24 episodes
Rediscovering The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com
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- News
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4.7 • 111 Ratings
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SEASON FOUR: Arizona is less than 3% of the nation’s population but often plays a prominent role in American radicalism, like the insurrection at the nation’s Capitol on January 6th. This podcast asks why? Over four episodes, hosts Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitzl trace the history of Arizona’s brushes with extremism. It goes beyond outlandish acts and isolated criminal behavior. It’s a story of disillusionment, distrust of government and outright rebellion that have mixed into the state’s culture and politics. From Confederates drawn to Arizona to Ground Zero for election denialism, this is Rediscovering season four: The Roots of Radicalism.
SEASON THREE: Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz responded to a drug smuggling attempt, leaving his assigned post at a Nogales port of entry on Oct. 10, 2012. The night would end with 16-year old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez dead on the Mexican side of Ambos Nogales. The event would begin a nearly decade-long court battle for the Elena Rodriguez family as they sought justice for the killing. It also would be a historic moment for the U.S. Border Patrol when Swartz became the first agent to be federally charged on multiple counts, including murder. Families seeking justice would get an answer years later, when another cross-border shooting reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In season three of Rediscovering, Killed Through the Border Fence, host Rafael Carranza focuses on a case that changed the way the U.S. patrols its southern boundary with Mexico and its lasting impacts on both sides of the border.
SEASON TWO: In April 2010, Arizona enacted the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, better known as Senate Bill 1070. The state law required police officers to inquire about the legal status of anyone they thought might be in the country illegally. The law was a state-level response to a national issue that had stalled in Congress. It sought to break the federal log jam and show the nation that if Congress wouldn't tackle immigration reform, Arizona would. Ten years later, the law played a role in reducing the size of the state’s undocumented population and unquestionably reshaped Arizona politics. In season two of Rediscovering, SB 1070, hosts Ron Hansen and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez retrace the history of SB 1070: how it happened, who advocated for it and why it still matters a decade later.
SEASON ONE: Our show focused on Don Bolles. Bolles was an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic in the 1960s and '70s. After years of reporting on corruption in the racing industry, he was killed by a car bomb in 1976. Decades later, we found cassette tapes of his phone calls from the '70s. With those tapes, we're telling the story of Don's life and his quarrels with the mafia before his death and how his spirit was crushed long before his murder.
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S4 EP01: An Unsettled Hellscape
Even before Arizona was a state, it was a hotbed for extremism. Images of gunfights and brothels were thrust upon it by writers back East, but it wasn’t far from the Wild West mentality adopted in the territory.
Settlers, some looking for an escape from government control, found haven in the hot deserts of early Arizona, clashing with the Native Americans already living here.
Arizona teemed with residents sympathetic to the Confederate cause, and when the Civil War ended, an outsized share of Southerners settled in the territory.
Another group made its way to the sparsely populated land. Brigham Young urged Mormon families from Utah to Arizona to broaden the church’s reach at a time of sometimes violent resistance to polygamy sweeping the nation.
With these groups came divergent ideas about race, religion and politics. Arizona was positioned to be an unsettled hellscape from its very beginning.
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S4 EP02: The Goldwater Era
After World War II ended, Arizona boomed as modern comforts made life in the desert more palatable. The state’s growth brought political upheaval and largely reinforced a social obliviousness to civil rights.
As the state grew, it shed its loyalty to Democrats in favor of a conservatism marked with anti-Communist zealotry. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, held the nation in a grip of fear over alleged communist infiltration at the highest levels in the U.S. government and military. He found a reliable ally in Arizona’s Barry Goldwater.
He came to define a new brand of politics and governance that culminated in Goldwater’s 1964 presidential run. His supporters included fringe groups such as the John Birch Society and a willingness to ignore the call for civil rights at a time when it was a rising national movement. Arizona offered a mixed record on civil rights that left Goldwater unmoved.
His presidential run ended in defeat, but it also helped plant ideological seeds for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 triumph. Back home in Arizona, voters sent Goldwater back to Washington for another three terms.
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S4 EP03: The Enemy Is Us
The upheaval of assassinations, antiwar protests and civil rights advocacy helped define an era that began in the 1960s and included flourishing political and social fringe movements.
In Arizona, far-right guerilla groups like the Minutemen and Posse Comitatus challenged long-accepted ideas of who exactly held power.
Political tumult in Arizona opened a path for a perennial election gadfly with anti-government leanings to win the governor’s race. Evan Mecham served 15 months as governor before being impeached and convicted, but the fallout from his time in office reverberated in the state’s politics for decades.
The conspiracy-minded held forth in law enforcement in Arizona and in extralegal groups distrustful of government. Arizonans had ties to the Ruby Ridge standoff, to the Oklahoma City bombing, and planned mayhem in Arizona as well.
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S4 EP04: It Never Ends
After Sept. 11, 2001, Americans across the country saw enemies and wanted security. In Arizona, the terrorist attacks ushered in a new era focused on the border with Mexico.
From self-appointed border patrols to a newfound focus for “America’s toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio, nativism took hold in Arizona. Initially, it drew support from people with serious personal problems and morphed into a broad, national political movement that helped propel Donald Trump to the White House.
The often-angry politics that characterized the ascendent right took a darker turn when Trump lost Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. Arizonans helped play a central role in the effort to sidestep the results, culminating in their involvement with the riot at the U.S. Capitol and a months-long indulgence in partisan conspiracy theories. It kept the state in an unflattering spotlight.
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S3 EP01: A metal cross and a painful memory
A U.S. border agent shot 16 times through the gaps in the border fence in the span of 34 seconds on the night of October 10, 2012.
Ten bullets struck and killed 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was standing on the Mexico side of Ambos Nogales, a binational community.
The border agent claimed someone was throwing rocks over the fence and that he fired in self-defense. Jose Antonio’s family disputes that it was him.
The shooting set Jose Antonio’s mother, Araceli Rodriguez, and grandmother, Taide Elena, on a quest to seek answers and justice for his death.
Details about what happened on the U.S side of the border would stay under wraps for years. In the meantime, Jose Antonio’s family mobilized to press the U.S. government to take action.
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S3 EP02: An identity revealed
It did not take long for the family of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez to start putting pressure on U.S. authorities.
They demanded that the U.S. Border Patrol release the name of the agent who had fired his gun from Arizona into Mexico in Ambos Nogales.
In July 2014, attorneys for Jose Antonio’s family filed a lawsuit in the United States on behalf of Araceli Rodriguez. The lawsuit accused the agent of violating Jose Antonio’s civil rights. The judge in the case would later order his name to be released to the public: Agent Lonnie Swartz.
After the shooting, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection faced questions from the public on its use of force of policy and the lack of accountability when investigating misconduct and wrongdoing.
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Customer Reviews
Phenomenal
The storytelling, the music, the sound design, the attention to detail — A+. We get to hear from Bolles himself, one of a small handful of U.S. journalists murdered on home soil because of their work, in his own voice through recently unearthed archival tapes. These are taped conversations between Bolles and sources, readers, politicos and others.
To the show’s credit, it does NOT deify or defame Mr. Bolles. It sticks to the facts, noting when Mr. Bolles may have been “overzealous” in his reporting or even somewhat paranoid. Ultimately, he paid for his work with his life. It’s a stirring story, and a must-listen.
Great reporting
I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast. I grew up hearing about Don Bolles and the mafia in Phoenix. This podcast brought Don to life as a person. I love the context of his reporting and passion to find the truth.
Richard Ruelas is a fantastic journalist and raconteur. Please do more podcasts!
Amazing Listen!
I am a native Phoenician and was a new Phoenix Police Officer when Don Bolles was murdered. This horrific crime affected the Phoenix Police Department and the City of Phoenix greatly. My sleepy little home town suddenly changed, and not for the better.
When I heard about this Podcast, I couldn’t wait to listen to it. My husband, also a retired Phoenix Police Officer and I just listened to the podcast in its entirety during a 7 hour car trip. It was captivating. So many familiar names and places; The Phone Booth, Ivanhoe Bar and Durant's, where my husband spent more than a few shifts as a Vice Detective. And the Clarendon Hotel where my Surprise 40th Birthday Celebration was held.
Richard Ruelas does an incredible job of chronicling this story using the contents of Don Bolles recently discovered notes and taped interviews along with taped interviews from investigators and more recent interviews conducted by Richard Ruelas. Richard's conversation with Don Bolles' widow, Rosalie, was particularly poignant. Don Bolles was clearly “the one” for Rosalie and you can hear the pain resonating in her voice as she speaks about this tragic event and unimaginable loss.
I have a question about Don Bolles’ tapes and notes which were archived by the Arizona Republic after his death. Did the police investigators ever see these notes or listen to the tapes, before they were archived? I assumed that the Phoenix Police Department investigators would have sought a Search Warrant for the contents of Don Bolles' desk and files, in search of clues into this horrible crime.
Finally, Kudos to Richard Ruelas for a story well told. He was a perfect narrator and easy to listen to!