{"id":627256,"date":"2018-09-18T13:57:01","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T19:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=627256"},"modified":"2018-09-19T09:25:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:25:30","slug":"conspiracy-theories-inspire-vigilante-justice-in-tucson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/09\/conspiracy-theories-inspire-vigilante-justice-in-tucson\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracy theories inspire vigilante justice in Tucson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Veterans

Andrew Cullen \/ for High Country News<\/p>

Veterans on Patrol volunteers David Armstrong, Tim and Quoin crawl under a barbed-wire fence during a hike through the desert near a residential neighborhood outside Tucson, Arizona while searching for evidence of human trafficking on June 20. During the search exercise, members of the group crossed private property and looked for suspicious items as they passed homes and yards.<\/p><\/div>\n

ON MAY 31,<\/strong> a strange story aired on the nightly news in Tucson, Arizona. KOLD News 13 reporter Kevin Adger told viewers that a local veterans\u2019 rights activist named Lewis Arthur had made a horrific discovery in the bushes beside a frontage road: a bunker used as a stopover by child sex traffickers. The reporter pointed out children\u2019s clothes, an old toilet seat and a septic tank where Arthur claimed kids had been held against their will.<\/p>\n

Arthur had stumbled across the camp while canvassing the area for homeless vets. He posted an outraged rant on Facebook and started getting comments \u2014 a lot of them. When he posted videos arguing that there were probably bodies buried at the camp and that it was part of a network of Arizona sex trafficking sites, he topped 680,000 views in days.<\/p>\n

There was just one problem with Arthur\u2019s story: It wasn\u2019t true. Tucson police and sheriff\u2019s deputies both investigated the site and found nothing more than a former homeless camp \u2014 no evidence of sex trafficking. Arthur then claimed he and two friends\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0found proof: a child\u2019s skull. Officers sent the skull to the Pima County medical examiner, who concluded that it had belonged to an adult and been found miles away from the homeless camp.<\/p>\n

The Arizona Daily Star<\/em>\u00a0and other local news outlets published stories debunking the claims. In a pre-internet world, the whole thing might have ended there, without any more newspaper ink or the involvement of the FBI. But in 2018 \u2014 at a time when social media, a conspiracy-minded president, and the erosion of trust in public institutions are providing fertile ground for wild-eyed theories \u2014 the story kept gaining life.<\/p>\n

From as far away as Australia, believers travelled to the Tucson desert to deliver vigilante justice to the sex traffickers. Their stories became more elaborate: The skull became a partial corpse. One person told me it was so fresh when it was found, they saw it \u201cdripping.\u201d The camp became evidence of a massive pedophile ring implicating Cemex, the Mexican cement company that owns the property. Some of Arthur\u2019s followers found more bones and suggested they came from people who had died terrible deaths. But the medical examiner analyzed them, too, and concluded they were animal remains. At least one was from a deer.<\/p>\n

I FIRST HEARD<\/strong>\u00a0of Lewis Arthur in early June, when JJ MacNab, an expert on anti-government movements, tweeted about his \u201cone-sided standoff.\u201d It caught my eye because Arthur had connections to the Bundy family, the Nevada ranchers at the center of two recent armed confrontations with federal land managers. Arthur had traveled to Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 to help prevent the Bureau of Land Management from removing the cows Cliven Bundy had illegally grazed for decades. Two years later, he\u00a0showed up at\u00a0the armed occupation of Oregon\u2019s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge led by Cliven\u2019s sons.<\/p>\n