DES MOINES, IOWA — Iowa voters are being spammed with robocalls from a white nationalist group advocating violence against immigrants in the aftermath of the death of Mollie Tibbetts, whose accused killer is from Mexico. The calls claim that were she alive, Tibbetts herself would want violence, too — the exact opposite of what some family members of the slain University of Iowa 20-year-old have said.
Tibbetts’ body was discovered Aug. 21 in a cornfield about 12 miles from her home in Brooklyn, Iowa. Authorities have said farmworker Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, who is charged with first-degree murder in her death, led investigators to the body. Federal authorities have said Rivera is in the United States illegally.
“If after her life has now been brutally stolen from her, she could be brought back to life for just one moment and asked, ‘What do you think now?,’ Mollie Tibbetts would say, ‘Kill them all,’ ” the robocall message said.
Hours after Tibbetts’ body was discovered and Rivera was charged, President Trump and other Republican immigration hardliners seized on her death in a call for tougher laws — effectively making Rivera the Willie Horton of the 2018 midterms. Her family members have called for a celebration of her life and values rather than focusing on how she died.
The hateful robocalls, first reported by Iowa Startling Line, have been linked to the TheRoadToPower.com, a white nationalist video podcasting site run by Scott D. Rhodes, who has gained attention in Idaho for robocalls attacking minorities.
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The calls labeled Tibbetts’ accused killer an “invader from Mexico,” a “biological hybrid of white and savage Aztec ancestors” and part of a culture of “low-IQ, bottom-feeding savages.”
“We don’t have to kill them all,” the message said, “but we do have to deport them all.”
The Des Moines Register reported that although the incoming calls appeared to come from Tibbetts’ hometown of Brooklyn, they actually originated from Idaho, where Rhodes lives, and were paid for by his organization.
The Iowa Attorney General’s Office told the Register it hasn’t fielded any complaints about the robocalls, but is looking into whether they are legal. The state’s Civil Rights Commission has also been alerted.
Amid the heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric, Tibbetts’ family members have been outspoken in their support of immigrants. At his daughter’s funeral last weekend, Rob Tibbetts didn’t mention Trump or other politicians, but said to about 1,000 mourners crowded into the high school where she graduated:
“The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans. As far as I’m concerned, they’re Iowans with better food.”
As the calls were coming into Iowans’ homes Thursday, the League of United Latin Americans gathered at the state Capitol in Des Moines to show support for the Tibbetts family. The rally was held the same day “deport illegals” was found scrawled in paint on a road on the city’s south side.
“We have never had this type of hate ever in the 60-plus years that I can remember,” Joe Enriquez Henry, president of the local council of the League of United Latin American Citizens and a longtime Des Moines resident, told Iowa Public Radio. “We need a stronger message that hate will not be tolerated.
“And we need to do everything we can in every public institution: within the schools, through the police department, from city hall too, to stop the hate rhetoric, to educate the community that this needs to stop,” Henry said.
The demonization of Tibbetts’ accused killer sets a “very dangerous precedent where hate groups and splinter groups start going after an entire population,” Carl McPherson, who attended the rally, told television station WHO.
Tibbetts was last seen July 18 during a jog around Brooklyn. When she didn’t show up for work the next day, she was reported missing, setting off a massive search that gained national attention.
Photo: A blue ribbon was affixed to a light post in Brooklyn, Iowa, during the search for Mollie Tibbetts, who was missing from her hometown for a month before her body was discovered on Aug. 21. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)