The latest FBI crime report shows violent crime was on the increase in most Arizona cities for the first half of 2011, even as the rate of such crimes fell nationwide.Phoenix’s violent crime rate went up 2 percent in the first six months of the year, (from 3,188 reported incidents…
After a 1-6 start, the Arizona Cardinals still have an outside chance of making the playoffs thanks to a Tebow-esque fourth quarter in the team’s 20-17 overtime win over the Cleveland Browns yesterday.The W is the Cards’ third overtime win in seven games.”We have a flair for dramatics,” wide receiver…
Last week, in honor of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s comeuppance ( Department of Justice investigations, botched sex-crime investigations, etc.), we submitted the above photo of the sheriff and his PR puppy for this week’s New Times You Write the Caption contest.If you missed our post on the sheriff shamelessly…
A distraught Mike Atencio, on his way to the hospital to watch his brother Ernest “Marty” Atencio die, told me today that he and his family believe his brother was “murdered” by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s thugs in the Fourth Avenue Jail.”The sheriff’s office murdered my brother,” said Atencio, acting as…
Note: For Updates, including the name and mugshot of the victim, see below.Following on the heels of a report by the U.S. Department of Justice condemning the MCSO for engaging in “discriminatory policing” and blasting its treatment of Latinos in and out of its jails, an incident involving a prisoner…
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery expressed skepticism today about the claims of racial profiling by the Sheriff’s Office, and demanded the return of a jail program to identify illegal immigrants. The feds announced yesterday they were canceling the 287(g) program in Maricopa County due to findings by the U.S…
Luis Alberto Ochoa has a fairly extensive porn collection, which would be fine if it wasn’t made up of hundreds of videos and images of children.Ochoa was arrested yesterday morning after police tracked a kiddy-porn video to the IP address on the computer in his Phoenix home.According to court records…
“No sir it wasn’t me, sir — I swear it wasn’t!”That’s what Jermaine “Huggy” Hopkins, the fat kid in the film Lean on Me, famously told his prickly principal (played by Morgan Freeman) to get out of a jam in the 1989 classic.The line apparently didn’t work as well on…
The hits keep coming for the folks at Arizona Child Protective Services — the latest child killed by a person the agency has investigated in the past is 1-year-old Aleigh Torres, who police say was murdered by her mother’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Miguel “Angel” Garcia.According to court records obtained by New…
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau isn’t ready to comment this morning on the impact of severing ties with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.Which is a shame, because we have some good questions for them. Like, why was ICE supervising operations (see the last couple of pages of its…
A Mesa woman has been missing since Monday, when she told family members she was going out to meet some friends she met on the Internet.According to the Mesa Police Department, Sophia Vargas, 28, left her house about 8 p.m. Monday night, when she told her cousin she was going…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s having a rough week — Department of Justice investigations, botched sex-crime investigations, etc.To celebrate Arpaio’s comeuppance, we’re goin’ with the above photo of America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” cozyin’ up to his PR puppy for this week’s New Times You Write the Caption contest.If you missed…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s had a pretty rough week — aside from the Department of Justice determining that he’s guilty of the worst racial-profiling practices in U.S. history, the sheriff is still dealing with the fallout from the Associated Press’ decision to pull the old El Mirage botched sex-crime…
In case Sheriff Joe Arpaio missed the gist of the fiat handed down Thursday by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ending Arpaio’s 287(g) jails agreement, John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, doubled down on the dictate.In a letter dated December 15 to County Attorney Bill Montgomery, the ICE…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — flanked by two attorneys and MCSO Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre — held a press conference this afternoon to address the Department of Justice’s findings that his office is on the hook for the worst-racial profiling practices in U.S. history.In short, the four men came…
Eileen GilBride, Sheriff Arpaio’s lawyer, reacts to criticism by Chief Judge Kozinski that she had come to court unprepared. Questions asked by a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in yesterday’s hearing of the New Times vs. Sheriff Arpaio false- arrest lawsuit seemed to lean toward the newspaper’s position…
Flanked by community activists and fellow elected leaders at her El Portal restaurant in central Phoenix, Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox held aloft the recently-released U.S. Department of Justice report on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s racial profiling campaign against Sand Land Latinos, and praised it as a sort of Christmas…
Back in the late 1990s, the Justice Department ordered Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to stop the physical and medical abuse of inmates in county jails.The problems persist more than a decade later, despite the Department’s stipulations for reform.Today, the Justice Department ordered Arpaio to reform a “culture” of racial…
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu says he hasn’t had a chance to read the U.S. Department of Justice’s report on Joe Arpaio’s committing some of the worst acts of racial profiling in U.S. history, but that isn’t stopping him from chiming in and bashing the feds.Somehow, Babeu’s using Arpaio’s bad…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office didn’t just commit racial profiling of Latinos, according to the findings of the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation. Rather, Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history, a DOJ expert concluded.Arpaio and his commanders created a “culture”…
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yanked the 287(g) program from Maricopa County jails today because of a finding that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office abused the rights of Latinos. The program, in which deputies are cross-trained by federal authorities to identify illegal immigrants booked into jail, has been credited by…
Sara Petsinger, 31, is going to need a new job — her meth/topless massage business was shut down yesterday when she was arrested for selling meth and heroin to an undercover Mesa police officer…in a school zone…as an 8-year-old slept in her apartment.Petsinger and her co-defendant, 49-year-old Christine Petsinger, face…
