A cross between Ronald Reagan post-presidency and Sgt. Schultz from a Hogan’s Heroes rerun: That’s the impression Sheriff Joe Arpaio gave recently during a seven hour deposition under oath as part of the big Melendres vs. Arpaio racial-profiling lawsuit now working its way through federal court.Under rigorous interrogation by David…
In a conversation this morning via phone, Tucson native and rock legend Linda Ronstadt denounced Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s reign of tyranny in Maricopa County and promised to march alongside thousands of activists planning to converge on Phoenix this Saturday, January 16 for a National Day of Action, which will include…
Props to the spirit of country legend Hank Williams and YouTuber “politicatty.” The latter has borrowed the tune from the former’s Cajun-styled hit “Jambalaya” for an anti-Joe Arpaio ditty entitled, “Goodbye, Joe!” The lyrics are pretty amusing. Here’s a sample:Goodbye Joe. You gotta go. Take three guesses. Too much dough down…
Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the big Melendres vs. Arpaio racial profiling lawsuit fired another salvo at the MCSO on Wednesday. In the latest bid for sanctions against the MCSO, attorneys from the firm of Steptoe & Johnson, lead counsel in the case, argued that the MCSO has persistently destroyed…
Why do local nativists feel emboldened and increasingly willing to express themselves violently? Well, it’s no coincidence that most local nativists are rabid supporters of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio’s tactics and rhetoric play to the nativists. He green-lights their hatred of Mexican immigrants, and with his own lawless behavior gives…
Long before the judges and lawyers got into the act (excepting such stalwarts as Danny Ortega and Antonio Bustamante, who’ve been active since the beginning), Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox was speaking out, marching and working against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Wilcox was instrumental in getting former Mesa Police Chief…
The far-right wingnut blog Sonoran Alliance just posted a whiny e-mail from Sheriff Joe begging for campaign contributions, even though his next run for sheriff wouldn’t be until 2012. At times, he makes it sound like it’s some sort of legal defense fund. Yet Joe’s Web site notes that donators’…
You’ll recall that in November, I reported that MCSO deputies had admitted under oath to destroying documents requested by the plaintiffs in the big Melendres vs. Arpaio racial profiling lawsuit now in federal court. In an excerpt of a deposition made public as part of a request for sanctions against…
Yesterday, I spoke with Alejandro Miyar, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, which is currently investigating civil rights violations by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies. Though he would not confirm the fact that a team from the DOJ has been in town this week…
Editor’s note: This is one of a group of individual accounts of racial profiling by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s forces. Ramon Delgadillo hardly fits the bill of those who have been profiled because of race or ethnicity by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies. Light-skinned, with hardly any accent to betray his Mexican…
ARPAIO IN HELL I’d perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on just about any man — if his life were at stake! But what about Sheriff Joe Arpaio, say, if he were suffering a heart attack? No way! That was my initial response to this ethical hypothetical, because Maricopa County would definitely be…
What a difference a couple of days make. Less than 72 hours ago, members of the pro-immigrant community in Phoenix were kvetching to me about the lack of follow-through on the part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. As I reported in my column this week, activists…
As I’ve been on deadline the last couple of days, I haven’t been able to comment on Nightline’s recent, two-pronged report on Sheriff Joe, the second part of which I enjoyed immensely. That segment dealt mostly with Arpaio’s abuses in the jails and made specific reference the 1996 death of…
Nightline’s piece on our corrupt top constable runs tonight — you know, the one ABC was working on when they sent Nightline talking head Martin Bashir to Phoenix to cover one of Arpaio’s anti-immigrant sweeps last month. The speculation at the time was that Arpaio had coordinated the sweep with the aim of providing…
Chicanos Por La Causa officials and their supporters held a press conference today to blast the MCSO’s recent day-long raid on CPLC’s headquarters in Phoenix. CPLC CEO Edmundo Hidalgo and attorney Danny Ortega, Board Chair of the National Council of La Raza, were joined by the leaders of organizations such…
Though I didn’t make Dennis Burke’s swearing in as the new U.S. Attorney for Arizona yesterday, I did make the after-party — a reception at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine in downtown Phoenix. The reception, sponsored by Congressman Ed Pastor and Phoenix political consultant Ronnie Lopez, was attended by…
The nativists talked a big game on the United for a Sovereign America Web site, calling for a protest of two Applebee’s restaurants in Phoenix that were participating in a fundraiser for Sal Reza’s Macehualli Work Center. But other than harassing the employees and customers of the two locations, the…
Like a lot of anti-Arpaio activists in town, videographer Dennis Gilman has been helping the U.S. Department of Justice gather evidence of abuse of power and racial profiling by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. He’s provided them with a massive amount of video that he and others have culled while…
THE LIE THIS TIME One of the most insidious myths of the anti-immigrant movement is that the undocumented receive truckloads of public assistance, that they are a drain on the system, costing the American public untold billions. I heard this vicious lie repeated over and over again during a nativist…
After a year of debate and study amongst its 20 panel members, the University of Denver’s Strategic Issues Program released a final report today titled “Architecture for Immigration Reform,” which provides an honest assessment of America’s immigration dilemma along with detailed suggestions for guiding U.S. immigration policy.There’s much to like about the…
Phoenix human rights activist Sal Reza’s Macehualli Day Labor Center at 25th Street and Bell Road is in dire financial straits, and you can help by eating at one of two Applebee’s locations Thursday, December 10. As part of Applebee’s Dining to Donate program, the Phoenix restaurants at 2 East Camelback…
As that great Phoenix philosopher Fronzo “the Fonz” West once asked in a riddle worthy of a Buddhist koan, “How do you call the cops on the cops?” Here in Mari-Kafka County, the problem’s compounded by the fact that one of the most corrupt law enforcement agencies in the nation…
