A 911 recording released by a southern Arizona sheriff's department captures a woman pleading for help after assailants broke into her home and fatally shot her husband and 9-year-old daughter.
The mother can be heard crying out in pain from a gunshot wound she received in the May 30 attack at her home in rural Arivaca. As she politely begs a dispatcher to send help quickly, 31-year-old Gina Marie Gonzalez becomes frantic as the attackers return.
"They're coming back in! They're coming back in!" she yells to a 911 operator.
The sound of at least nine gunshots is heard as Gonzalez engages in a gunbattle with intruders in her home south of Tucson and about 10 miles from border with Mexico.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department last week arrested a woman and two men in connection with the attack. The suspects are members of a small anti-illegal immigration group that sought cash or drugs to fund border watch operations, police say.
Dressed as law enforcement officers
The intruders dressed as law enforcement officers when they broke into the home at about 1 a.m., police say. The slain father, 29-year-old Raul Junior Flores, was believed to be involved with drug trafficking, police say, but officers don't think the assailants found much cash or drugs in the home.
"They told us somebody had escaped jail or something. They wanted to come in and look at my house," Gonzalez tells the 911 operator. "They just shot my husband and they shot my daughter and they shot me. Oh my God, ma'am, I can't believe this is happening."
Gonzalez says on the recording that her daughter, Brisenia Flores, was crying before the assailants shot her in the head.
Police say Gonzalez shot and wounded one of her alleged attackers, 34-year-old Jason Eugene Bush of Meadview in northwestern Arizona.
Officers believe Bush was the gunman, working with 41-year-old Shawna Forde of Everett, Wash., the alleged ringleader, and 42-year-old Albert Robert Gaxiola of Arivaca, who allegedly provided information about the local area. Forde denied involvement on Friday as she was led from sheriff's headquarters.
All three suspects declined interview requests made through the Pima County jail. Messages left with attorneys for Bush and Gaxiola were not immediately returned, and Forde had not yet been assigned a lawyer.
'I can't believe they killed my family'
Between moans, Gonzalez apologizes for using foul language, and at another point asks if she will get in trouble for firing at the suspects. The operator assures her she has nothing to worry about.
"Oh my God, I can't believe they killed my family," Gonzalez says.
She repeatedly says she's scared the intruders will return as the operator tries to calm her and get a description of the shooting.
"They have like the whole army coming towards you," the operator says.
Throughout the recording, Gonzalez is mostly calm but in obvious pain. Her voice grows quiet and weak toward the end.
"Oh my goodness, I've never heard of any of this stuff happening in Arivaca," Gonzalez says.
