Rediscovering

After Sept. 11, 2001, Americans across the country saw enemies and wanted security. In Arizona, the terrorist attacks ushered in a new era focused on the border with Mexico.

From self-appointed border patrols to a newfound focus for “America’s toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio, nativism took hold in Arizona. Initially, it drew support from people with serious personal problems and morphed into a broad, national political movement that helped propel Donald Trump to the White House.

The often-angry politics that characterized the ascendent right took a darker turn when Trump lost Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. Arizonans helped play a central role in the effort to sidestep the results, culminating in their involvement with the riot at the U.S. Capitol and a months-long indulgence in partisan conspiracy theories. It kept the state in an unflattering spotlight. 

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The upheaval of assassinations, antiwar protests and civil rights advocacy helped define an era that began in the 1960s and included flourishing political and social fringe movements. 

In Arizona, far-right guerilla groups like the Minutemen and Posse Comitatus challenged long-accepted ideas of who exactly held power.

Political tumult in Arizona opened a path for a perennial election gadfly with anti-government leanings to win the governor’s race. Evan Mecham served 15 months as governor before being impeached and convicted, but the fallout from his time in office reverberated in the state’s politics for decades.

The conspiracy-minded held forth in law enforcement in Arizona and in extralegal groups distrustful of government. Arizonans had ties to the Ruby Ridge standoff, to the Oklahoma City bombing, and planned mayhem in Arizona as well.

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After World War II ended, Arizona boomed as modern comforts made life in the desert more palatable. The state’s growth brought political upheaval and largely reinforced a social obliviousness to civil rights.

As the state grew, it shed its loyalty to Democrats in favor of a conservatism marked with anti-Communist zealotry. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, held the nation in a grip of fear over alleged communist infiltration at the highest levels in the U.S. government and military. He found a reliable ally in Arizona’s Barry Goldwater. 

He came to define a new brand of politics and governance that culminated in Goldwater’s 1964 presidential run. His supporters included fringe groups such as the John Birch Society and a willingness to ignore the call for civil rights at a time when it was a rising national movement. Arizona offered a mixed record on civil rights that left Goldwater unmoved.

His presidential run ended in defeat, but it also helped plant ideological seeds for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 triumph. Back home in Arizona, voters sent Goldwater back to Washington for another three terms.

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Even before Arizona was a state, it was a hotbed for extremism. Images of gunfights and brothels were thrust upon it by writers back East, but it wasn’t far from the Wild West mentality adopted in the territory. 

Settlers, some looking for an escape from government control, found haven in the hot deserts of early Arizona, clashing with the Native Americans already living here. 

Arizona teemed with residents sympathetic to the Confederate cause, and when the Civil War ended, an outsized share of Southerners settled in the territory.

Another group made its way to the sparsely populated land. Brigham Young urged  Mormon families from Utah to Arizona to broaden the church’s reach at a time of sometimes violent resistance to polygamy sweeping the nation. 

With these groups came divergent ideas about race, religion and politics. Arizona was positioned to be an unsettled hellscape from its very beginning.

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Face-painted, shirtless and wearing bullhorns, Arizona resident Jacob Chansley became the face of the January 6 insurrection. Meanwhile President Donald Trump used Arizona as ground zero to try and over turn the results of the 2020 election. Arizona lawmakers leaned in.

While this was happening, one question came to mind:

What is going on in Arizona? 

Chansley is an outlier, but he's not alone. Extremism is nothing new in Arizona and it’s been happening for generations.

From Confederate soldiers to the John Birch Society, militias patrolling the Mexican border to Arizona Proud Boys joining the Capitol insurrection, Arizona has a long history of indulging extremists, people whose views often reflect anger and intolerance. 

This history isn't random acts of criminal behavior but a threaded story of disillusionment, distrust of government and sometimes outright rebellion which have mixed into Arizona’s culture and politics.

In season 4 of Rediscovering, an investigative podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, hosts of The Gaggle Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitzl break down over a century of state history to give context to the state's brushes with extremism.

Rediscovering: The Roots of Radicalism, coming this summer.

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After two criminal trials against Lonnie Swartz wrapped up in Tucson, Jose Antonio’s family turned to their civil lawsuit against the agent. 

Swartz’s attorneys argued that the agent had qualified immunity from prosecution in the case because he was carrying out work for the federal government. They also argued the teen’s family had no standing to sue because Jose Antonio did not have strong ties to the U.S.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco allowed the family’s lawsuit to move forward. But another case from a Mexican family in Ciudad Juarez who was in a similar circumstance stopped any momentum. 

In June 2010, Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr shot and killed 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca along the El Paso and Ciudad Juarez border. The Guereca family also filed a civil lawsuit against Mesa, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision clashed with judges in San Francisco. 

Because of the opposing decisions, the Supreme Court of the United States decided to review the case out of El Paso. This would settle the question about what happens when a U.S. Border Patrol agent shoots and kills someone across the border in Mexico.

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In a historic move, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Lonnie Swartz, a Border Patrol agent, with three separate charges in the shooting and killing of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. 

The most severe of the charges was for second degree murder, that meant prosecutors believed Lonnie had intentionally killed Jose Antonio. It was now their responsibility to prove that in court. 

Bringing Swartz to trial took more than six years. In March 2018, the month-long murder trial kicked off in Tucson, about 60 miles north of Ambos Nogales. 

A jury of 12 men and women - plus four alternates - would decide if Swartz was guilty of the three charges against him and could bring an end to Jose Antonio's family journey toward justice. 

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It did not take long for the family of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez to start putting pressure on U.S. authorities.

They demanded that the U.S. Border Patrol release the name of the agent who had fired his gun from Arizona into Mexico in Ambos Nogales. 

In July 2014, attorneys for Jose Antonio’s family filed a lawsuit in the United States on behalf of Araceli Rodriguez. The lawsuit accused the agent of violating Jose Antonio’s civil rights. The judge in the case would later order his name to be released to the public: Agent Lonnie Swartz.  

After the shooting, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection faced questions from the public on its use of force of policy and the lack of accountability when investigating misconduct and wrongdoing. 

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A U.S. border agent shot 16 times through the gaps in the border fence in the span of 34 seconds on the night of October 10, 2012. 

Ten bullets struck and killed 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was standing on the Mexico side of Ambos Nogales, a binational community. 

The border agent claimed someone was throwing rocks over the fence and that he fired in self-defense. Jose Antonio’s family disputes that it was him. 

The shooting set Jose Antonio’s mother, Araceli Rodriguez, and grandmother, Taide Elena, on a quest to seek answers and justice for his death. 

Details about what happened on the U.S side of the border would stay under wraps for years. In the meantime, Jose Antonio’s family mobilized to press the U.S. government to take action.   

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It’s been almost a decade since a boy in Mexico was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent in the United States. 

His family couldn't believe it. And federal prosecutors didn't let it pass, even though Border Patrol agents rarely are scrutinized for excessive force.

Recorded and retold in Spanish and English, these stories go beyond the killing of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez in search of something still elusive at the border: justice.

The ripple effects of the violence that night live on at the U.S.-Mexico border today.  

Jose Antonio’s story, his family’s grief and persistence in seeking accountability for his death and how the international border affects life in the twin cities known as Ambos Nogales are the subject of a new podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com.

It's called: “Rediscovering: Killed Through the Border Fence." Season 3 in the Rediscovering series launches Sept. 12.  

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