We’ve done a few pretty intense stories on Pinal County sheriff’s deputy Louie Puroll and his troubled (and troubling) account of getting shot in the desert south of Phoenix last April 30. …
We were as frustrated at times as almost everyone else with Amar’e Stoudemire, whose mercurial career with the Phoenix Suns ended after seven seasons last June when he signed a mammoth deal with the New York Knicks. His lack of defensive prowess, inability to crash the boards consistently, and other…
Our sadly departed (from this newspaper, not from the planet) colleague Sarah Fenske wrote a humdinger of a story earlier this year about all manner of fiscal wrongdoing and blatant nepotism inside the Housing Authority of Maricopa County. Here is that story, after which Fenske followed up with columns and blog items…
We were fairly deluged this morning with e-mails from readers of Arizona Republic columnist E.J Montini about a blog post he did about ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Peyton Thomas. “Has E.J. Montini become an apologist for Thomas?” a retired judge wrote us. “I don’t understand the purpose of giving [Thomas] a forum for…
What happened to the good old days, when Arizona’s large-school football championship games were held on Saturday, starting in the afternoon and moving into the evening? Something about the National Football League and its contractual arrangement with its teams (the Arizona Cardinals in this instance) to ensure that the…
Got a text message last night from a law-enforcement pal who wrote, “If I meet you at a truck stop, can I be placed on paid leave?” On a more serious note, news that Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu yesterday ordered an internal investigation into troubling statements made to me…
We will always remember Leslie Nielsen fondly for his classic comic portrayal of Detective Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun series and, of course, as the deadpan Dr. Rumack in Airplane! (“Surely, you can’t be serious?” someone asked him in Airplane! “I am serious,” Rumack replied. And don’t call me…
Louie Puroll crouches beside an ocotillo in the desert between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, his M-16 rifle slung in front of him. It’s a cool November morning, and we are in Pinal County, 3.5 miles south of civilization, which is the Veja Truck Stop at Interstate 8 and State Route…
Quite a sight yesterday afternoon in downtown Phoenix. The entire workforce of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office–it numbers in the hundreds–took to the streets (Jefferson, to be exact) as one, and trooped north a block or two to the Orpheum Theatre for a big meeting, It was new County Attorney…
As readers may know, we have been looking hard into the curious desert shooting case involving Pinal County sheriff’s deputy Louie Puroll, the fella in the photo. We published our original story, “Pinalcchio” a few months ago about the internationally publicized incident–here it is again. But that’s not the point of this blog…
This year’s edition of the ASU Sun Devils men’s basketball team snuck past a decent University of Alabama-Birmingham squad 69-66 on Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. Nice win that just may help the Devils when March Madness comes around, sooner than later. But the highlight of the…
Just reading the Arizona Republic story about the murder of a 16-year-old boy in west Phoenix on November 1–yet another tragic urban tale about needless urban violence and loss. Here is that story.It reports the arrests by Phoenix police of four young men on suspicion of murder and other charges,…
Though the Beasts of the East (Miami Heat and Boston Celtics) have been stealing most of the headlines in this early part of the NBA season, the Atlanta Hawks went into yesterday’s game against the Phoenix Suns without a loss. That streak ended, as the Suns held on down the…
It’s so early in the season for us to call the Phoenix Suns 112-110 loss last night to their arch-rival San Antonio Spurs last night a game with “playoff-like intensity,” but it was. Both teams fought as if the game really meant something, not just one of 82 regular season…
The lack of decor at the Democratic Party headquarters in downtown Phoenix was in stark contrast to the colorful array of posters and ubiquitous American flags in display at their rival Republican digs across the street. It was if the Dems had resolved to take their medicine–a loss of every…
We bumped into an old friend as we stepped into the moribund Democrat headquarters in downtown Phoenix a bit ago. He’s a old-school pol, a friend of gubernatorial candidate Terry Goddard (who is about to go down to his third loss for the state’s highest job — twice to…
We got a cordial note last night from a guy who identified himself as Gary Karpin Jr., the son of white-collar scammer Gary Karpin Sr. The elder Karpin (in photo), a disbarred attorney turned divorce “mediator,” is serving a long sentence at the Arizona State Prison for stealing from dozens…
It’s depressing out there, no doubt. President Barack Obama’s “honeymoon” never happened, partly his fault, partly not. The collective memory of the “American public” is about as long as that of a rather slow 2-year-old. Joe F-ing Arpaio, a paragon of everything that can be bad about law enforcement, is…
We wrote earlier this year about the obsession of Rusty Stuart, a veteran Phoenix street cop (in photo) who became fixated during the Baseline Killer investigation with the possible culpability of a seriously mentally ill, low-level criminal named Terry Wayne Smith. Here’s the story, which we called “Going Rogue.” Suffice…
The Arizona Court of Appeals has upheld the criminal convictions of Gary Karpin Jr., a.k.a. “Dr. Buzzard,” a disbarred attorney who preyed on people, mostly women, who hired him as a “mediator” in their pending divorce cases. The unanimous appellate decision upholding Karpin’s convictions on 23 counts of theft…
The dude is everywhere, but is especially prevalent on Fox News, where his bleatings about the evils of illegal immigration — replete with incorrect statistics — are greeted sans any anything approaching intellectual honesty, much less any old-fashioned fact-checking. Sheriff Babeu is going hard while the going is good –…
We (and everyone else) got a news release earlier today from the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, whose boss, Paul Babeu (in the photo), is the man of the moment in the increasingly ugly debate over what to do with illegal immigrants. The dramatic release claimed that, back in May, the…
