Yesterday, J.T. Ready, a neo-Nazi and member of the anti-immigrant Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, reportedly strapped on body armor, grabbed several firearms, and then killed four people in Gilbert, Arizona. One of the dead is a toddler. Ready also was killed in this incident, although reports vary on whether he took his own life. At the time of his death, Ready was running for Pinal County sheriff.

Ready’s beliefs were extreme even among extremists. In 2007, for example, he wrote that illegal immigration occurs because “negroids screw monkeys and rape babies in afreaka [sic]. Then stupid white man who licks kosher jew rear lets negroids in.” Yet Ready traveled surprisingly close to the center of power in his state. Ready claims he was a protégé to former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), the author of Arizona’s harsh immigration law who was recently removed from office in a recall election, and there is ample documentation that the two men knew each other and that Pearce once supported Ready politically.