involved in local issues in the early 2000s.
According to the SPLC biography, Ready received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines in 1996, after being court-martialed twice -- once for larceny and going AWOL, and once for conspiracy and assault.
The site also lists a 1992 criminal conviction for property damage and assault after he and a friend destroyed a car mirror with a baseball bat.
Ready ran for political office at least twice in Mesa and once as a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate. In 2004 he ran in the Republican primary for a House seat from District 18, which Pearce already represented. In 2006 he ran for Mesa City Council from a heavily Hispanic district and finished second among four candidates.
During that council campaign, The Arizona Republic uncovered inconsistencies in the biography he had provided the newspaper and found that he had been convicted of assault in Florida when he was 18 years old.
Ready had claimed to be a founding member of the Arizona Minuteman Project, a border-vigilante group, but admitted that he was just a member, not a founder.
That campaign also featured a bizarre incident in which Ready, who earlier had solicited votes from the Hells Angels, traded shots with an illegal immigrant whom Ready believed was involved in criminal activity. Nobody was hurt.
A year later Ready caused a commotion at a Mesa City Council meeting when the mayor denied him permission to speak in opposition to a Mesa police detective who was campaigning against hate crimes.
Ready's ties to Pearce became an issue during Pearce's 2008 re-election campaign when a group called Mesa Deserves Better sent a mailer depicting Pearce as a friend of neo-Nazis.
Amid that campaign, three Arizona Republican congressmen sent a letter to the chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party demanding Ready's removal as a precinct committeeman in District 18 because of his neo-Nazi ties.
By that time, Ready had been in that post for two years and was not seeking re-election. "You can't grow a party when you're rallying with J.T. Ready," U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake said at the time.
But Ready apparently was trying to re-enter politics this year and had formed a committee to seek the Democratic nomination for sheriff in Pinal County.
Shortly after Ready's death became known Wednesday afternoon, someone posted this message on his Facebook page: "Reports are unconfirmed that a cartel assassination squad murdered J.T. Ready and several of his friends and family this afternoon in Gilbert, Arizona."
Harry Hughes, who briefly headed Ready's campaign committee for sheriff until he was promoted in the National Socialist Movement, said, "I got an e-mail from him the other day and everything seemed fine."
"And I've always said, he was generous, caring, respectful most of the time as far as with friends and acquaintances, maybe not so much people on the other side," Hughes said.
Republic reporter Lindsey Collom contributed to this article.
Gilbert mass shooting: Former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce's statement
May. 2, 2012 10:20 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Our prayers and thoughts are with the surviving family members and friends of the victims of today's horrific and evil act. There are no words to adequately express the sadness we share, as a community, with those affected.
I spent much of my day resisting efforts by those in the media to get me to make a statement. Today's events have nothing to do with me and no connection to me. Yet TV news crews started coming to my home seeking comments and my telephone rang nonstop with calls from those who were desperate to score the ugliest of political points off of this tragedy. Now my name is being mentioned in coverage and I have no choice but to respond.
In the past several years the local media has worked hard to try to tie me to the JT Ready that preached hate, and that is nothing more than a lie.
When I learned the truth about him, I made it clear how wrong I thought it was and I worked to remove him from our Party. Yet the lie is told and retold over and over again. It is the ugliest form of politics. The most radical groups I have ever belonged to are the Boy Scouts of America and the Fraternal Order of Police, and in my 65 years in Mesa, as a law enforcement deputy, as a judge and as the head of state agencies, I have never been accused of mistreating anyone or of unfair conduct toward anyone I have associated with, hired or supervised.
Finally, while I am frequently critical of the job the mainstream media does in pursuing a political agenda instead of the truth, today's behavior is the most reprehensible that I have ever witnessed. On the very day that these unspeakable crimes take place, editors and producers all over town are making a concerted effort to make the story about a politician whose conservative politics they disagree with.
Today, the Devil won and claimed the soul of one young man and the lives of others, including the most innocent of all, a child. Our thoughts and prayers are with the four beautiful souls that are now in God's hands. We pray that He accepts them into his kingdom and that He grants comfort and solace to the friends and surviving family.
Hate monger Russell Pearce denies being hatemonger
Base upon the actions of Russell Pearce I suspect he
and JT Ready were soul mates, but hate monger Russell Pearce seems
to be politically smart enough to deny being a good buddy of fellow hate monger JT Ready.
The following written statement provided by the Associated Press was distributed late Wednesday to some Arizona media outlets by a representative of former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce.
Regarding whether I knew JT Ready, I did, as did many of us who have been involved in Mesa politics for a long time. When we first met JT he was fresh out of the Marine Corp and seemed like a decent person. He worked as a telephone fundraiser for Christian and pro-life groups, he dated the daughter of one of our District 18 members, and his attitudes and spoken opinions were good and decent. At some point in time darkness took his life over, his heart changed, and he began to associate with the more despicable groups in society. They were intolerant and hateful and like so many who knew him from before, I was upset and disappointed at the choices he was making. I worked with others to have him removed from his local position within our Republican Party because there has never been and will never be any room in our Party or our lives for those preaching hatred. He was angry with me and stayed angry with me, and it has been several years since I have had reason to speak with JT.
Members of extended family were targeted
Source
Gilbert mass shooting: Members of extended family were targeted
by Michael Kiefer - May. 3, 2012 12:49 AM
The Republic | azcentral.com
The four victims and sole survivor of Wednesday's shooting were members of an extended Gilbert family.
Here is information about them piece together from family, friends and court records:
Lisa Lynn Mederos, 47, had been seeing J.T. Ready for about two years, according to Mederos' ex-husband, Hugo, an airline mechanic who now lives in Tampa. Lisa was a homemaker, and Hugo still paid spousal support, and she and Ready lived in a house owned by Hugo. Hugo said he had no idea of what went on in the house or their relationship. He had only met Ready once, but he said that Lisa had a lot of friends and was a good mother to her two daughters. One of Lisa's neighbors said that she was a stay-at-home grandmother with baby Lilly.
Amber Nieve Mederos, 23, worked at a Wendy's restaurant in Mesa, and had just interviewed for a managerial position there the day before she was killed. She graduated from Gilbert's Mesquite High School in 2008 and was in the color guard there. She was also working to get a job there for her fiance, Jim "Jambob" Hiott. She loved everything about Disney, her father said, and planned to move to the Orlando area when she realized her goal of going into a medical field. Paperwork for J.T. Ready's exploratory committee to run for Pinal County Sheriff listed Amber as the committee treasurer in January, but her name was removed when amended papers were filed in March. Her last Facebook post was "Time to get the drama out of (m)y life and make a better life for me my daugher and my love."
Lilly, Amber's baby Lilly was 15 months old, and "just learning to run," according to her grandfather, Hugo Mederos. She was the child of Jess Boggs, who declined to discuss the killings, saying, "I just lost my daughter." The child appears in numerous photos on family Facebook pages.
Jim Hiott, 24, came from Waterboro, S.C., and had served in Afghanistan with the National Guard. On his Facebook page, Hiott, who went by the nickname "Jambob," described himself as "just a white boy who is trying to make it in life." He and Amber shared an apartment in Mesa, and Amber was trying to help him find a job. A close family friend said that he met Amber online and then moved to Arizona. "He was willing to help you do whatever he could," the old friend said, an opinion seconded by Hugo Mederos. "He was a great guy and he took care of my daughter," Hugo said.
Brittany Hazel Mederos, 19, who survived the shootings, had already suffered trauma when she was nearly killed after she and her mother were run down accidentally by a car in 2008. She lived in the house with her mother and Ready. She was in a bedroom when she heard the shooting and found the bodies. Then, according to Hugo Mederos, she ran to a neighbor's. "In the end, you know, everybody's dead," Hugo said.
Republic reporters Craig Harris, Dennis Wagner, Lindsey Collom, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Laurie Merrill contributed to this article.
Police ID victims, believe J.T. Ready to be shooter in Gilbert incident
SourcePolice ID victims, believe J.T. Ready to be shooter in Gilbert incident
Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 2:53 pm | Updated: 8:26 am, Thu May 3, 2012.
Tribune
Prominent East Valley political figure J.T. Ready is the man police believe shot and killed four people Wednesday in a Gilbert home before taking his own life.
According to the Associated Press, Gilbert police believe Jason Todd Ready, 39, was the gunman in the incident that occurred shortly after 1 p.m. in the 500 block of West Tumbleweed Road, near the intersection of Warner and Cooper Roads.
Ready is a former Marine known for his neo-Nazi ties, as well as for his efforts in organizing desert militia groups to find illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. He most recently had announced intentions to run for the office of Pinal County Sheriff, and previously had run for a Mesa City Council seat in 2006
In addition to Ready, Gilbert police have also confirmed that Lisa Lynn Mederos, 46, her daughter, Amber Nieve Mederos, 23, and her granddaughter, 15-month-old Lily Lynn Mederos were among those killed in the shooting. Also killed was Jim Franklin Hiott, 24, who local media is reporting was Amber Mederos’ boyfriend.
Balafas has said that the evidence points to the shooting being related to domestic violence. Officers have recovered two handguns and a shotgun.
Sandi Wilder, a neighbor of the home where the shooting occurred at 530 W. Tumbleweed, said a woman who lived at that residence was the girlfriend of J.T. Ready.
Wilder's husband, Chip, president of the Lago Estancia HOA, told the Tribune that over the past few years, he had often seen Ready and a few other men dressed in full camouflage gear come to the home. He said they always looked as if they had been in the desert or were part of a survivalist group.
"I'm a little shaken up with what's happened in our neighborhood," Chip Wilder said Wednesday afternoon. "It's just a terrible tragedy."
"On arrival, officers found several victims within the household," said Balafas.
Balafas said police believed only one suspect was involved in the shooting, and was one of the five dead.
"We do not believe there are any suspects at large," he said.
Police were also interviewing someone Wednesday believed to be a witness, Balafas added.
The bodies of the four adults involved in the incident remained in the home into Wednesday evening as police waited for the go-ahead to continue investigating. The Mesa bomb squad was on scene investigating two 55-gallon drums in the backyard, each containing an unidentified liquid. Balafas said chemical testing -- to determine of the liquid is hazardous or dangerous -- needed to be completed before police could proceed.
Lily Mederos was transported to the hospital shortly after police responded to the home, but was pronounced dead en route.
Police had cordoned off a large area of the neighborhood surrounding the home in northwest Gilbert.
Two Gilbert schools were locked down Wednesday, according to a message on the Gilbert Unified School District website.
At the request of the police department, Gilbert Elementary School, 175 W. Elliot Road, and Mesquite Junior High School, 130 W. Mesquite, were placed in a modified lockdown and classes continued inside the schools. People were unable to enter or leave the building during the lockdown.
Shortly before 2 p.m., Gilbert Police recommended the schools resume regular activities, an update on the website said. Students at both schools were never in any immediate danger.
A representative from the district was unavailable for comment.
Tim Hacker, Stacie Spring, Mike Sakal and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Pearce's lame J.T. Ready lament
Source
Pearce's lame J.T. Ready lament
Former Senate President and de facto governor Russell Pearce, dethroned in a recall, is angry with the news media for contacting him in the aftermath of the murder/suicide carried out by neo-Nazi Pearce supporter J.T. Ready.
In a statement released by Pearce, he says, “In the past several years the local media has worked hard to try to tie me to the JT Ready that preached hate, and that is nothing more than a lie.”
Is it?
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, editor of its Intelligence Report and Hatewatch blog calls Pearce's claim an “utter crock.”
That’s putting it nicely.
If you want an understanding of just how whining and self-centered Pearce can be, even in the face of such a horrific tragedy, read his full, lame lament here.
Then read a blog about Pearce by Potok here. J.T. Ready was twisted and homicidal.
Pearce, well, he’s pathetic.
Arizona Tragedy: Former Senate President Has Some Explaining to Do
Source
Arizona Tragedy: Former Senate President Has Some Explaining to Do
by Mark Potok on May 3, 2012
Former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, the author of his state’s draconian anti-immigrant S.B. 1070 law, issued a statement last night denouncing “the local media” for attempting to tie him to J.T. Ready, the neo-Nazi who is believed to have murdered four people earlier in the day before being shot to death himself.
What an utter crock.
After a brief nod to the “horrific and evil” nature of the killings — Ready’s girlfriend, her daughter, the daughter’s boyfriend and her 1½-year-old daughter were his victims — Pearce launched into a self-serving diatribe. He accused the media of a “lie” that was “told and retold,” and claimed that he had distanced himself from Ready as soon as his neo-Nazi views became public. He also claimed that he worked with other Republicans to have Ready thrown out of a GOP committeeman’s seat.
Those statements are false. The fact is that Pearce was photographed and videotaped as he palled around with Ready at a June 2007 rally. Confronted at the time by a reporter, he suggested that he hardly knew Pearce or his views. In fact, as the Phoenix New Times reported, Pearce was part of a small group that celebrated Ready’s baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2003 or 2004. Not only that, but a local official of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had warned Pearce in detail of Ready’s white supremacism in October 2006. (“It’s hard for me to fathom,” the ADL official told New Times, “that after a one-on-one meeting with me — and all the press J.T. got — that [Pearce] was unaware of what he was and what he stood for.”) And Ready’s neo-Nazi views were again described in March 2007, three months before the June rally where he worked the crowd with Pearce, during a panel discussion at the state Capitol that made the local newspapers.
And those views were quite something. Ready wanted to mine the border, described Jews as “parasites” and said the United States was a “white, European homeland.” He patrolled the border with other heavily armed neo-Nazis in his U.S. Border Guard group and threatened to use deadly force against immigrants. He denounced “niggers, homosexuals, mexicans, jews [sic]” and was a prominent member of the National Socialist Movement, the country’s largest neo-Nazi group. He was also a violent thug who was drummed out of the Marines after two courts-martial and had a criminal record for assault. And he repeatedly ran for political office.
In fact, the same year that Pearce was warned by the ADL of Ready’s views, the neo-Nazi was running for the Mesa, Ariz., City Council. In a video supporting Ready, Pearce called Ready a “true patriot,” according to New Times. The newspaper also reported that Ready described Pearce as a “father figure” who had groomed him for a possible run for the Arizona state legislature. At the time of Ready’s death, he was running for sheriff of Pinal County.
In yesterday’s statement, Pearce also claimed that after “darkness took [Ready’s] life over,” Pearce “worked with others to have him removed from his local position within our Republican Party because there has never been and will never be any room in our Party or our lives for those preaching hatred.”
There’s no evidence of that at all. In fact, it was three Arizona congressmen who joined forces to try to boot Ready out of his GOP precinct committeeman post in 2008. They were unsuccessful and Ready served out his term.
Pearce is best known for his sponsorship of Arizona’s punishing anti-immigrant law, much of which is held up in the courts, and became Senate president largely on the basis of that effort. (He is also remembered for, in 2006, E-mailing his supporters an anti-Semitic article from the National Alliance, for many years America’s leading neo-Nazi organization.) Last fall, in an unprecedented local occurrence, Pearce was recalled in a voter referendum and currently has no official post.
Although many details of yesterday’s tragic killings remain murky — including the motive — the slaughter once again highlights the ugly nature of America’s nativist movement. It was, after all, the second killing carried out by a leader of a border vigilante group. (In 2009, Shawna Forde, leader of Minuteman American Defense, joined two confederates in murdering a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter; she was sentenced to death last year.) But the most important lesson of the killings may be to remind Americans of the ties of the anti-immigrant movement to opportunistic bigots like Russell Pearce
Police ID victims, believe J.T. Ready to be shooter in Gilbert incident
SourcePolice ID victims, believe J.T. Ready to be shooter in Gilbert incident
Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 2:53 pm | Updated: 8:26 am, Thu May 3, 2012.
Tribune
Prominent East Valley political figure J.T. Ready is the man police believe shot and killed four people Wednesday in a Gilbert home before taking his own life.
According to the Associated Press, Gilbert police believe Jason Todd Ready, 39, was the gunman in the incident that occurred shortly after 1 p.m. in the 500 block of West Tumbleweed Road, near the intersection of Warner and Cooper Roads.
Ready is a former Marine known for his neo-Nazi ties, as well as for his efforts in organizing desert militia groups to find illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. He most recently had announced intentions to run for the office of Pinal County Sheriff, and previously had run for a Mesa City Council seat in 2006
In addition to Ready, Gilbert police have also confirmed that Lisa Lynn Mederos, 46, her daughter, Amber Nieve Mederos, 23, and her granddaughter, 15-month-old Lily Lynn Mederos were among those killed in the shooting. Also killed was Jim Franklin Hiott, 24, who local media is reporting was Amber Mederos’ boyfriend.
Balafas has said that the evidence points to the shooting being related to domestic violence. Officers have recovered two handguns and a shotgun.
Sandi Wilder, a neighbor of the home where the shooting occurred at 530 W. Tumbleweed, said a woman who lived at that residence was the girlfriend of J.T. Ready.
Wilder's husband, Chip, president of the Lago Estancia HOA, told the Tribune that over the past few years, he had often seen Ready and a few other men dressed in full camouflage gear come to the home. He said they always looked as if they had been in the desert or were part of a survivalist group.
"I'm a little shaken up with what's happened in our neighborhood," Chip Wilder said Wednesday afternoon. "It's just a terrible tragedy."
"On arrival, officers found several victims within the household," said Balafas.
Balafas said police believed only one suspect was involved in the shooting, and was one of the five dead.
"We do not believe there are any suspects at large," he said.
Police were also interviewing someone Wednesday believed to be a witness, Balafas added.
The bodies of the four adults involved in the incident remained in the home into Wednesday evening as police waited for the go-ahead to continue investigating. The Mesa bomb squad was on scene investigating two 55-gallon drums in the backyard, each containing an unidentified liquid. Balafas said chemical testing -- to determine of the liquid is hazardous or dangerous -- needed to be completed before police could proceed.
Lily Mederos was transported to the hospital shortly after police responded to the home, but was pronounced dead en route.
Police had cordoned off a large area of the neighborhood surrounding the home in northwest Gilbert.
Two Gilbert schools were locked down Wednesday, according to a message on the Gilbert Unified School District website.
At the request of the police department, Gilbert Elementary School, 175 W. Elliot Road, and Mesquite Junior High School, 130 W. Mesquite, were placed in a modified lockdown and classes continued inside the schools. People were unable to enter or leave the building during the lockdown.
Shortly before 2 p.m., Gilbert Police recommended the schools resume regular activities, an update on the website said. Students at both schools were never in any immediate danger.
A representative from the district was unavailable for comment.
Tim Hacker, Stacie Spring, Mike Sakal and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Police believe Neo-Nazi killed 4, himself in Ariz.
SourcePolice believe Neo-Nazi killed 4, himself in Ariz.
Associated Press
Posted: Thursday, May 3, 2012 8:42 am
Police said Thursday that they believe a former Marine with ties to neo-Nazi and Minutemen groups shot four people and then took his own life in a suburban Phoenix home.
Gilbert police spokesman Sgt. Bill Balafas said that police believe Jason Todd Ready, 39, was the gunman in Wednesday's shootings in a home in Gilbert.
Ready lived in the home with a woman who was among the dead. In addition to Ready's girlfriend, the dead include the woman's daughter and granddaughter and the daughter's boyfriend, according to media reports.
Ready was known in Arizona for organizing a militia with the goal of finding illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Known as "J.T.," Ready led an outfit known as the U.S. Border Guard that dressed in military fatigues and body armor and carried assault rifles during patrols for illegal immigrants in the desert south of Phoenix.
Police identified the others killed as 15-month-old Lily Lynn Mederos; 23-year-old Amber Nieve Mederos; 47-year-old Lisa Lynn Mederos and 24-year-old Jim Franklin Hiott.
Balafas has said that all the evidence points to the shooting being related to domestic violence. But he said investigators aren't sure what triggered the shooting.
Officers have recovered two handguns and a shotgun.
The shootings occurred in a subdivision filled with stucco homes with red-tile roofs.
Members of the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force and FBI agents removed what Balafas said were military-grade ordnance, munitions and two barrels of chemicals found behind the home.
Ready and Hiott were found dead outside the home, and the bodies of two women were inside. The toddler was found inside the home showing signs of life, but later died at a hospital.
A teenager in the house heard arguing followed by gunshots, Balafas said. She came out of a back room and found the bodies.
About three hours after the shooting, a man walked up to the police tape, pointed to the crime scene and said, "I have a daughter who lives in that house."
Police pulled him behind the tape and out of view. Several seconds later, a loud, anguished cry could be heard. Minutes after, the same man was weeping and left the scene with police.
Ready took offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but acknowledged he had identified with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."
"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said in a July 2010 interview with The Associated Press. "This is what our Founding Fathers did."
Violence touched his life in ways beyond his militia work. Ready knew and organized border patrols with Jeffrey Hall, a California white supremacist shot and killed last year by his 10-year-old son.
Officers have been called to the home previously for domestic disputes, Balafas said. He had no details of those calls or if they involved Ready.
Neighbor Julie Collins said Lisa Mederos has lived in the home down the street from hers for about 10 years and had been in a relationship with Ready for years. She said Ready seemed pleasant and once helped her with a job in her yard, and that she never heard of any trouble between the couple.
She said she didn't know about his involvement in the militia or anti-immigration activities.
"I saw him in fatigues a lot, and she told me he was a border patrol agent," Collins said. "Yesterday I found out on the news that was not the case."
Collins said Lisa Mederos had two daughters who moved in and out of the home, along with Amber's boyfriend and her toddler daughter.
Police would not confirm if the teen who called police to the home was Lisa Mederos' younger daughter.
Gary Davis, who also lives in the neighborhood, said: "There's no excuse for taking a child's life."
"Nothing ever happens in this neighborhood," Davis said. "It's a shock to us."
Gilbert killings victim, suspect patrolled border, friend says
SourceGilbert killings victim, suspect patrolled border, friend says
by Craig Harris - May. 3, 2012 02:30 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
J.T. Ready, the suspected gunman in a Gilbert shooting rampage, and one of the slain victims would conduct border patrols together looking for illegal immigrants, according to a person who knew both men and took part in the patrols.
Harry Hughes, a regional director of the National Socialist Movement, said Thursday that Ready and Jim "Jambob" Hiott had rescued him last month after he got stuck in the sand in a remote area near Yuma. The National Socialist Movement is a white-supremacist, neo-Nazi group.
"J.T. and Jim appeared to be friends. They had been together on other exercises, and we went out in the desert too," Hughes said in a phone interview Thursday. "He (Hiott) had been to my home a couple of times. He was a good man."
Meanwhile, law enforcement said Thursday they found six military-grade grenades in the Gilbert home where Arizona border vigilante Jason "J.T." Ready is believed to have killed four others and himself on Wednesday.
A federal official said the 40 mm grenades typically are used by combat infantry to defeat light-armored vehicles, and they can be launched up to 300 meters with precision accuracy. He said it's a felony to possess such weapons, and ATF believes the devices belonged to Ready.
Officials with Gilbert Police, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and the FBI interviewed Hughes Wednesday evening at his Pinal County residence in Maricopa, which Ready had listed as his home address in papers that the alleged killer had filed to run for Pinal County sheriff.
Hughes said law enforcement had asked him questions about Ready, but they did not seize anything from his home.
"They wanted to know what everybody else wants and that is, what was up with J.T.?" Hughes said.
"The media has fingered him as the shooter, but I'm going to be patient and let science dictate what happened. I have a hard time believing he would have done that."
Authorities say it appears Ready went on a shooting rampage in a Gilbert home Wednesday, fatally wounding three other adults and a 15-month-old baby before committing suicide.
Among the victims was Hiott, who served in Iraq with the National Guard, and Amber Mederos, Hiott's girlfriend, and Amber's baby girl, Lilly. The other victim was Lisa Mederos, who was Ready's girlfriend and Amber's mother.
Hughes said the last time he saw Ready and Hiott was April 11, when the pair helped rescue him after Hughes got stuck in the middle of the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range near Yuma that runs along the Mexican border.
Hughes also said that Hiott had been a part of Ready's U.S. Border Guard & Border Rangers search and rescue group that would patrol the desert with semi-automatic rifles and guns.
Tom Mangan, special agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Thursday that the six grenades were found in the Gilbert home where the mass killing took place, along with two military-grade smoke-generated hand grenades and commercial-type fireworks.
Gilbert police called ATF to the site after finding the devices during its investigation of the crime scene.
"Mr. Ready has claimed a connection to militia and anti-government groups. Hopefully, in the course of our investigation we will find out how he obtained them," Mangan said. "We believe that they were his."
Mangan said a bomb squad from Luke Air Force Base came to the Gilbert home and took possession of all the grenades.
"Obviously, these items are restricted and are for military use and should not have been in the possession of this house," Mangan said. "We will investigate how they wound up in this residence."
Mangan said law enforcement will trace the stock numbers on the grenades to determine where they originated.
Ready, a White supremacist who led armed patrols of the Mexico border, was being monitored by at least two national groups that track potentially violent extremist movements.
J.T. Ready was a sadist who abused woman and children???
Source
Before bloodshed in Gilbert, signs of abuse inside home
by Laurie Merrill - May. 3, 2012 11:17 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
To most outsiders, nothing seemed amiss between Lisa Mederos and J.T. Ready.
But behind closed doors, friends say, Ready was cruel and controlling, once pouring a bottle of water over Mederos' head because it was the wrong brand and another time ordering her beloved daughters to find new homes.
Despite outside appearances, Mederos, 47, was a domestic-violence victim, Gilbert police said. She had called police twice about domestic violence, the first time in February, when she reportedly complained that Ready had choked her six months earlier, police said. The report went nowhere, police said, because they had no probable cause for an arrest.
The second time would be her last: She called police in the moments before she and three other members of her household were slain Wednesday. Ready, the suspected shooter, killed himself, police said.
Neighbors and friends described Mederos as a stay-at-home grandmother who adored walking and decorating the house in the 500 block of Tumbleweed Road she had lived in for about 20 years.
Ready was a gun-toting member of the far-right National Socialist Movement who wore fatigues around the house, amassed a grenade stockpile and led armed vigilante patrols to the border.
Their public demeanor was unremarkable, neighbors said.
Ready had moved into Mederos' home about six months ago, six months after the couple met. Neighbors reported the two smiled at them as they would pull into their driveway.
They exchanged pleasantries as they walked her dog and often shopped together, especially for antiques, neighbors said.
But others had noticed troubling signs before gunshots pierced the quiet of the neighborhood around 1 p.m. Wednesday and shattered the assumptions of acquaintances.
The dead included three generations of the Mederos family: Lisa, her daughter Amber, 23, and her 15-month-old granddaughter, Lilly. Amber's fiance, Jim Hiott, 24, was also slain.
Gilbert police said Ready, 39, who had a history of soured relationships, went on a rampage, shooting everyone in sight, then himself.
Moments before the shooting, Mederos had called 911 to report a domestic-violence incident, police said.
The relationship between Ready and Mederos displayed a familiar pattern, said Carl Mangold, a licensed social worker who has counseled more than 3,500 men convicted of abuse in Arizona: A man prone to violence blames the victim; she attempts to resist, and his abuse escalates; she attempts to end the relationship, and he punishes her for her defiance.
"Our investigation is directing us to murder-suicide," police Sgt. Bill Balafas said Thursday. "There is no indication of outside players at all."
Mederos may not have known Ready's troubled past with women, which included a Scottsdale woman who filed an order of protection against him in 2009 and another woman in Ready's Mesa apartment complex who in 2003 accused him of stalking, spying, frequently calling and trying to kiss her.
Mederos was lonely and ready for love when she met Ready at an AutoZone near her home, according to close friends and neighbors.
She had already undergone two major hardships.
The first was her divorce about six years ago from Hugo Mederos, the father of her daughters.
"She took it really, really hard," said Brandon Castle of Ahwatukee Foothills, the estranged husband of Amber, his high-school sweetheart.
Then, in January 2008, she almost perished when a car hit her and daughter Brittany as they walked on Cooper Road, according to Castle and one of Lisa's close neighbors.
Lisa spent a year in the hospital, and even after she was released, needed a wheelchair and couldn't swallow for a long time, neighbors said. Brittany also was injured but not as badly.
"Amber was the sweetest girl ever," said Heather Morton, Amber's friend and former Wendy's co-worker. "After her mom was hit by a car, she would push her in her wheelchair up and down Cooper Road. She took care of both of them, her mom and Brittany."
When Lisa was fit enough to emerge from the wheelchair and resume walking about two years ago, she sometimes stopped at the AutoZone, Morton and Castle said.
She was ready to meet a man, friends said, and even indicated for a while on her Facebook page that she was looking for one.
She was giving and kind, but also needy and lonely, and hadn't had a sweetheart since Hugo, Castle and a neighbor said.
When she met Ready, she glowed like a schoolgirl, said the neighbor, who declined to give her name for this story.
"She was happy to introduce me to him," the neighbor said.
Amber, her daughter Lilly, and her sister Brittany were living with Lisa when Ready moved in.
Ready had been fired from his AutoZone job and lost his apartment, friends and neighbors said. Lisa supported him.
It didn't take long for the girls to become disenchanted, Morton and Castle said.
"They hated him," Castle said. "They were always nervous around him."
Ready, an admitted White supremacist, often behaved in a racist manner toward Lilly, who was half-Latino, calling her "50 percent ugly," Morton said.
Ready also was short-tempered, cocky, cruel and controlling, Castle and Morton said.
Once, when Lisa bought him the wrong kind of bottled water, he poured it on her head, said Richard Rory, a friend of Morton's and Amber's.
He timed the girls' showers, ordering them to hurry up, Morton said.
"He's living there for free. He's telling her children how long they can shower," Morton said. "He does nothing for her."
Several months ago, Ready delivered a crushing blow, splitting the family apart as domestic-violence offenders are known to do: He told Amber and Brittany they had to move out, and both girls left, Castle and other friends said.
"He was such a horrible person," Castle said. "He was a scary person. He was short-tempered."
Ready had a history of ugly relationships, according to court records and a woman who said she fled Arizona in fear of Ready in 2003.
Court records show that a Scottsdale woman filed an order of protection against Ready in 2009 and that Ready responded with his own protection order against her.
Regina Madrigal, 30, reported that she and Ready lived in the same Mesa Drive apartment complex and that Ready "became obsessed" with her. He would sneak up on her, call her, spy on her and tell her he knew the color of underwear she had on, Madrigal said.
"He was always telling me about plans for killing people," she said. "He had lots of guns in the house. ... He always believed the government was conspiring."
Murder-suicide is often the result of escalating domestic violence, said Mangold, the social worker. The abuser kills to keep the woman from leaving and kills himself to avoid a long prison term.
Republic reporters Dennis Wagner, Karina Bland, Hayley Ringle and Jim Walsh contributed to this article.
Gilbert community, police still piecing together details of shooting
SourceGilbert community, police still piecing together details of shooting
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 5:21 am | Updated: 8:55 am, Fri May 4, 2012.
By Mike Sakal, Tribune
For most of Wednesday morning and into the early afternoon, a longtime resident in northwest Gilbert’s Lago Estancia neighborhood noticed something unsettling with her German Shepherd mix. The dog sat at the front door, and growled.
“She must’ve sensed something was wrong, or something bad was happening,” the resident said.
It was about 1 p.m., while sitting in her backyard, when the woman heard three “pop-pop-pops” — ultimately, gunshots — signalling what police described as a “very violent” situation inside a home at 530 W. Tumbleweed, near Cooper and Warner roads.
The incident is believed to be the deadliest shooting in town history, stemming from what police are calling a domestic dispute that ended with East Valley political figure J.T. Ready — the former leader of a white supremacist neo-Nazi group and outspoken vigilante against illegal immigration — killing four people before shooting himself.
The neighbor, who didn’t want to provide her name, recalled what she heard: “At first, it didn’t sound like your normal gunshots. I thought it was just construction noise. Growing up in a military family, it didn’t sound like typical gunshots. After checking on (my husband) in the darkroom, I looked outside and there were a ‘zillion’ police cars all over the place.”
After police arrived on the scene, officers discovered five people shot at the residence:
• Jason Todd Ready, 39
• Lisa Lynn Mederos, 47 (Ready’s girlfriend)
• Amber Nieve Mederos, 23 (Lisa Mederos’ daughter)
• Jim Franklin Hiott, 24 (Amber Mederos’ fiancé; member of the South Carolina National Guard who had served in Afghanistan)
• Lily Lynn Mederos, 15 months (Amber’s daughter)
Police have yet to determine a motive, but a family friend of the Mederoses said that Lisa Mederos, who owned the house, wanted to break up with Ready because of his continued violent tendencies. Police also said they had responded to the Mederos’ home five times prior, with one of those being related to a domestic dispute.
A vigilante against illegal immigration and most recently the head of the U.S. Border Guard — an armed militia that patrols the desert of Pinal County searching for illegal immigrants smuggling drugs or humans — Ready had announced his intent to run for Pinal County Sheriff. He previously ran for a Mesa City Council seat in 2006.
As neighbors were interviewed on the Valley’s television news stations throughout the evening, they voiced suspicion of groups of men going in and out of the house dressed in camouflage gear carrying cases and guns.
Ready’s websites reported he had been assassinated by a Mexican drug cartel, but police said on Wednesday they believe he was the shooter and that there are no outstanding suspects from the incident.
Ready, a former Marine, had been working at a nearby AutoZone store in Gilbert.
At least one Valley organization didn’t mince words, portraying Ready as a “hate monger.”
A statement issued by the Arizona office of the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday said: “J.T. Ready subscribed to an ideology that embraces hate and violence. It is a culture which sees violence as a solution to social, political and even personal problems. ADL has been aware of his involvement and leadership in white supremacist groups and activities for over a decade, and while to our knowledge he had no previous personal record of domestic violence, ADL has tracked many incidents of white supremacist violence against women in recent years, including domestic violence.”
Heather Morton, one of Amber Mederos’ friends, said Ready was cruel and controlling, and that Amber moved out a few months ago with her daughter and fiance.
Morton said Ready would say that Amber’s baby was 50 percent ugly, because Lily was half Hispanic.
A group of Amber’s friends shared their thoughts and information at the Wendy’s restaurant in Gilbert where Amber had worked for four years (she had interviewed to be the restaurant’s manager the night before she was killed).
She often hung out with friends, and her sister, Brittany, who also worked at the restaurant.
They described Amber as an easygoing, caring person who took care of her mother after Lisa Mederos was hit by a car about two years ago and nearly died.
Mike Palos, a friend of Amber’s who said he worked with her at Wendy’s for two years, had stopped by the Mederos’ house in the once-again quiet neighborhood on Thursday. He said that Amber was a sweet person, someone you’d always remember.
On her Facebook page, Amber Mederos posted a cryptic message at 11:39 p.m. Tuesday — the night before she was killed. “Time to get the drama out of my life and make a better life for me, my daughter and my love,” she said.
Shorter status updates on her Facebook page earlier in the week said, “Scared.” “Worried.” “Praying.”
Harry Hughes, a member of the National Socialist Movement who also took part in armed border patrols, expressed shock at Wednesday’s tragedy.
“I think this is horrible,” he said. “I want everyone to know J.T. Ready was the last person on earth I’d figure to have done anything to hurt a child. It really caught me off guard. Despite all the rhetoric and the stuff we’re going to hear about him being the evil Nazi, he was a good man.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or msakal@evtrib.com
Gilbert gunman's rampage sheds light on extremism
SourceGilbert gunman's rampage sheds light on extremism
Immigration issue is a beacon to neo-Nazis
by Dan Nowicki - May. 5, 2012 10:08 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready's death Wednesday in what authorities believe was a murder-suicide in Gilbert has decapitated the border vigilante group he founded, but anti-immigrant extremism is expected to continue in Arizona.
The state has long had a homegrown fringe right-wing element, but its more recent status as ground zero in the heated national debate over illegal immigration has made Arizona a beacon to out-of-state White supremacists, neo-Nazis, skinheads and militia types.
The national furor over the Arizona Legislature's passage of an immigration-enforcement law, Senate Bill 1070, in 2010 helped make the state a destination for hate groups, say scholars and other experts who research extremism. Other perhaps equally significant factors are Arizona's proximity to Mexico, its casual gun culture and its reputation for anti-federal-government rhetoric and intemperate politics, which have played out to varying degrees for decades.
"I know neo-Nazis who want to make pilgrimages to Arizona," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino. Levin has interviewed many hate-group members, including Ready. "They believe that there are a lot of people in the state who are sympathetic to them."
Ready was not a native Arizonan. In 2006, when running for the Mesa City Council, he said he was born in Florida but spent much of his adult life in Arizona. He eventually founded a group, the U.S. Border Guard, that attracted support and visitors from out of state. The group once proposed putting a minefield along the U.S.-Mexican border. Ready also was a former member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, based in Detroit.
His death has pulled back the curtain on the shadowy world of extremism in Arizona that seems to teeter on the edge of violence.
Seventeen hate groups, including Ready's armed search-and-rescue squad, had a presence in Arizona as of 2011, according to the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism across the country. Others include the National Socialist Movement, which has an authorized Phoenix unit that Ready once led; the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; and the Vinlanders Social Club.
"J.T. was the founder and patrol leader of U.S. Border Guard, but there are other groups, though, who are still active and who will continue to be active," said Harry Hughes, a National Socialist Movement regional director who lives in Maricopa and was a good friend of Ready's. "So the whole concept that J.T. started with the U.S. Border Guard, I'm sure will continue. People come from other states, from all over the country, to come out here to patrol our desert areas."
Ongoing investigations
James Turgal, special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix division, said the Arizona domestic-terrorism program is "very active," specifically mentioning the National Socialist Movement and neo-Nazis, the Vinlanders, skinheads and the anti-government "sovereign citizen" movement.
Turgal declined to talk about ongoing investigations. "But suffice it to say, there are some," he said.
Gilbert police believe Ready, 39, shot and killed his girlfriend and three other people, including a 15-month-old girl, before committing suicide. Despite Ready's extremist resume and border activities, authorities are investigating the killings as a domestic-violence case.
"There are a lot of really thuggish individuals associated with the nativist movement in Arizona," said Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine Intelligence Report. "I think what these murders reflect is the kind of person who very often is attracted to this movement. J.T. Ready was a thug. He had a long history of violence, and it finally came to this kind of violence."
The apparent murder-suicide in Gilbert is far from the first time that violence in Arizona has been linked to anti-illegal-immigration extremists or White supremacists.
Earlier this year, Dennis Mahon, a White supremacist from Illinois, was convicted on charges connected to the Feb. 26, 2004, mail bombing that injured Don Logan, then-director of Scottsdale's Office of Diversity and Dialogue. Mahon's brother, Daniel, also a White supremacist, was acquitted on a charge of conspiracy to damage buildings and property.
Last year, Shawna Forde, founder of a group called the Minutemen American Defense, and two other border activists were convicted of first-degree murder in the 2009 deaths of two people, including a 9-year-old girl.
Jeffery Harbin, a National Socialist Movement member from Apache Junction, pleaded guilty in 2011 to transporting homemade explosive devices that, according to a government informant, were intended for border activity.
In April, a group of camouflage-clad gunmen killed two immigrants in an ambush near Eloy. The killers could have been human smugglers or bandits, but Potok speculated that vigilantes may have been responsible. The killings are still under investigation.
"Immigration is pretty much unarguably the No. 1 recruiting element in the White supremacist world," said Bill Straus, the Anti-Defamation League's regional director in Arizona.
Straus predicted that, despite the circumstances of his death, Ready will become a "martyr" for anti-illegal-immigration extremists. He said he is stunned at the general lack of outrage from Arizona's political and law-enforcement establishment over the extremists who roam the state's desert areas.
"Something like neo-Nazis patrolling the border? That warrants everybody's attention," Straus said. 'Veneer of legitimacy'
Experts say White supremacist groups started pivoting from their usual anti-Jew and anti-Black messages to the illegal-immigration debate 10 or 12 years ago. The national conversation, experts say, allows these groups to plug into some Americans' anxiety about ongoing demographic changes. Demographers predict that Whites of European ancestry will lose their majority status in the United States by 2050 or sooner.
"If you're the sort of person who sees White Protestants as the defining face of America, you're about to lose it," said David Alpher, an adjunct professor who has taught about terrorism at George Mason University's School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution in Virginia. "Immigration ties into this real loss of identity, and that's the kind of thing that people get violent over."
By cloaking themselves in the guise of patriotic border patrols responding to threats to security and safety, extremist groups can give themselves "this veneer of legitimacy," Alpher said.
Ready, in particular, sought to ingratiate himself with mainstream Arizona conservatism, running for the Mesa City Council and other offices, serving as a Republican precinct committeeman and associating with elected officials such as former Senate President Russell Pearce, the author of SB 1070. He also attempted to distance himself from his activity in the National Socialist Movement.
Ready's efforts to build a quasi-political base were stymied by the fact that much of the border-security turf in Arizona was already staked out by more serious and successful Republican politicians, said Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism.
"But at the end of the day, when you're an unrepentant neo-Nazi who compliments Adolf Hitler, that really does limit your mainstream acceptability," Levin said. Desert patrols
Hughes, who went on desert patrols with Ready's border group but did not consider himself a member, said he and others get a bad rap from their critics and the media. He characterized their border patrols as humanitarian missions that have resulted in the rescue of illegal immigrants who were lost and in danger.
"It's really ironic that a pro-White group or someone who is an alleged racist would actually give up their free time and go out and help these people," Hughes said.
Although the patrols are well-armed to guard against "bad guys" such as drug or human smugglers, Hughes said he has never run into a situation that required shooting. He flatly credited the state's "relaxed gun laws" as part of the appeal of patrolling in Arizona.
"We can't do this in California because high-capacity magazines are illegal there," Hughes said. "We do carry semiautomatic rifles."
Hughes also suggested that the patrols, which began a couple of years ago, are helping the state's economy because they attract visitors from other states.
"We've got guys who come down here for three or four weeks at a time," he said. "People were criticizing SB 1070 for driving people out of the state. Well, we've got people coming here."
Duke Schneider, the National Socialist Movement's chief of staff and head of what the organization calls its SS security force, estimated that 20 to 25 of the group's 1,400 members worldwide are based in Arizona. He disavowed Harbin, the Apache Junction bomb-maker, as a bad apple. "In his case, had we any inkling that he was doing the things that he was doing, he never would have been a part of this organization," Schneider said. "We frown on any of these things."
Straus, of the Anti-Defamation League, said that while there may not be a "tremendous" number of neo-Nazis in Arizona, a single hate-filled individual can pose a threat.
"As somebody said to me one time, 'How many neo-Nazis living on your block does it take to create a little tension and fear?' " Straus said. "It's a really relevant question."
Court document sheds more light into shooting
SourceCourt document sheds more light into shooting
by Michael Kiefer - May. 4, 2012 10:52 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
White supremacist and border vigilante J.T. Ready was already the subject of a federal domestic-terrorism investigation when authorities say he apparently went on a murder rampage in which he killed four people.
Federal agents seized numerous computers and munitions from the Gilbert home where Ready lived and died in an apparent murder-suicide. The FBI contacted Gilbert police and asked that their agents be involved in the investigation, James Turgal, special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix office, told The Arizona Republic.
Details of federal agents' role were revealed Friday as federal search-warrant returns became available. They and Turgal's comments show that the federal government had an interest in Ready's activities unrelated to this week's murders.
A probable-cause statement attached to the search-warrant returns implies weapons seized at the murder scene were stolen from the U.S. military. Focus on those weapons could trigger a larger federal investigation.
Turgal said the FBI's domestic-terrorism investigation dated to when Ready was a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement and continued into his recent participation with a border-vigilante group. The probe is based on tips of criminal activity that Turgal would not specify.
Turgal was careful to distinguish the ongoing federal investigation from the Wednesday shootings in Gilbert that took the lives of Lisa Lynn Mederos, 47, Ready's girlfriend; Lisa's daughter Amber Mederos, 23; Amber's 15-month-old daughter, Lilly; and Amber's boyfriend Jim "Jambob" Hiott, 24.
"Yes, we did have an ongoing domestic-terrorism investigation into J.T. Ready," Turgal said, "but that has nothing to do with the horrible murders committed there."
The murders did, however, give the FBI access to Ready's documents and computers inside the home where he lived with Lisa Mederos and another of Lisa's daughters, Brittany, 19.
"Certainly, when the FBI looks at those computers, they will be interested in everything there, including other militia activity," former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton said.
New details also emerged in the probable-cause statement that shed light, however scant, on what authorities believe was a murder-suicide.
Documents indicate baby Lilly was shot in the head and was still clinging to life when first responders arrived at the house in the 500 block of West Tumbleweed Road, near Cooper and Warner roads.
The first 911 call came in shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday and disconnected just after the woman caller shouted, "Oh, my God!" Earlier police statements indicate that caller was Lisa Mederos.
A second call, presumably from Brittany Mederos, told police that her mother, sister and Lilly all were shot. She not only identified Ready, 39, as the shooter, but, according to the search-warrant returns, she told a police operator that she thought Ready was trying to flee in a black Chevrolet Impala that was later found parked in the street in a direct line to the driveway of the house.
When police arrived, they found Ready and Hiott dead outside the house. There were two guns near the bodies, the report said. Turgal would not comment on whether each of the men had a weapon or if they appeared to have engaged in a shootout.
Brittany was found unharmed and locked in a bedroom, the probable-cause statement said. She later told police that she heard Ready arguing with her mother and sister and then, a few moments later, heard the gunshots.
Documents connected to the search warrant show that the FBI agents seized two computer towers and two laptop computers, correspondence, cellphones, police and Nazi uniforms, White-supremacist propaganda, bank statements and "documents w/poss(ible) co-conspirators."
Agents seized two assault-style rifles and multiple rounds of ammunition. The reporting FBI agent focused on "approximately two dozen military ordnance/40 millimeter grenades" loaded with explosives, tear gas, buckshot and smoke. An FBI bomb expert confirmed that the latter "are most likely stolen from the military as they are illegal to possess and not available to the civilian market," the agent wrote.
"On the basis of the above-described facts, your affiant respectfully submits there is probable cause to believe there is a violation of theft of government property and/or possession of illegal explosives and these items likely traveled through interstate commerce."
Mata a cuatro y se suicida
SourceGilbert, Arizona
por AP - May. 4, 2012 10:12 AM
La Voz
J.T. Ready, un ex integrante del cuerpo de "marines", quien tenía vínculos con un grupo neonazi y con los vigilantes fronterizos llamados Minutemen, mató a tiros el pasado miércoles a cuatro personas para luego suicidarse, informó la policía.
El vocero de la policía de Gilbert, sargento Bill Balafas, dijo el jueves que las autoridades creen que Jason Todd Ready, de 39 años, era el hombre armado que abrió fuego el miércoles en una vivienda de Gilbert.
Los reportes periodísticos indican que entre las cuatro víctimas se encuentran la novia de Ready, así como la hija y la nieta de la mujer.
Ready era conocido en Arizona por organizar una patrulla en el desierto con la intención de encontrar a narcotraficantes e inmigrantes que buscan ingresar a territorio estadounidense sin autorización legal. Conocido como "J.T.", Ready encabezó una organización conocida como la guardia fronteriza estadounidense que vestía uniforme militar y chalecos antibalas, y que portaba fusiles de asalto durante el patrullaje en busca de inmigrantes no autorizados en el desierto al sur de Phoenix.
La policía ha señalado que el agresor se encontraba entre los muertos pero no lo ha identificado. Las autoridades indicaron que entre los occisos se encuentran Lily Lynn Mederos, de 15 meses de edad; Amber Nieve Mederos, de 23 años; Lisa Lynn Mederos, de 47, y Jim Franklin Hiott, de 24 años.
Balafas ha dicho que toda la evidencia apunta a que el tiroteo está relacionado con una disputa doméstica, pero no dio detalles al respecto. Los agentes han recuperado dos pistolas y una escopeta en el lugar.
Balafas agregó que los cadáveres de dos hombres se encontraron en el exterior de la vivienda y los de dos mujeres en el interior.
Una niña de entre 1 y 2 años fue hallada dentro de la casa, con señales de vida, pero falleció poco después.
LAS VÍCTIMAS
El jueves pasado, la policía de Gilbert confirmó la identidad de las víctimas, todas ellas familiares de Hugo Mederos, quien reside en Florida. Ellos son:
Lisa Mederos, de 47 años, ex esposa de Hugo Mederos y novia de J T Ready.
Amber Mederos, de 23 años, hija de Hugo y Lisa, empleada de un restaurante Wendy's..
Jim "Jambob" Hiott, 24 años, novio de Amber, veterano de la guerra de Army Afghanistan.
Lilly, de 15 meses de edad, hija de Amber.
Gilbert cops pretend they could stop the murder????
This is a perfect example of how the police are powerless to protect us from dangerous criminals. And of course if the government takes our guns away from us we will also be powerless to protect ourselves from the same dangerous criminals.Gilbert seeking to soothe pain after killings; 911 calls released
by Parker Leavitt - May. 7, 2012 11:30 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
As families prepare funerals and investigators pour over evidence, Gilbert police hope to begin a community conversation later this week that can start the healing in the aftermath of last week's rampage that left five people dead.
Town officials were working on details Monday, but police said they want to discuss the shooting that left a quiet Gilbert neighborhood and the surrounding community traumatized. Underscoring their intent to use the meeting to allay residents' fears, police indicated they likely will restrict media attendance.
Word of the meeting came as police released chilling recordings of two 911 calls from the house on Tumbleweed Road where the shooting took place and a third call from a neighbor who witnessed part of the grim aftermath that claimed the lives of Lisa Mederos, 47; her daughter Amber Mederos, 23; and Amber's 15-month-old daughter, Lilly. Jim Hiott, Amber's 24-year-old fiance, was also gunned down before the suspected shooter, border vigilante J.T. Ready, is believed to have killed himself.
In a 911 call made around 1:07 p.m. Wednesday -- just moments before her death -- Lisa Mederos can be heard telling a police operator before the first shot was fired that Ready was "going ballistic in the house."
In the recording, Lisa, who identified Ready as her boyfriend, calmly asks for help with a "domestic violence" incident.
"What is it he's doing?" the dispatcher said. "What is it he's doing, ma'am?"
The next sound is a gunshot. As Lisa tries to answer the dispatcher's question, she suddenly says, "Oh, my God. He's ... "
Lisa screams after a second gunshot, and the call abruptly ends. When dispatchers tried to redial her number, the call went to Lisa's voice mail.
Ready had apparently flown into a rage because Mederos, who was his girlfriend and the owner of the house, and her daughters wanted him to move out, and they had confronted him at a family meeting about it, said Hugo Mederos, Lisa's ex-husband and father to Amber and Brittany Mederos.
"The whole family decided that," Hugo told The Arizona Republic on Monday. "That's one reason my daughter (Amber) showed up, to give her mother support."
Brittany, 19, the lone survivor, was in a bedroom when she heard the shouting and the gunshots. She called 911 from her bedroom at 1:09 p.m. The police tape of the call depicts a sobbing young woman who is uncertain of what has happened and is apparently unaware that Ready was dead at the time she was calling.
Nonetheless, she answers a police dispatcher's detailed questions for nearly 10 minutes, maintaining enough composure to identify the car Ready drove, where guns were located in the house and where she was hiding.
"There were gunshots, and my mom and my niece and my sister are all on the floor," Brittany told the dispatcher. "They were fighting. They were screaming. I was in my room, and now they're all dead."
Ready had been living with the Mederos family and was unemployed, Brittany told the dispatch. "He goes to the border with his guns, and they go and try to find Mexicans and narcotics," she said. "He doesn't work at all. He just sits at my house."
Brittany mustered enough courage to stay on the line answering questions until police officers at the scene ascertained that Ready was dead and they made their way to her in her bedroom.
A third distress call came at 1:13 p.m. from a neighbor, Budd Moyer, who reported hearing six gunshots before walking outside. He saw two men, one who appeared to be dressed in a law-enforcement uniform, "dying on the front doorstep."
"It looked like both of them had blood coming from their heads," Moyer told a police dispatcher, adding that he thought Ready was a Border Patrol agent.
Ready was a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a heavily armed vigilante group that patrolled the desert along the Mexican border. He was also preparing to run for Pinal County sheriff. Police had been called to the home five times since 2009: once when Amber threatened suicide, once when her car was burglarized, once when Ready reported suspicious activity in the neighborhood, and twice for incidents of alleged domestic violence.
Hugo Mederos said Monday that Brittany has since gone into emotional "lock-down mode."
"When she left the house, she didn't even know she had gone over two bodies," he said, referring to Ready and Hiott.
Hugo said he has not spoken in detail to Brittany about the incident because she is so traumatized. "When she's ready to talk, I'll talk about it," he said.
The community meeting may be held Thursday evening. It would be just hours after private services for the three members of the Mederos family, which are scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at Vineyard Community Church in Gilbert.
Ready's body was released to Abel Funeral Services in Phoenix, according to a Maricopa County medical examiner spokeswoman, but the funeral home said the family does not want to release any additional information. Details were not available about funeral services for Hiott.
Republic reporters Michael Kiefer, Srianthi Perera and Michelle Ye Hee Lee contributed to this article.