Not In My Backyard
IN LATE AUGUST LAST YEAR, 39-year-old Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer exited La Gitana bar in Arivaca, Arizona, took out his phone, and started recording a video for his Facebook page: “So down here in Arivaca, if you like to traffic in children, if you like to make sure women and children have contraceptives before handing them off to the coyotes to be dragged through the desert, knowing they’re going to get raped along the way, if you’re involved in human trafficking or dope smuggling, these individuals have your back.”
Meyer, who had a trim red beard, dark sunglasses, and a camouflage American flag hat, aimed his cellphone camera at a wooden awning on a small white bungalow across the street from La Gitana, panning between two signs with the words “Arivaca Humanitarian Aid Office” and “Oficina De Ayuda Humanitaria” in turquoise letters.
The video went on for nine and a half minutes, as Meyer, the leader of a group called Veterans on Patrol, which had more than 70,000 followers on Facebook, talked about stopping border crossers and searching abandoned mineshafts for evidence of trafficked women and children. Every couple of minutes he would return to the aid office.
“If you’re ever down here in Arivaca,” he told his audience, “if you want to know who helps child traffickers, if you want to know who helps dope smugglers, if you want to know who helps ISIS, if you want to know who helps La Raza, MS-13, any of ’em, any of the bad guys, these people help ’em.”
The claims were false and outrageous. But Meyer
