“Many are quick to distance the state’s countercultural vibe from the compound and its inhabitants, who are accused of training the children to commit mass shootings. But they also fear that the publicity around a case infused with allegations of terrorism, child abuse and faith healing might contribute to a rise in racism and Islamophobia.”
Mass shootings, and they’re worried about a chimerical backlash against innocent Muslims that seldom, if ever, materializes. This is why they call CNN fake news.
One wonders if it ever occurred to CNN that if these Muslims had not been stockpiling weapons and training children for school shootings, no one would need to be worried about “Islamophobia.”
“In New Mexico, where life off the grid is common, compound suspects struggled,” by Emanuella Grinberg, CNN, August 26, 2018:
Taos County, New Mexico (CNN)The compound was hiding in plain sight, a white smudge in the dusty green expanse of sagebrush and juniper stretching across the Colorado-New Mexico border.
A few feet past a handwritten “no trespassing” sign on the ground, a box truck sat unlocked. Inside, a wooden bunk bed was propped up against the wall, surrounded by piles of dirty clothing and worn-out books. Identity documents were mixed on the floor with children’s math workbooks, self-help guides and gun manuals. A dusty bulletproof vest lay nearby.
It had been two weeks since law enforcement raided lot 78 in Costilla Meadows, a rural subdivision in Amalia, New Mexico, where homes are off the grid and you can see your nearest neighbor miles over the dry grassland. Police found 11 malnourished children there, shoeless and in tattered clothes, and arrested five adults. Days later, they found the remains of the 3-year-old boy they were searching for.
Two weeks after the raid, reminders of the family’s monthslong stay were piled in heaps of garbage on the property, where they had built the compound on a lot belonging to someone else, adjacent to their own.
Residents of this sparsely populated region of northern Taos County encountered members of the black Muslim family in familiar places: the gas station, the Family Dollar, the hardware store, the body shop. Little about the family members stood out, they said, apart from their dirty clothes and their skin color, a rarity in this area primarily populated by Hispanos — descendants of Spaniards who settled in the Southwest centuries ago.
Otherwise, those who met them said they seemed friendly. A resident recalled how one of the men tenderly wiped the nose of a crying child. What little the residents knew about the compound didn’t raise eyebrows in an area where many people live “in unconventional ways,” as the judge in the case has said.
Individuals from society’s periphery have long sought refuge in this part of the state, where cheap land far from the nearest power line or shopping center is easy to find. The region’s history of welcoming outsiders has contributed to cross-cultural exchanges and a tolerant attitude that locals consider points of pride. Many are quick to distance the state’s countercultural vibe from the compound and its inhabitants, who are accused of training the children to commit mass shootings. But they also fear that the publicity around a case infused with allegations of terrorism, child abuse and faith healing might contribute to a rise in racism and Islamophobia.
“People come here and they want to be left alone and sometimes they do things that are unconventional,” said Malaquias “JR” Rael, whose family arrived in the Taos region in the mid-1800s. Newcomers are drawn to the area for its proximity to nature, breathtaking views and simple way of life, he says. Other families like his — predominantly Hispanos — have been here for generations.
“It can be difficult to be alarmed or judgmental, because people have been doing this kind of stuff for a long time.”
Rael owns North Star Tire & Auto in Questa, a mountain town of some 2,000 people about 30 minutes from the compound and another 30-minute drive from Taos, the nearest “big city.” Given his family tree, it’s a place where Rael can’t go far without being greeted by a customer or relative.One of the men from the compound, Lucas Morten, visited Rael’s body shop in early spring looking to buy a large quantity of tires. “He seemed real personable, very mild-mannered,” Rael recalled over a smothered burrito lunch on a recent weekday in Questa.
Morten said he planned to build an “earthship,” a self-sustaining home made from natural and upcycled materials, which uses tires packed with earth as bricks. “I said, ‘OK, good luck,’ because it’s real labor intensive,” Rael said. Otherwise, nothing about the request raised any red flags, he said.
Plenty of people live off the grid here in various types of homes that don’t use public energy sources or fossil fuels, he said. Not him, though. “There’s nothing wrong with being normal,” he jokes….