Here is how the police investigate a fellow officer. In the midnight hour of January 28, two uniformed patrolmen from the Department of Public Safety (DPS) pulled over seventeen-year-old Jeffrey Dawes and his sixteen-year-old passenger Aaron Carstens. The teenagers had led the state troopers on a freeway chase where speeds…
It is not enough to bury your son. Before the earth has settled upon your boy’s casket, you must read that your seventeen-year-old was a juvenile delinquent. Then you must be attacked in the state’s largest newspaper as bad parents. Everyone you know, all of your relatives and all of…
Now that state liquor boss Hugh Ennis is moving to revoke the booze license of the notorious crack outlet Club 902, the only question left is: How did the saloon stay open so long? Police Chief Ruben Ortega knows that the buck stops at his desk, which explains why he’s…
Richard Romley’s cash-and-crack hypocrisy is finally facing direct assault. The county’s top prosecutor has maintained a hidden interest for five years in what has become one of the Valley’s most lawless bars. Since assuming office in January of 1988, the incidents of armed robbery, aggravated assault and the sale of…
A funny thing happened just as soon as Maricopa County Attorney Richard Romley’s financial stake in the Valley’s most notorious crack bar was revealed. The ownership was transferred, overnight. The rushed paperwork, if approved, protects the bar’s real owner from the law. This strategy will keep Club 902 open no…
On Saturday night, November 25, a crack dealer pointed his gun directly at sixty-year-old Patrick Walsh on West Van Buren in downtown Phoenix. Gunning his car’s engine, Walsh peeled out of the parking lot. As he made his escape, Walsh also tried to get the license plate number and a…
Everything you need to know about President George Bush’s war on drugs is contained in the shameless story of the 902 saloon on West Van Buren. The 902 is a bar notorious for its crack cocaine transactions and for the “dirt bags” who drink there, according to Lieutenant Ron Hergert…
Apparently burning babies to death, through negligence or intent, is not much of a crime in Maricopa County. Allison Gail Rolland nearly killed her five-month-old infant when she abandoned the child in the family car on June 15 as scorching desert temperatures reached 108 degrees. A frantic passer-by freed the…
On the eve of his stunning political triumph, Julian Sanders was in an expansive mood. “I am not prejudiced,” said Sanders. “I pick up black hitchhikers if I see them in need.” Because I half expected him to tick off which Stevie Wonder albums he owned, it was plain that…
This is a story of how the schoolchildren of Arizona are denied a decent education by naive bureaucrats, businessmen too fond of sharp practices, and conniving politicians. It is a tale of the single worst blind date in the history of Phoenix. In this column, you will also discover that…
When the story is fully told, I think Keith Turley’s greed will rival Charles Keating’s penchant for buying U.S. senators in sheer gall. The head of Arizona’s largest corporation, Pinnacle West, Turley recently disclosed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that he expects you and me and…
On July 31 police from the small Arizona town of Parker caught the high school’s football coach in a compromising phone conversation with a twelve-year-old Indian girl. It was not the first such incident involving the highly successful coach. After resigning from Parker High School, the football coach was hired…
In a Sunnyslope bedroom, beneath a map of the intended targets, the gruesome crime unfolded. As Michael Bloom plotted, his partner Carl Schall listened. The plan was to dynamite black people during church services, to kill little children at Jewish day-care centers and to slaughter impoverished Mexicans at social-service agencies…
Mary Jo West kidnaped? . . . Yeah, right. After the first reports of the alleged abduction, the buzz on the street was that Mary Jo faked the crime. First of all, she was snatched after leaving a stress-reduction workshop. Didn’t that tell you everything you needed to know? Then…
The FBI has opened an investigation into the campaign of terror waged from the state police headquarters against Leon Woodward. Although a spokesman for the FBI refused to provide details, agent Gary Wildebrandt interviewed Woodward and his wife on the afternoon of September 26. At the same time the FBI…
Dawn. With the crashing thunder of Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyrie” playing in their headsets, F-16 fighter pilots lift off the tarmac at Williams and Luke. As early-morning commuters look on, the jets swoop low over the Phoenix Civic Plaza and bomb the acres of concrete courtyard into rubble…
Fifty-one weeks out of the year we beat Mayor Terry Goddard about the head and shoulders with a long staff as if he were our own personal pinata; he is, after all, an elected official. The flailing is good sound employment and one indication of how seriously we take our…
Even without his state police uniform, Van Jackson makes an impression. He is the physical epitome of a state trooper. At six feet five inches and 200-plus pounds, the former cop carries himself with the composed grace of an athlete. Despite the dignity of his well-cut pin-striped suit, however, he…
With his own words, in newly revealed documents, Department of Public Safety Officer Van Jackson makes it very plain that he was not alone in the reign of terror directed at Leon and Jeanette Woodward. The summary of DPS’ internal investigation was obtained Friday after a formal request by this…
Sally Tavilla is 71 and still honors her Boston roots when she says words like farm or park. She is a lady who relishes her family. “I brought up five beautiful children,” Sally says, “and they’re a credit to this country.” She and her daughter Jeanette were talking on the…
In nine days, 51 creepy phone calls and death threats were made to Leon and Jeanette Woodward. U S West Communications determined that 43 of those calls originated within state police headquarters or from the home of Department of Public Safety Officer Van Jackson. Subsequent events raise the possibility that…
With 800 people about to be laid off at Salt River Project, Marlene Dibble of Gilbert is updating her resume. She enjoys her work as a customer service representative who negotiates the electric needs of small businesses, but Marlene is afraid that because Arizona’s economy is disintegrating, she may be…
