Minutemen Group Leader Says Video Depicting Border Murder Is Fake

A series of videos depicting the shooting and killing of individuals crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is fake, according to a Minutemen leader who was reported to have previously denied any involvement with the pictures.

In update to a story Colorado Confidential reported on Monday, Robert Crooks of the California-based Mountain Minutemen group has told the media that be filmed and posted the two videos because he was “bored.”The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights organization based in Alabama, brought attention to the pictures; one of which was obtained in an e-mail message sent by Crooks to other Minutemen leaders. At the time, the Center reported that Crooks said he took no part in producing the videos.

But now in a local San Diego news item, Crooks says he that he did produce the pictures, and that they aren’t real. He was quoted as saying “‘We’re old men and we’re bored.'”

Law enforcement authorities were contacted about the videos, and police also believe it to be a fake, according to the San Diego report.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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