Three people have been arrested in connection with last months deadly double homicide in Arivaca that left a nine-year-old and her father dead. One of the people arrested for the homicide is the National Executive Director of the Minuteman American Defense group (M.A.D.), a group known for patrolling the border, and is dedicated to "Defending America's Borders" according to their website - http://minutemenamericandefense.org/
Jason Eugene Bush, 38, Shawna Forde, 42 and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 43, were all taken into custody and charged in connection with the murders of 29-year-old Raul Flores and 8-year-old Brisenia Flores. Both were killed during an alleged home invasion.
According to authorities, Bush, Forde, and Gaxiola broke into the home of the Flores family just after midnight on May 30th. At the time, the mother, father and daughter were home. The invaders reportedly shot the three members of the Flores family, killing the father, Raul, and the daughter, Brisenia. The invaders then left the scene.

The mother survived the shooting, called police, and found a gun. Sheriff Dupnik says the three returned moments later to make sure everyone was dead. At that point, the mother shot and injured Bush, and the three fled the scene.

The trio has been charged with two counts of First Degree Murder, one count of First Degree Burglary, and one count of Aggravated Assault.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik says, "Jason Bush was in fact the shooter of all three of these people under orders from Ms. Forde."

[...]

Sheriff Dupnik adds, "To just kill a 9-year old girl because she could be a potential witness, to me, is one of the most despicable acts I have ever heard of."

[...]

"If you look at her history closely, and you know what we know, she is at best a pyschopath," says Sheriff Dupnik referring to Forde during a press conference Friday.

UPDATE: From Arizona, here's local news coverage of the horrible crime.

The group's Web site, which does not appear to bear any mention of Jason Bush, places the group as actively involved in the "tea parties" which swept right-wing media around tax day.

We need to make cuts, as Democrats already have, but we must also make investments in health care, education, public safety, transportation, and other critical needs for our families,” said Senator Williams. “We are committed to using a balanced approach to balance the budget and we will continue to work with legislative colleague and Gov. Rell to reach a budget agreement.”
Democrats in the legislature have proposed more than $2 billion of spending cuts. Governor Rell is also proposing significant cuts — but a large proportion of these will directly impact children, small businesses, education and public health.

Governor Rell's budget cuts would:

• Reduce many state education grants by 10% from their current funding level


• Reduce special education service grants by 10% in all municipalities


• Eliminate state funding for internet access, and filtering of "adult" content in all public libraries and K-12 schools in Connecticut


• Eliminate or reduce by 40% the amount of state funding given to local health departments and health districts

These cuts would come on top of other cuts in municipal aid or flat-funding of programs that our cities and towns rely on. The Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) grant, which is the largest portion of state aid for local education in Connecticut, would be flat-funded for the two year budget. In addition, other programs such as the PILOT (Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes) Grant, which helps cities and towns make up for tax losses for tax exempt properties such as state property, hospitals and universities, have been reduced as well. These cuts, along with elimination of funding for our libraries, will put a strain on our municipalities.

Boughton, who was a social studies teacher at the high school for nearly 14 years before entering politics, said he knows for a fact there were “internal candidates who were discouraged from applying” for the job. “That’s a problem,” he said. “I know these individuals and I know they are capable of leading that school.”

• peppering that individual with a series of follow-up questions and/or,


• allowing the person accused to the quote, an opportunity to respond to the charges.

The Board welcomes Public Participation and asks that speakers please limit their comments to 3 minutes. Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them. The Board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about the Board of Education personnel and students, nor against any person connected with the Danbury Public School System.

NOTE: Here's a copy of the state statue I'm talking about in the video clip (note the portion in BOLD):

Connecticut State Statue Sec 7-191(D): Charters, charter amendments and home rule ordinance amendments: Hearings; draft and final report; public notice; referendum; effective date; filing of copies with Secretary of the State; file maintained by State Library.

Not later than fifteen days after receiving the final report, the appointing authority, by a majority vote of its entire membership, shall either approve the proposed charter, charter amendments or home rule ordinance amendments or reject the same or separate provisions thereof. Not later than forty-five days after a vote of the appointing authority to reject such matter, a petition for a referendum thereon, signed by not less than ten per cent of the electors of such municipality, as determined by the last-completed registry list thereof, and filed and certified in accordance with the provisions of section 7-188, may be presented to the appointing authority. Not later than thirty days after approval by the appointing authority or the certification of such a petition (1) the proposed charter shall be published in full at least once in a newspaper having a general circulation in the municipality, or (2) the portion of the charter or home rule ordinance being amended shall be published at least once in a newspaper having a general circulation in the municipality with a notice that a complete copy of the charter or home rule ordinance and amendment is available in the town clerk's office and that a copy shall be mailed to any person who requests a copy. The town clerk shall mail or otherwise provide such copy to any person who requests a copy.

A judge has dismissed a case against four immigrants caught up in a controversial Fair Haven raid, saying the feds trampled on their rights.

Judge Michael W. Straus of U.S. Immigration Court in Hartford threw out the cases against four immigrants swept up in the June 2007 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid. He ruled that government agents were in “egregious violation” of the immigrants’ Fourth Amendment rights.

For four individuals, the judge’s decisions marks an end to a two-year legal battle that began when Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents swept into Fair Haven, arresting 30 immigrants on charges of allegedly being in the country illegally. The raids prompted rallies and accusations from New Haven’s mayor on down that the feds were terrorizing the immigrant community and retaliating against the city for its immigrant-friendly policies, a charged the feds denied.

Attorneys from Yale Law School have been representing 17 of those 30 immigrants. The attorneys have argued that ICE agents violated their clients’ rights by entering their homes without permission and questioning them illegally. ICE has denied the allegations.

But Judge Straus agreed.

“In considering all the evidence in the record, this Court finds that the Respondent’s Fourth Amendment rights were egregiously violated,” he wrote.

In one decision, Straus wrote, “Here, the raid was conducted in the early morning hours while some of the occupants, including a young girl, were sleeping. Agents forcibly entered, without warrant or consent, into a private home and then into a private bedroom. The agents failed to ask preliminary questions that might demonstrate probable cause or at least reasonable suspicion. “

ICE agents told a different story of what had happened. They claimed that they had asked consent to enter, and followed appropriate procedures.

However, the agents submitted their testimony by affidavit only. Government lawyers refused to call them to the stand or make them available for cross-examination.

The government’s decision may have worked against ICE in the end, since Judge Straus found a number of “evidentiary omissions” in the affidavits.

The holes in the affidavits were ultimately less damning than the refusal to put the agents on the stand. “The deficiencies in the Government’s threadbare submission are exacerbated by their categorical and unexplained refusal to offer or make available agents to testify in open court.” wrote Straus.

The respondents were thus unable to confront and cross-examine their accusers. “This due process requires,” Straus wrote. “Functionally, the upshot is that the Court can give but scant, if any, weight to these [affidavit] submissions.”

Straus wrote that the “scant evidence” presented by the government amounted to “unsubstantianted hearsay, and, at points, hearsay upon hearsay.”

“We’re all very happy with the ruling,” Anant Saraswat, a recent Yale Law graduate who has been working on the case, said Sunday.

Yale pursued a difficult strategy in seeking to suppress evidence on the grounds that it was collected in violation of Constitutional rights. This is the first time that Judge Straus has issued a favorable ruling on such an argument, Saraswat said. “It’s pretty rare.”