As Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio crows this morning about how his agency busted a total of six illegal immigrants for using fake IDs so they could work at a Mesa dry cleaner, county budget officials unveiled the results of a six-month investigation into how his office is misspending your…
Imagine getting crushed by a giant Clif bar — now you’ve got an idea how a small, Tempe fitness firm must feel. Luna Fitness, on the corner of Elliot and Rural roads, has been sued in federal court by the national energy-bar powerhouse over alleged trademark infringement. The Tempe company’s name, crescent-moon design in its logo, and…
Governor Jan Brewer and Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne have issued a joint press release denouncing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision today upholding District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton’s injunction of four key parts of Arizona’s “breathing-while-brown-law,” Senate Bill 1070.You can read the entire release, here. However,…
State Senate President Russell Pearce, Governor Jan Brewer, and the forces of nativism here in Arizona and nationwide have suffered a crushing blow. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has today upheld District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton’s injunction of the most egregious parts of Senate Bill 1070.You’ll recall that…
To read recent accounts of state Senate President Russell Pearce’s lawbreaking son Joshua Pearce, you’d think he’d only caught six days in stir for violating terms of his probation on a 2007 aggravated DUI conviction.In reality, Pearce the Younger had already spent close to two months in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s…
Cops and other attendees had to run the gauntlet today at a BBQ/fundraiser for fired, killer-cop Richard Chrisman, held in an underground enclosure at the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the powerful police union that reps rank and file Phoenix police officers.About a dozen or so protesters, led by local radio…
For a hot-shot legal beagle, Craig Mehrens sure seems to have plenty of time to write op-eds for the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association.His latest ditty for the Phoenix police union’s Web site defends PLEA’s all-day BBQ/fundraiser today on behalf of his client, fired killer-cop Richard Chrisman. The former Phoenix police…
I have to wonder if the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association would be so supportive of fired killer-cop Richard Chrisman if his victim had been white instead of Latino.PLEA has gone all out to back Chrisman, who has kept his lips zipped about the October 5 shooting of unarmed south Phoenix…
Anyone recall the flap of about a year ago, when Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu went on a white supremacist radio show in Tennessee called “The Political Cesspool”?PCSO spokesman Tim Gaffney took the spear for not vetting that one for his boss. And I couldn’t help but recall that little…
An auto mechanic for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency in Tucson says in a lawsuit that the agency and fellow employees are discriminating against him because he’s a Christian. David Stanford, who’s worked for the CBP’s Tucson Sector Garage for about two years, says co-workers ridicule him and play “extraordinarily loud music” because…
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Lisa Allen was dismayed when she saw the super-sleazy TV ad against her boss’ opponent, Dan Saban, air on September 30, 2008. She thought the ad, which stated that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s opponent had masturbated on county time and had once been accused of raping his…
Joel Fox filed two federal lawsuits this week in apparent response to New Times’ publication of love letters between him and his boss at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Larry Black. The first lawsuit targets former state Attorney General Terry Goddard and three employees of the AG’s office; the second,…
I’ve received a couple of calls from regular readers wondering about the paucity of posts this week in Feathered Bastard. And no, I’m not in rehab or dead. Yet.Rather, I’ve been hard at work on a special project for my editor, one commanding almost all of my time this week…
Among those disappointed by Republican Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake’s recent about face on immigration is Julie Erfle, the widow of slain Phoenix Police Officer Nick Erfle.You’ll recall that Officer Erfle was murdered in 2007 by an ex-con with an outstanding warrant who was in the country illegally. Erfle and his…
Last week, the much-anticipated SCA investigative report was released to the public (New Times staffers had a blast thumbing through some of the findings, which may or may not involve seducing a “live sheep.” Check it out here and here).The case involves the lies, corruption, and potential crimes committed by…
If you read only part of the four large PDFs from the SCA investigative report we posted last night, make sure it’s the 65-page transcript of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s July 27, 2009 staff meeting. We mentioned a couple of the amusing parts of the transcript in posts this…
Tom Horne, the state Attorney General, inherited the SCA case from his predecessor, Terry Goddard. The case is all about the dirty politics played by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the state Republican Party. Briefly, it involves a secret slush fund of money solicited from fat-cats around the country…
In the wake of the Phoenix Police Department’s firing of Officer Richard Chrisman, the cop facing second degree murder charges in the October 5 slaying of an unarmed South Phoenix man, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association continues to smear fellow Officer Sergio Virgillo, who witnessed the shooting and told investigators…
More humor from the secret recording of a command staff meeting at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office made on July 27, 2009 by Frank Munnell: Joe Arpaio is grousing over a quip made by longtime Valley reporter Howie Fischer on a PBS Horizon roundtable that Arpaio was “bulletproof” and would be re-elected unless he was…
Boy, is this SCA report paying off! We’re still trying to read it all and put it in context. But we keep getting stuck in the rich detail. The chuckle factor on this one is too high to wait for context: All that ignominious sucking up former Maricopa County Andrew Thomas did to the Sheriff’s Office,…
We’ve only just begun looking through a large report on the state Attorney General’s SCA investigation, and already we’re finding interesting stuff. But it’s hundreds of pages long and, honestly, we don’t have time to sift through it and cobble the highlights for you tonight. So, rather than sit on…
Phoenix Police Officer Richard Chrisman, who faces a second-degree murder charge in the October 5 shooting death of South Phoenix resident Daniel Rodriguez, was terminated today by the City of Phoenix. Phoenix Police Department spokesman Sergeant Tommy Thompson issued the following statement to the press via e-mail:”In answer to questions…
