When a reliable source sends photos of a recycling firm loading up computers in front of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s downtown headquarters at Jackson Street and 5th Avenue — given past events — it’s cause for concern. Though county officials maintain that everything is on the up and up, federal Judge…
Like a Roman emperor of old, Sheriff Joe knows how to keep the mob entertained, with the help of his echo chamber — the local media — which too often takes its cues from Arpaio’s PR staff, lapping up whatever drivel that’s dis-engorged, then spewing it forth for the evening…
The words of Sheriff Joe’s Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan came back to sink their shark-like teeth in his hindquarters Friday in federal Judge G. Murray Snow’s courtroom, where Snow again indicated that the authority of his court had been abrogated by MCSO satraps, and criminal contempt charges could result. During…
It ain’t just Sheriff Joe’s poll numbers that have dropped like a hot rock on thin ice. Arpaio’s much ballyhooed posse has taken a hit numbers-wise as well, according to the court-appointed monitor’s latest quarterly report. Arpaio uses his posse to garner media attention, sending his volunteer force of non-cops…
A Phoenix anti-puppy-mill pet-store ordinance upheld in U.S. District Court this week punishes the wrong people, critics declare. While the court ruled that the city of Phoenix can keep its ordinance — which the Humane Society of the United States celebrated as a “landmark” victory for the animal-rights world and a blow…
Though not quite the “raid” that some local media depicted it as, Friday’s events were nonetheless dramatic, with United States District Court Judge G. Murray Snow calling an “emergency meeting” for 3 p.m. at the request of his monitor Robert Warshaw, whose team has been in town for the week…
During an hour-long status conference Monday in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s never-ending contempt case, federal Judge G. Murray Snow granted a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to review documents from Arpaio’s confidential informant Dennis Montgomery in the MCSO’s so-called “Seattle investigation.” That investigation, as first revealed in June of…
Between 500 and 600 people marched from the downtown Convention Center to the 4th Avenue Jail, and then to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s headquarters, as part of protest with two demands: that Sheriff Joe Arpaio resign, and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation agents stay out of the county jail…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is putting the infamous 4th Avenue Jail on lockdown for an indeterminate amount of time on Friday because of a scheduled protest against him and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Phoenix-based grassroots organization for migrant rights, Puente Arizona, is organizing a rally for an “Arpaio-Free…
Once again, the U.S. Department of Justice has disappointed us when it comes to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s abuses of power, this time with a Neville Chamberlain-esque settlement that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved on Wednesday. The board unanimously agreed to settle on three areas of dispute in United…
Ruling late Friday, federal Judge G. Murray Snow crushed Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s attempt to have the jurist recuse himself from contempt proceedings in the ACLU’s big civil rights case Melendres v. Arpaio. Snow declared that the motion, submitted on behalf of the sheriff and his Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan, did…
There was no love lost for Sheriff Joe in Salem, Oregon on June 27 as he paid a visit at the invitation of the Beaver State GOP. According to Salem’s daily Statesman Journal, Arpaio drew about 100 supporters to a rally on the steps of the Oregon state capitol, and “three…
What do you do if a political satirist paints an image of you, which you consider “beyond offensive”? If you’re Sheriff Joe Arpaio, you send it to every reporter in town, and tweet it out to your 63,400 followers. That’s what happened to an image created by longtime anti-Arpaio activist…
Maricopa County settled yet another wrongful death suit this week, paying almost $1 million to the family of Felix Torres, who died an excruciatingly painful death from ulcer-related complications in a county jail while detention officers refused to help him. Michael Lacey wrote about the case last month for New…
“Thanks, but no thanks” was the message a group of church leaders and community members had for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the day after he announced a plan to keep dozens of black churches “safe” across Phoenix with “armed deputies and posse members.” Arpaio stated his intention at a press conference…
The son of U.S. Senator Jeff Flake has filed suit in federal court against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County, claiming that the sheriff’s investigation into the deaths of 23 dogs last year at Gilbert’s Green Acre dog boarding facility was motivated by politics, spite and Arpaio’s insatiable hunger for…
Sheriff Joe Arpaio has lost a bid for summary judgment in the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against him, which covers much of the same ground as the ACLU’s big racial profiling case, Melendres v. Arpaio. In 2013, U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow found Arpaio and the MCSO…
Joe Arpaio’s lawyers recently bought the sheriff and his Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan a little time by asking for federal Judge G. Murray Snow’s recusal in contempt proceedings against the pair and three of their current and former MCSO colleagues in the racial profiling case Melendres v. Arpaio. Contempt…
For years, Arizona recyclers have been making big bucks by shipping empty aluminum cans in trucks to California, a state with a lucrative, consumer-subsidized recycling program. Passing Arizona cans off as California cans is illegal in California, but not in Arizona, leading to a cottage industry of can-shipping that’s destroying…
Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s lawyers achieved what they set out to do on May 22, when they moved to have federal Judge G. Murray Snow disqualify himself from overseeing the sheriff’s contempt trial. That is, they slowed Snow’s judicial express train to the speed of a three-toed sloth. One day before this…
Guadalupe Torres held her head in weathered hands. Tears trickled between her fingers. In a world with a God, your children do not die before you. But Guadalupe’s son, Felix, did, in fact, pass over. He was 47. Abuela Guadalupe is that saddest of women. No faithless husband ever inflicted…
Retired Mesa police union president Javier Fabian Cota won a partial victory this week in his civil-rights lawsuit against San Diego police, but so far no monetary award or reimbursement of his many expenses. The flap began about 3 a.m. on June 4, 2011, while Cota was in downtown San…
