Assembly Republican Candidate Bob Smith Embraces Vigilante with Tainted Past

http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&aid=3100&ptid=9

"California Assembly candidate Bob Smith is getting some help in his campaign from a Minuteman. snip

The group's Web site claims that members have spotted 30,962 undocumented immigrants, and made 392 rescues and 13,769 "intruder apprehensions" over 289 days on border watch. Simcox and the Minutemen have been criticized for their actions, which have included building their own fence along a few miles of the border.

But Smith isn't one of the critics. snip

Well, Bob may not be one of Simcox's critics, but the man has a "troubled past" according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that monitors the activities of hate groups. Here's a snippet:

"In January 2003, while on patrol with Civil Homeland Defense, Simcox was arrested by federal park rangers for illegally carrying a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun in a national park. Also in Simcox's possession at the time of that arrest, according to police records, were a document entitled "Mission Plan," a police scanner, two walkie-talkies, and a toy figure of Wyatt Earp on horseback.

Two months later, in a speech to the California Coalition on Immigration Reform, a hate group whose leader, Barbara Coe, routinely refers to Mexicans as "savages," Simcox offered a dire warning to his audience.