Nativist Leader Now Says Video is Fake
For the first time, Robert Crooks, leader of California鈥檚 nativist extremist Mountain Minutemen, has admitted to filming and posting videos ( and ) that seem to depict an undocumented immigrant being shot on the border. But Crooks now says the video was staged.
鈥淲ho in their right mind is going to shoot a smuggler, videotape it, then post it to YouTube?鈥� Crooks asked in San Diego.
That鈥檚 a change from last week, when Crooks, in an E-mail to the Intelligence Report, insisted he neither filmed the video nor posted it to a video-sharing site. A local police spokesman told 10News the video did appear to be fake.
Crooks鈥� tiny Mountain Minutemen group is one of several armed Minuteman spinoffs now operating on the U.S.-Mexico border between Campo and Jacumba, Calif. Crooks told a reporter that he and friends made the fake video during talks about President George Bush鈥檚 proposed immigration reform bill.
Crooks had a number of other nativist extremist leaders convinced that his video was real and would damage their movement. In response to Crooks鈥� border shooting video, Jeff Schwilk, leader of the nativist extremist San Diego Minutemen, told his supporters he had a media strategy in place, 鈥渢o minimize damage to the Minuteman movement.鈥� Jim Gilchrist, director of another Minuteman group, banned his own members from contact with Crooks and his group and said that he would no longer provide Crooks鈥� group with supplies as in the past.
In late July, Crooks sent an E-mail to Gilchrist and other Minutemen leaders that contained a link to part of the chilling video depicting an immigrant being targeted and shot at through a night-vision scope. 鈥淭his video shows how to keep a 鈥楬ome Depot鈥� parking lot empty,鈥� he wrote, jabbing at Gilchrist and others who, he suggested, could 鈥淭alk the Talk鈥� but not 鈥淲alk the Walk.鈥�
Now, Robert Crooks offers another reason for making the video. 鈥淲e鈥檙e old men and we鈥檙e bored,鈥� he said.
